ORCID iDQuite frankly, the current situation is terrifying. Another approximately 400 deaths today in the UK from the virus and the reproduction number (R) is said to be near to 1 (exponential infection rate). The UK has among the worst mortality rates in the world. But it’s being portrayed as the right time to ease the lockdown.
Most people I know, although you can never be sure, will probably not die if they contract COVID-19. But I, very likely, could. It’s a kind of eugenics through boredom by proxy of economics. It feels as though the world is now tired of keeping the vulnerable safe and the economy should not be made to take the hit, so the environment will be made hostile once more.
Certainly, there are multiple types of vulnerability. Schools, hospitals, social care etc. care for different people who are vulnerable and have responsibilities to those communities that have been hard to fulfill during lockdown. The excess mortality figures do not just include those who died from the virus, but also those who died through not being able to have diagnostic procedures conducted at hospital etc.
I’m relatively lucky in having a secure job at a good institution that cares for its people, though we are, of course, threatened economically by the virus. But it still feels so dangerous to have a culture from the top that is telling us that things are getting safer when expert opinion is so unsure that this is the case. I would prefer to take my advice from how universities with solid epidemiology departments behave rather than what politicians say is safe. And they do not seem to be planning on teaching in person in the Autumn.
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