I don’t think I was alone in hoping that Boris’ speech last Sunday might have finally given us some clarity on how we could begin to escape from lockdown.
Post speech, I’m absolutely certain I wasn’t the only one left feeling more than a little underwhelmed.
Unless I’m mistaken, there are a fair few holes in the logic being deployed, but, as far as I can see, the way forward looks something like this:
I should send my 11 year olds back to school to mix with lots of other 11 year olds (as well as 4, 5 and 6 year olds), but we definitely can’t go and visit one 5 year old that we’re actually related to.
I can go on a day trip in my car to an ‘outdoor open space’ with no apparent restrictions on where that may be (I quite fancy the Yorkshire Dales despite the fact it’s 200 miles away), but I definitely can’t go and visit my parents and sit in their ‘outdoor open space’, more commonly known as their garden (some 30 miles away).
I no longer have to stay at home to save lives. But I definitely should stay there as much as possible. However now I should ‘stay alert’ to help save lives. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to achieve this. Since lockdown started I’ve been feeling extremely lethargic and quite frankly, not very alert at all. I barely know what day it is and struggle with the concept of getting dressed most days. I’m just not sure I’m a particularly reliable candidate for staying alert.
According to the experts, by staying alert I can help ‘control the virus’. I find this highly unlikely. Most days I can’t control my children and I’ve had years of practice with them whereas I have absolutely zero experience of viruses.
I can now go and visit someone else’s house that I have never met before and know nothing about but it’s ok to do that if I think I may want to buy their house. However I definitely can’t visit my sister’s house even though I know her really well and have a confident grasp on whether or not she would pose a risk to me.
I definitely shouldn’t get in a car with anyone outside of my immediate household, but I should definitely go back to work and mix with lots of other people in an enclosed environment.
On the plus side I can now meet with someone from outside my household… as long as it’s only one of them, and only if we stay socially distanced. So basically I have to publicly declare who I prefer – my mother or my father. Or which friend is actually my favourite. Or which sibling…
So there we have it. Everybody clear?
Not exactly how I planned it 