To reduce coronavirus infection we should either be in full lockdown or nothing at all
WHAT Tier do you think we’ll be in by Christmas, then?
My hope is for Tier Nine, a new Tier, in which you’re not allowed to meet anyone and just have to stay in your office with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a multipack of Superkings.
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But that’s just me. I’m a fan of lockdowns — not because of their effectiveness in fighting this wretched virus. Because I’m an anti-social son of a . . .
Truth is I’ve been in a kind of voluntary lockdown since long before Covid was heard of.
Long before some bloke called Wu Han arrived home from the shops one evening carrying a dripping parcel and said: “Here, love. See if you can rustle up a nice dinner out of this. It’s bat gizzards and the spleen of a pangolin.”
I understand that other people are actually looking forward to Christmas. And even to seeing their relatives.
I do get that when it comes to actually liking lockdown, I’m in a minority.
From here on in the Government will be under intense pressure, from the medics and the Labour Party, to introduce ever- stronger measures to stop the spread of Covid.
Our daily infection rate is now as high as it was in May. We are being told again that the NHS will be over-burdened (although we’re told that every winter anyhow).
BRUTAL LOCKDOWN
On the Continent things are even worse. In Italy, France and Belgium, cases are soaring. The question, then, is which strategy works best?
It’s a complicated issue. If you look at the figures, one thing is clear. A complete and very rigorous lockdown DOES have an immediate effect upon the spread of the virus.
That’s what we saw here in June. It’s also happened in China.
Over there the lockdown was kind of brutal. But now they have very few new infections and their economy is once again soaring.
Of all the countries in the world — ironically enough — China has fared best. But then there’s Sweden. No lockdown and a much lower rate of infection than in the rest of Europe.
Yes, the death rates there were high — but that’s down to Sweden’s rotten care homes.
The Swedish economy is ticking along nicely and they are seeing no second wave. So no lockdown also has its benefits — and preserves the economy too.
It seems that both approaches have their merits. But what DOESN’T work is what we — and most of Europe — are doing right now.
That’s a kind of halfway house. A partial lockdown in which nobody, anywhere, understands the rules.
To reduce infection it should either be full lockdown or nothing at all.
But then there’s this. A vaccine may well be ready by March. But it is unlikely to solve the problem. It may not work for terribly long.
In other words, we are probably going to have to live with high rates of infection for a very long time to come. And we will have to come to terms with the deaths which accompany the illness.
The average age of death from the virus is 84.6 years. And even then there is almost always an underlying health issue.
IT WON’T JUST BE THIS CHRISTMAS WE MISS
With our improved health care and treatment of Covid, we can probably add a couple of years to that figure.
In which case it will make no sense at all to be in lockdown.
It will become just another seasonal flu which, tragically, takes away some of our frailest people.
So my advice to Boris is the Swedish answer: Let it rip. And give elderly people the means to protect themselves.
Otherwise it won’t just be this Christmas we miss. It will be a whole decade or more of them.
Sooner or later we have to say enough is enough.
Starmer drama
LOOK, I’m all in favour of taking a tough line with cyclists.
Make them use the expensive cycle lanes.
Fine them for riding on the pavement and shooting red lights. But I draw the line at running them over.
This seems to be the new Labour party policy.
Keir Starmer, driving to his tailor (as you do if you’re horny- handed son of toil) was in collision with a cyclist.
Maybe he thought it was Magic Grandpa or something.
Anyway, the police are investigating.
The bloke was apparently riding an electric bike, by the way. Shouldn’t they be subject to road tax?
Will Don spring a surprise?
I think the bookies have stopped taking bets on Joe Biden to win the US presidential race.
The sleepwalking Democrat dingbat, is way ahead, if the polls are to be believed.
So far ahead that he’s effectively stopped campaigning. In case he says something really dumb again.
His latest gaffe was warning people not to vote for “four more years of Bush”. Frankly, it’s a mercy he didn’t say Reagan or Lincoln.
But don’t forget the polls had Hillary Clinton – the worst candidate in US presidential history – to win last time. And the Black Lives Matter riots have started again.
Demonstrators were out looting shops in Philadelphia in what the BBC would probably call “a largely peaceful protest”. So it ain’t quite over yet.
There are still a lot of people determined to vote for Trump.
But they might not TELL you that they are going to vote for Trump.
Science says don't panic
THERE is a 0.26 per cent chance of you dying from Covid if you catch it.
Meanwhile, an asteroid is approaching Earth and might enter our atmosphere on November 2.
The chances of it doing so? 0.41 per cent.
If we’re following the science, then – shouldn’t we be more worried about THAT?
Vive La France
So here I sit surrounded by François Pralus chocolates, big slabs of Normandy Brie and bottles of Chablis.
It’s a hard life but someone’s got to do it.
This is my Support France campaign. A whole bunch of Muslim countries have started a Boycott France campaign.
They are angry at President Emmanuel Macron. He has been speaking with great passion about freedom of speech, following the savage murder of teacher Samuel Paty by an Islamist maniac.
Macron is right and deserves credit for his refusal not to beat about the bush.
Freedom of speech is at the essence of Western society. And it has been under threat for too long.
So, Vive La France. Not often I say that. (And frankly, while the wine and cheese are great, mate, you can keep your snails.)
Toll of PC fear
Political correctness kills. Security guard Kyle Lawler was working at the Manchester Arena.
He saw the bomber, Salman Abedi, and had a “bad feeling” about him.
But Lawler, who was 18 at the time, told an inquiry this week that he did not challenge Abedi because he did not want to be seen as “racist”.
He said: “I did not want people to think I am stereotyping him because of his race.
“I was scared of being wrong and being branded a racist if I got it wrong and would have got into trouble. It made me hesitant.
“I wanted to get it right and not mess it up by overreacting or judging someone by their race.”
A little later Abedi detonated his shrapnel bomb. Twenty-two innocent people died with 800 wounded, many of them children.
Lefties’ high five for Sacha
DO people in Kazakhstan keep their daughters in a cage? Are they all anti-Semitic, sexist, morons?
Yes, I’ve just been watching the new Borat film. I laughed maybe twice.
And I wondered to myself, why is it OK to be racist about Kazakhs?
Sacha Baron Cohen is a talented bloke, even if some of the shtick is wearing a bit thin. But he always picks the easy target.
One where he won’t get any flak from the lefties.
Life socks after 54
Apparently the age when you’re most likely to lose your “get up and go” is 54, according to a study.
That’s six years ago for me. The time my get up and go has got up and gone.
Truth be told I can’t even remember what get up and go was.
The warning signs came well before 54, though.
I remember ordering a boxed set of The Vicar Of Dibley, starring Dawn French, when I was 51.
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“That noise you can hear is your get up and go packing its suitcase, mate,” a small voice inside me said.
Also, being genuinely delighted to receive slippers and socks as a Christmas present.
They were all signs, I realise now.
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