It's hard to talk about what's going on in the world today without getting super-political. The decisions we all currently face are rooted in the decisions made by politicians, and right now it feels as though it's left to us to figure out what the right thing to do is.
Here's the problem. We need structured guidance about whether or not we can go out, who we can see, how we can travel, whether or not we can work. For seven weeks, the government have been operating in various degrees of strict about the basic message: stay at home. We've largely done that. But starting to ease out of lockdown and save our economy is much trickier, and has to be less stringent, because right now, all the parameters are moving fast, and perhaps understandably, the leaders of our nation don't quite know how it'll all work out.
I say 'perhaps' because there is a drumbeat that's resounding now about whether or not they should know that, should have been be more prepared or compassionate, and could have been less chaotic. But to comment on that becomes a political choice. I'll leave that for you to decide.
I'm saying that it's difficult to know, while everything is moving. It's also difficult to give specific instructions to 65 million people. Last night the Prime Minister tried from behind his desk. But as a result of that, what we have today is confusion about whom we're allowed out with, whom we can see and whom we can't, whether or not we're okay to go to work. I get that - and yes, more clarity would help. I hope that gets provided. But if doesn't then it seems to be up to us.
What has been clear from the beginning is that governments of nations have had to choose between their economy and their citizens. I've said it before, I know, but it's hard to see beyond that difficult question. CEOs face the same thing all the time - do they keep people employed in jobs and lose a whole lot of money on a failing business, or do they make some of the tree-branches redundant so that the tree recovers quickly and produces good fruit again? We've all seen it; one minute the big cheese is telling you you're all family, the next HR are telling you that for the family to survive, you've been specifically selected to go out into the street and look for another one to belong to. And may your P45 keep you warm. It wouldn't surprise me if leaders of countries are making the same tough decisions in hard times.
You can see the choice flashing by President Business every day. It's in his eyes. And it's not a choice that any leader wants to make - citizens or economy. People will die. It'll be much worse for them if they survive and have no jobs, not to mention those of us who wish to be re-elected. The cure can't be worse than the problem. But thousands of people will be dead.
Our own Prime Minister, rightly or wrongly (and now thankfully recovered from the virus, himself) must have also been internally swinging between the terrible horns of this dilemma.
I'm not justifying either view by the way; just saying that the parameters are huge and moving, and it's so difficult to plot a course through it all. Part of me admires them all for trying - in much the way you'd admire the ship captain who heroically wrenches the ship's wheel out of the path of the iceberg; part of me wishes beyond belief that they'd done a lot better. They should have known what icebergs can do to ships, and how not to encounter them.
Regardless of all of that though, we still have the choice of the right thing to do as individuals. We can ease out of our own lockdown, after all. I'm choosing to socially distance until I'm confident I won't be a danger to people - not because I'm told to, or informed that I don't have to, or whatever the latest thing is from the men in the mahogany room, but because it just makes sense at the moment. I believe we should all do that. The second wave of the Spanish flu caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in 1918, way more than the first. Easing lockdown might be sensible for economic reasons, but opening the floodgates, or even the possibility of the floodgates seems like letting the bull romp at will through the spectators. Or perhaps allowing the ice-water to pour through the ballast walls.
I get it though. It's hard to talk about such things.
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