Covid Realism: Stop Obsessing

Covid 19 is here to stay. Not till Easter, the summer or the autumn, but forever. The world cannot again be Covid free any more than it is ‘flu free. It is and will continue to be part of everyday life. And Death.

The combination of universal vaccination, wider understanding of the dangers posed by this type of virus informing simple counter-measures and better treatments for those struck down by it will, in the end, enable the world to move forward to a new, though different normal.

In the meanwhile we need to accept several things. Vaccination is a defence, it is not an immunity. It will reduce serious illness but it will neither eliminate the possibility, nor guarantee a free ride. The virus will mutate again and again. Vaccines will be adjusted to respond, causing the virus to mutate yet further. There will be different strains, here, there and everywhere. The world will be not be the same after this shared experience, as was the case after each of the world wars, the Black Death and other great historic events.  Indeed in many ways it might be a good deal better.

In the meanwhile we need to be measured, sensible and grown-up. We need to stop, the media needs to stop, the government needs to stop, obsessing about every detail of every Covid development, about every strain, about every opinion, about every statistic, almost to the exclusion of all else. There is other stuff out there, much of it not good and a lot of it deserving of attention which it is not getting.

There are gigantic piles of shattered lives, ruined businesses, lost jobs and social depravation, all of which are number one priorities for remedy.  This can only come from the biggest economic reconstruction in more than a hundred years and a level of national investment in housing, infrastructure and industrial regeneration, that right wing orthodoxy would in normal times regard as deranged. All of it has to be green and clean.

So if you want to obsess, you should start by obsessing about some of that.