Lessons need to be learned, and fast....

Although I subscribe to Twitter I only follow my grandson’s school efforts and obviously read some of the stuff that other people put on. But me taking part? Never in a million years. Twitter is mostly a cesspit used by Neanderthals. Same for Facebook. Recently I read a tweet written by someone who seemed to have inside knowledge of PPI (the clothing and other paraphernalia helping to combat or prevent Covid-19) and the government’s handling of the purchasing and storage, and the issuing of same. Now to be fair we have to remember it was a strange time. No-one really knew what was coming. This was not only the view in Britain but in the rest of the world as well at the time. You know it as ‘herd immunity’. It simply was the view that as it was a rhinovirus it would be no worse than a cold or at the worst a bout of flu and therefore the more people caught it, immunity would develop quickly. Obviously we were proved completely wrong. We have to remember this is all hindsight now but in the beginning of the pandemic various governments did not take it too seriously. The medical profession also was not too sure how it would develop but took the position of ‘better be sure than to fail’ and issued dire warnings. Well, we all now know how it developed. The question whether government failed is basically already answered. Yes, it failed to heed the warnings fast enough, it failed to adequately resource PPI, it failed to ensure what was needed for the doctors and nurses when it became apparent the virus was no cold or flu. 

Now we can argue about the how’s and why’s but the facts simply are these, how do you ensure that the economy continues when everyone is ill? It is a simple enough question because our country has an economy based on purchasing. If no-one buys goods the tax revenue collapses. And through that everything related to that. Inclusive of social care. It is a stark reminder now as we are changing to a greener way of life. Of course it is necessary to do this but look at the issues. You simply cannot throw out petrol and diesel, ban all cars unless they are electric, overnight. The infrastructure needs to be installed first and foremost.  

I do think that the Covid lessons need to be learned and fast. Our leaders need to sit down and analyse the various issues that were around at the beginning and the developments during. And one of the most necessary things to say is this - DO NOT EVER PANIC!