Its time to move on. Lockdowns, social distancing, mask wearing, enforced quarantining have all gone on long enough. Its now time to get back to normal. Not the new normal. Just plain simple normal. Life as we used to know it. We all have the rest of lives to lead. We have dreams to fulfil, careers to build, jobs to do, people to meet, places to visit, stories to listen to, games to play, music to listen to. We simply can’t carry on like this any more. Time to make covid history.
Now is not the right moment to protest against any democratic government’s measures. The justification for lockdowns was to save lives. Those who decided to adopt this policy will eventually have to prove that their decisions were justified. That is their responsibility and they must accept it. Democratic governments are ultimately accountable to their voters. We can judge them at the ballot box. We do not want to see any disruptive street protests against lockdowns. These just lead to damage to people and to property. Protests provoke authoritarian responses. They are counter productive and wrong. We want lockdowns to end. We want them to end sooner rather than later. We want them to end by governments going back to doing the job we elected them to do and ensuring peace and prosperity for all.
Vaccines are available now. They are as effective now as they ever will be. The justification for lockdowns was to buy time to develop vaccines. We now have many vaccines. So why are we not going back to normal? The vaccines are either effective against the currently circulating variants of SARS-Cov-2 or they are not. Either way we will have to live with the consequences. Waiting for new vaccines just gives time for new variants to arise. Once the most vulnerable have been vaccinated there is no need for further measures. If the vaccines work then the crisis is over. If they don’t work then nothing we now do is going to change that.
Throughout the past year governments have told us that we have to protect the vulnerable from infection. We have done all that we possibly can. We have given up a whole year of our lives. It is now time for governments to face up to their own responsibility. The vulnerable have lives too. They can’t be held responsible for preventing society from functioning normally.
The vulnerable members of society need top quality medical attention and protection from avoidable diseases. That is the job of public health services. Our responsibility to the vulnerable members of our families is to provide them with love and human contact.
The media’s obsession with Covid has to end. History did not stop in 2020. There are many more interesting stories to tell and many fresh issues to discuss. Let’s all move on. Its time to hear other stories and debate other controversies. Poverty has not been eliminated. Wars have not stopped. Local councils have not filled all the potholes. Cats have not stopped getting stuck up trees. People have not stopped falling in love and getting married. People have not even stopped dying in road accidents. Its time to switch on the news, buy a paper or go online and follow something other than covid stories.
Everyone has made mistakes over the past year. While some of these may be difficult to forgive, now is not the time to dwell on them.
Its time to show more kindness to others. Respecting differing opinions is the way to resolve differences. There is never a right time to attack people by name. If people’s opinions regarding the events of the past year do not coincide with ours, so be it. Listen to them and learn why they may hold differing views. Ad hominem attacks of any sort on social media must now stop. No one has blood on their hands. There are no documented cases of anyone killing their grandmother, nor of killing anyone elses grandmother. Teenagers often behave irresponsibly. They are not covidiots. They are in the process of growing up. We all do things we later regret. Time to move on and forget.
At the start of the lockdowns governments told us that “we were all in it together”. This was clearly not the case. Many people ignored the rules. They behaved as if restrictions did not apply for them. Now is the time for freedom for all, not just for the rule breakers. The solution is to remove the rules and restrictions so that we can all share the freedom some have enjoyed over the last year.