Lockdown and other fetishes

First day of a complete lockdown in the UK. It's always fun when such things happen, which is never, to see the other effects. Like being advised not to go to the supermarket unless you can absolutely help it and instead use the online home delivery services, except of course getting a delivery slot any time in the next month is currently impossible and one of the main four supermarkets website is currently crashed due to excessively high traffic volumes. Even the click and collect slots are all full. So, trip to the supermarket and spinning the chamber of the covid-19 gun for a game of Russian roulette!

In the US the esteemed president has made comments indicating he would like the restrictions lifted in a couple of weeks or sooner so the US can get back to work and start making money again. It's all well and good making such statements so long as he is willing to accept the consequences, which would be a considerable number of dead. Not simply because of the virus itself but because the health system would be overwhelmed completely which would result in many deaths not just of people with covid-19 that could have been saved but also others who would effectively become collateral damage because there is no capacity to help them.

Trump has several reasons for wanting, if not needing, the virus to simply go away. Unfortunately these reasons do not balance with the health and well being of the country he leads. He has a number of businesses all of which, like most business in most countries, is suffering. His businesses were not in a great shape even before the crisis so the crisis is having a crippling effect upon them. We will see how they fare just as we will see how the rest of the economy fares in about a years time.

In addition he is seeking reelection and the restrictions are having multiple negative impacts upon his hopes of being reelected. He is unable to get on the campaign trail and spread his own unique brand of sleazy vicious rhetoric to gee up the populace against anybody that dares to stand up to him. Additionally he, as with most US Presidents and candidates, runs on a platform of economic success and growth which is hard to do when the economy is flat on its back on life support. You would also need to bear in mind that it will be hard for him to simply point at the virus as say it was his fault as though it were an excuse because he pointed at Obama and stated the financial crash of 2008 was Obama's fault and that made Obama a terrible president. It would be hypocritical of Trump to try to divorce the two things, but he will, and I suspect and depressing number of people will agree and start chanting to lock somebody up!

What I enjoy most is watching him slowly lose control in public and more and more often start getting into arguments that just make him look like a dick simply because he has no linguistic skills at all. He seems to be easily bated into saying something that makes him a laughing stock, I'm only surprised that the whole room never bursts into laughter when he says the things he does, it must be some weird deference thing or maybe people are just scared of the consequences like telling the school bully to stop picking on that kid because the moment you do it'll become you that is the target of the bullys ire.

Anyway, I digress. What about China. How come? I mean, just, how come? The measures they have taken there are extreme and then the numbers of infections and deaths has simply fallen off a cliff. Now, I get that. If you can lock everybody in their home for sufficient time the virus will self-eradicate itself. But, the virus had spread to most other parts of China and those burning embers of the virus seem to have been stamped out there as well. The only way that is possible is in a state where there is complete control of the people such that every individual that has been in close proximity to a carrier of the virus is quarantined. That's either pretty impressive or scary as f*** depending upon your point of view.

Or, of course, the Chinese state is simply not telling the outside world what is actually happening and keeping the numbers quiet at the same time as managing the virus internally.

Whichever it is, it is pretty hard to replicate in western democracies although Spain, Italy and France are all trying pretty hard to emulate the Chinese success. Should success be in quotes? I don't know!

And even if it succeeds, as I mentioned before, it means there needs to be a return to hard borders around the world until such time as the virus is eradicated and/or there is a vaccine.

I'm looking forward to reading some of the books on the subject in 2021 assuming I get to 2021 of course.