There’s definitely a complacent feeling out there. If I had to guess I’d say we’ve moved all the way through the bored phase, to the ‘let’s pretend’ one. By that I mean the sort of unspoken ‘if I don’t talk about it and you don’t talk about it, and if we forget about it, it’ll all go away’ feeling.
Younger people are susceptible to this. They’re “invincible”, and so why shouldn’t they party, and hug, and bundle each other in the park? Why not a game of close contact football, or mixing with people from other households?
Children understand it even less; they’re hardly to blame either - it’s next to impossible to get kids to socially distance, and even if it were, it would impact their social development massively.
And it’s a shame because these people are probably the secret carriers - most likely to be asymptomatic, and also most likely to mix. They don’t need to play ‘let’s pretend’ because it’s us, the parents’ generation who’ve got that down to an art now. They just get on and do what youngsters do.
I was in a queue today: one of those ones with the printed footsteps on the floor in nice prominent circles. They’re deliberately two metres apart. There were on average, three people in every four metres. We live in a low incidence area, yes, but nonetheless that seems complacent at best and irresponsible at worst. I couldn’t move forwards or backwards.
The other day in the Co-Op I noticed some of the staff had stopped wearing masks since I was last in there. I can’t imagine the policy has changed, and certainly the virus hasn’t; not for the Co-Op anyway! So what’s going on there?
Meanwhile, some prominent voices are starting to fan the flames of conspiracy theories. That’s all we need - unfortunate celebrities telling us it’s a hoax. If you’re also fed up with 2020 and desperate for your world to be back to normal, a soothing voice-in-the-know with a thing that satisfies your itching ears is very appealing. Oh and also very dangerous, as a lot of other voices are then quick to point out. Argument fuels the conspiracists though doesn’t it?
I say ’dangerous’ because right now the numbers in France are accelerating like an SNCF hurtling for Calais. Lockdowns are returning to parts of Europe like Spain and Greece and Portugal. Elsewhere in the world, the number of cases is heading only in the up direction. We might be an island but we’re far from immune, and there is, I suggest, very little to be complacent about.
I’m not unaffected by the complacency either, unfortunately. I still find it excruciating to refuse an elbow nudge or a fist bump. But would I leave you hanging if it saved your life? Would I refuse that tiny touch of human contact if I knew it stopped your grandparents from going to hospital? Can I say no to socialising with people I miss with my wholest of hearts after all these months?
It’s a tricky balance to find, and I think that is part of the problem. We went along with it in lockdown, treating it with the Blitz-spirit we all raved about back in April. We did it, we made it through, and now we feel as though the balance of that sacrifice should be restored to us. But it’s complacent, I think, to believe that and pat ourselves on the back. The Blitzkreig is ending for now, and we can send our kids back to school with shiny shoes and happy faces, but across the channel, the unseen enemy is still snarling, and it is relentless. I’m afraid the war is still very much on.
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