Covid: An Alternative Reality From Another Tea-Drinking Island Nation
Part 1. Covid In Salisbury or What’s The Time, Mr. Wolf?
It’s like getting old, but quicker, I observe to the dog during today’s daily constitutional.
Each day of lockdown makes it a bit harder to recall precisely what pre-Covid Salisbury looked like. From what I remember, vehicle and foot traffic today is much the same as ‘normal’. I’m sure it’s nothing like the first lockdown in March; Salisbury was a ghost town then. We dutifully stayed at home, alarmed by hellish TV footage from Italian and French hospitals, but with a frisson of novelty and solidarity. Now spring sunshine and barbecue evenings are replaced by grey skies and long nights, the thrill is gone, and some people are unable, for one reason or another, to stay at home any more.
Most of the red lights on Salisbury’s ring-road have 4–5 vehicles lined up in front of them. Is that more, or fewer, than this time last year? If we’re in lockdown, where are all these vehicles going, anyway? A few minutes later at the playground, Mr. Rolf and I see an eerily similar queue of 4–5 children at the swings. Is, or was, that ‘normal’?
Lockdown fatigue is now being measured not in cases, but in deaths. Covid numbers at Salisbury District Hospital have suddenly got scary. After months of creeping along at single or double digits per 100,000, Wiltshire has suddenly jumped to the high hundreds, and staying there.
Until the last few weeks, Salisbury has been a distant observer of the pandemic. For the first few months, I cheerily asked fellow dog-walkers if they personally knew of anyone who’d had a positive test. Each smiling shake of the head, pursing of the lip, and raising of the eyebrows would confer a mutual confidence that the Big Bad Covid Wolf remained an invisible threat, lurking in woods far yonder. But like a malevolent game of What’s The Time, Mr. Wolf?, recent weeks have seen the Wolf loping closer and closer. My Acquaintance’s Positive Test query became one about the proximity of Long Covid, then Hospitalisation, then Hearsay Death, Acquaintance Death, Friend Death, Family Death… now I shorten my stride and try not to look over my shoulder.
Like everyone I know, I’ve long since stopped following every twist and turn, as its too exhausting, and just seems to be repeating the same patterns of overpromise and underdelivery. Most of our media seem happy enough bouncing us back and forth on their Covid seesaws, profiting from our dizziness as we lurch between complacency and panic. The tone, as so often, is bellicose. We battle the virus, new variants fights back, vaccines are the cavalry coming to the rescue. Every pandemic action, or inaction, seems like a WW2 re-enactment. This is fun for tabloid headline writers, but deeply unhelpful to any epidemiological response. The ‘common enemy’ we’re ‘bombarding’ with our ‘secret weapons’ is a strand of RNA that’s not even alive, by most biological definitions. A single-stranded nucleic acid messenger has no measurable capacity to give a monkey’s either way about national borders or political affiliation.
The erosion of Salisbury’s solidarity can be seen nationally too. In the early months we seemed to spend more time comparing ourselves to other European countries, partly out of natural empathy, but also, I suspect, because they had it worse. Even post-Brexit, there’s some sense in comparing ourselves to our European neighbours, but it usually glosses over the fact that, Cyprus and Malta apart, they have the handicap of being stuck together. We no longer look abroad, but inwards, whether the Good ( the early days of Track & Trace, Project Moonshot, or Vaccine Rollout), the Bad (the results of Track & Trace, Project Moonshot, or — just wait for it — Vaccine Rollout), or the Ugly (the endless confected, culture wars distractions, of masks, school meals, and furlough payments). As our Covid death toll rose, drew level, and surpassed that of our European Friends, our empathy turned to antipathy.
Vaccine approval reanimated national pride. Smiling pensioners with exposed triceps became front-page pinups as vaccines were injected into British arms. Flag-waving resumed as we got off to a flying start in the Great Vaccine. Even those warning it was a marathon were implying we’d know when we reached the finish. Our rapid squandering of our 3-week head start over Europe back in March was quickly forgotten.
Soul-stirring graphs now show Britannia ruling again — we’re jabbing faster than anywhere else (almost). 7% , 8%, 9%of the population now! They (who?) said we’d never be able to do it. Huzzah! Most of Europe is milling about at the start line, and the Africans, for once in marathons, are still sitting in the changing room, as they don’t have any shoes. We might be out of contention for gold, having been we’ve been lapped several times by Israel and the UAE, but we’re nip-and-tuck with Bahrain, and in with a chance of a podium finish, but the Americans and Chinese are gaining fast, so keep cheering.
Seeking solace in any ranking that makes us look like we know what we’re doing, no matter how contrived, is perfectly understandable. As an Arsenal fan, I do little else. Maybe we’re missing the booster jab of jingoism denied to us by postponing the Olympics. Were I a Liechtensteiner or a Finn, I’d be reading their per-capita Olympic medal tables showing them on top. I confess to enjoying an Events Performed On Our Arses table — why are Brits so successful at cycling, rowing, sailing, canoeing etc., and why do we fall over once we’ve assumed the vertical? If ‘Covid races’ supply all our feel-good needs, we may not end up missing the Tokyo Games after all. Forget Synchronized Swimming, how about Per-Capita Vaccinations? These tables are seductive, and a good laugh, but as with the Olympics, we should remind ourselves they don’t necessarily tell us anything useful about the real world.
But if rankings do matter — shouldn’t we be paying more attention to the Big One? Each round of global mortality figures makes our vaccine victory look Pyrrhic, less a badge of success and more the stain of desperation. Especially now we’ve reached a milestone in the gold standard test — per-capita Covid deaths. Cue the national anthem, raise the Union Jack. We’ve officially run out of countries with whom we can favourably compare ourselves. We’re Number One on the planetary per-capita shit parade. World-beating, at last.
Part 2 of 5 to follow
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