7 May 2020
Social Distancing in Cumbria
Week 7
by Vic Leader
7 weeks, 49 days, the passage of an entire month, an unprecedented restriction in my lifetime. Yet, by focusing on who and what matters, this time has passed without seeming to go too slowly. I can think of many periods of my life, in my youth particularly but later as well, when time seemed to drag interminably. I recently read a book by Carlo Rovelli titled “The Order of Time”; in fact I’ve read parts of it twice and still need to read it again. Not reading for fun, a dense scientific study of the nature of time. Not a book I would generally recommend but in these strange times it has a certain echo.
Science has rarely featured so often in the media. Governments are ‘being guided by science’. In fact, I’ve always thought, and certainly hoped that our own government is mindful of the ‘expertise’ to which it has access. In a democracy at least, key decisions should be made on such basis rather than upon the whims of one or a few dictators. Nevertheless politics is not just about scientific or other expert opinion, choices are always possible. No set of facts leads to but a single course. Neither are politicians magicians, so whether a chosen course is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ is in large measure a matter of opinion. Our UK population of around 70million throws up many differing opinions. The growing noises of those telling us that this or that was done wrongly need to be very carefully filtered. Keep in mind how little we yet know about this virus.
Worse still are the criticisms based on 20/20 hindsight, by which I mean that they take what we have now learned and apply it to decisions made before we had learned it, an old favourite of politicians, media, and so many others. What I think we do know is that a pandemic of some kind had long been predicted as overdue and that few serious preparations were made. To repeat an early log report: a plan on paper is worthless without implementation.
The conversation is moving to post-lockdown steps. This is where trust comes in. The store of trust has in my view been wrung out of us. For decades we have become more and more de-sensitised by the flow of marketing hype, PR management, spin doctoring, fake news. What can you trust? Who can you trust? Has any person or body, not just in the public arena but among those you have lived cheek by jowl these past weeks, demonstrated that it can be trusted? I hope you’ve been ‘marking cards’ as I have.
Enjoy this eighth week, stay well, keep thinking, prepare for what’s next, whatever.?
