Thought Picnic: The vulnerable to be martyred to the Coronavirus in the UK

What is our government doing?

If anything, I do not want to be preoccupied with the rolling commentary about the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic which sometimes looks like we are have been informed of a distant earthquake whilst at the beach and before our eyes the tide ebbs away presaging the advent of a tsunami with no hills in sight to run to.

Therefore, if anything, I have been concerned about what the UK government is doing to ensure that the populace is neither overcome nor overwhelmed by the virus pandemic. For that reason, I switched my television to the news to listen to what the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson had in mind for us.

Blog - Opinion: Where they'll rather wash hands than show hands

This is as callous as it comes

Only yesterday, in the blog referenced above, I expressed my alarm of what the Prime Minister said, and I quote again, highlighting the salient points. “That’s where a lot of the debate has been and one of the theories is, that perhaps you could take it on the chin, take it all in one go and allow the disease, as it were, to move through the population, without taking as many draconian measures.”

Today, again, flanked by scientists, the words from the mouth of Boris Johnson were, “I must level with you, level with the British public, more families, and many more families are going to lose loved ones before their time.”

The statements taken together informs a mindset, my government has decided they are ready to sacrifice a slice of the population to the onslaught of the Coronavirus for expediency sake without having to take draconian measures to arrest the spread of this pandemic as compared to the actions of other countries.

I take no comfort from this

The scientists presented charts and tried to explain away the thinking and wisdom behind the stance the government has taken, yet, it is important that we avoid being bewitched by fanciful and colourful charts to the point that we are inured to the reality that there are lives and people that make up the simple numbers of their projections.

I am no scientist, but as an individual and many of us in similar circumstances, if we are to be martyred to a cause of political expediency, we would at least what to be fully persuaded that all other ideas and options are exhausted before we are laid on the altar of the public good.

To make that case more pertinently, I fall into a vulnerable group as an immuno-suppressed cancer survivor, though just in my 50s. I am not comforted with hearing the Prime Minister suggest we first take a ravaging pandemic on the chin chancing on a survival wherein we might miraculously gain immunity whilst making a pre-emptive statement of comfort to our families and friends that the prospect our likely demise pertains if, by happenstance, we contract the Coronavirus.

We must demand more aggressive action

This soulless and heartless approach to the survival of the fittest with very little concern for the vulnerable except with weasel words and the surfeit of science to suggest effective action to save the many with the judicial murder of the few cannot be allowed to pass as the best the UK government can do.

For the majority, they might all be fine, but if in our comfort for being catered for, we are indifferent to those who need just as much or more succour, our broader cause called to the unity of purpose against this pandemic, would have lost the essence of its humanity. What the UK government is doing is not satisfactory, we need more to be done to protect the vulnerable too. There is no reason why anyone should die before their time just because the government mishandled the Coronavirus pandemic.