The unlocking of England begins

The story is a prism

The fields, parks, streets were alive with the crowds of people who had been unlocked from the throes of a pandemic that by inference conferred unprecedented powers on our government to restrict freedoms and liberties in the quest for saving lives by preventing the National Health Service from being overwhelmed by admissions of people infected with the Coronavirus.

The focus was never on the people, it was on the protection of institutions and organisations, the people becoming pawns in the macabre dance of misused power and rank incompetence leading to the unmitigated loss of lives numbering 126,615 people with the UK being the 5^th globally yet by population less than half the number of people in the lowest populated country of the 4 with more deaths than The UK. That is the measure of the carnage in our country which by global population is the 21^st. [WorldMeters: Coronavirus]

A failure by comparison

The success in the vaccination programme which must be commended cannot however obviate the other realities of the failings in the management of this pandemic and we must be able to hold all those thoughts together. A basic analogy is in a certificated course of study that consists of 5 subjects, getting an A-grade in one does not constitute a pass if the other 4 subjects are failed. You acknowledge the grading in each subject and reach a conclusion that a certificate of completion and meeting the requirements for the meeting the award of a certificate have not been fulfilled.

That is what pertains to the UK in terms of acting purposefully and with alacrity in initiating an early lockdown, the provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the instituting of an effective testing programme and the essential need for a contact tracing system to contain the spread of the Coronavirus on which £37 billion has been expended.

When reviewed in that context, we have been grossly failed even as we have tried under the pain of sanction and prohibitive fines rather than persuasion of my better selves and common good to follow the diktat of a government speedily becoming redolent of an autocratic junta with little scope for accountability or assuming responsibility.

A future for reckoning

Yet, there is something to celebrate, with the easing of the lockdown, and the weather providing a warm spring, we all came out, met friends, played music and in my little neighbourly bubble, we met in our village garden for some Backsberg Pinotage Rosé 2019, Belgian curls and Nigerian chin-chin, catching up on things we had left unshared since the first weekend of December.

There is an air of defiance and hope that we are all on the up, I just hope that in our enjoyment of the moment we are not forgetful of the few successes and the many tragedies for which we must find the forum to review the issues and properly learn the lessons to ensure we are never again caught in the unconscionable grip of a kakistocracy as we endure today. Cheers to the unlocking.