Chris

Indeed.

Sooner or later we have to move from preventing the spread of covid to learning how to live with it. It is never going away, and I am curious to know what those who think we should rush back to restrictions, think the exit plan should be.

The scientists who say restrictions will reduce spread are stating the obvious (or at least it’s obvious to us now we’ve been at this for 18 months) but they are speaking from their own expertise, to their own area of expertise. They are concerned with epidemiology, or resource management in the NHS, but they aren’t factoring in issues like the long-term mental well-being of those facing further prolonged separation from loved ones or activities that give their lives meaning and they aren’t factoring in the long-term effect on the economy. Nor should they; there are other experts for that.

It is the politicians job to listen to the expert views from all angles and then devise policy that balances those views for the good of the nation as a whole. The politicians are not necessarily getting it wrong just because they don’t do everything one group of experts wants.

Here in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon is still furiously virtue signalling and demanding everyone keeps wearing masks in shops, schools etc; in my experience there’s about 60-70% observance of this in major shopping centres but easily less than 15% observance at the university I have just left (but which I now work next door to) and in office and warehouse environments I have visited recently there is next to zero observance at all. Everybody knows we are in the endgame now and that sooner or later we’re all going to catch it. If we’re going to get used to anything, it should be repeated cycles of vaccination and (hopefully) mild infection.