"Covid Situation finely balanced, NHS boss warns" - BBC News.
This week, a number of things happened. There were some meet-ups. I went to a barbecue, a family picnic, and a few other things. Under the blue sky and warm sun, I temporarily forgot that this was what normal felt like, and slipped almost straight back into hugs and high-fives. It was beautiful.
There was one day too this week when no-one died from Covid at all. Zero - across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, for the first time since this whole thing began. A statistical fluke perhaps, but (as I've said before) the first patches of blue in a cloudy old sky.
Vaccinations are up too. Under 30s will be getting their first shot soon, and this week, the UK's medicines regulator gave approval for 12-15 year olds to have the Pfizer vaccine, presumably in the new school year. We're already at the point where most of the adults in the UK have been partially inoculated, hopefully meaning that the disease simply won't hospitalise vast numbers of people. The NHS has a little more room to breathe, and with the hope of Liberation Day ahead, there's a cool summer breeze, billowing across the national mood.
And then. There are 'concerning signs'. A senior medical expert suggested that the 21st-of-June easing of restrictions might need to be delayed. The travel corridors tightened, with Portugal slipping back onto the Amber List. The Indian Variant spread further and wider than expected, potentially increasing the number of infections by as much as two-thirds, and there's surge testing going on in my town, where I live.
We're exhausted. Many of us have taken to ignoring the news now, where we can. The fatigue of hope and despair is just too much, whether we know we're living in it or not. Everything is awesome, and terrible all at once, and we'd rather switch it all off, pretend it's all fine for a sunny day, and roll into the park with a picnic blanket and a punnet of strawberries. Or perhaps that's just me.
The situation seems to have always been finely balanced. It was a thing that happened 'over there in China' to begin with. Then it was a thing to be slightly worried about. We still went about our business, perhaps with an elbow bump instead of a handshake, but things were pretty much normal. Then the virus started winning the war. Then we fought back with lockdowns and masks and social distancing and hand-washing. Then the virus started mutating. Then we started vaccinating against it. Then it mutated some more. And now the fear is that the Indian (or Delta they're calling it now) Variant might mutate once again and become smart enough to completely outwit our vaccines altogether.
Can you imagine what that would feel like? If we woke to the news that the vaccines are now ineffective against the latest Covid variant? It doesn't even bear thinking about. It would be like a sort of alternate 1944, where the Germans discover how to make an H-bomb.
We've got another family do today. Outdoors of course, but nonetheless a big old jamboree of a thing - full of the cautious and the carefree. I'm sure it will be fine, but like there must have been on summer days on the lawn, with Lancaster bombers swooping across the sky, there's bound to be a fine balance of the two in everyone's mind.
The Five Dates
Back to School Day: 0 days
Back to Sixes Day: 0 days
Haircut Day: 0 days
Big Travel Day: 0 days
Liberation Day: 16 days
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