There could never have been a hard stop. To go from complete lockdown all the way to hugs and high-fives would have been like taking the nation over a cliff-edge - especially with these extra variants around.
It always had to be a gradual thing. How gradual, and how smooth though, has been the biggest question over the last few months. And today, the government are (almost certainly) going to announce that the current restrictions must continue for four more weeks, delaying Liberation (Freedom) Day until maybe July 19th.
The Delta Variant is the reason. Delta, delta, delta. Cynically too high up the alphabet for me. Will there be an Epsilon? Seems inevitable. In the meantime we're sort of limping out of lockdown, and roughly hoping that enough of us will have been vaccinated over the next month.
The reaction to all of this has been a sort of resigned huff so far, I think. More finger pointing about how it could have been handled, but on the whole it's been expected that this would happen, and everyone's sort of okay with the delay. I'm not surprised by that really - though I would have been a few months back. To a large degree, the pandemic has become so much a part of our lives now, it's just there in the background, blending in, part of our world, like Brexit, football, or the Ozone Layer. This delay has to happen. Everyone sort of knows it.
I think it does remind me to be more careful. For the last few weeks, things have felt much more social - in fact, I've seen more people than ever - and while surfaces and fabrics could be hazardous, it's always people who transmit this thing - in the air, on a laugh, in a summer song. So I guess we're in for a few more cautious weeks of battle against the Delta variant. And to be honest, that's okay; I'm not quite ready for high-fives and hugs just yet.
The Five Dates
Back to School Day: 0 days
Back to Sixes Day: 0 days
Haircut Day: 0 days
Big Travel Day: 0 days
Freedom Day: 36 days
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