The worrying drop off in vaccinations (which is why nobody shouts about how brilliant and world beating we are anymore) won’t help. I remember posting on here when I had my second jab that the wind tunnel was deserted and that the person giving me my shot said it was way, way down in terms of numbers, which suggested a lot of younger people weren’t getting jabbed and that even those who did weren’t going back for a second dose. We’ve got the least restrictions in the world and vaccination rates are increasingly mid-table in relation to other developed countries, so it doesn’t take a genius to work out why we’ve got about 20% of the entire world’s known cases most days. Plague Island.
There might be a half-hearted attempt at bringing masks back but it won’t be enforced in any meaningful way, and there almost certainly won’t be any lockdowns even if numbers become eye-watering as they’re trying to portray a fast-growing economy that ignores the fact we stacked it the hardest to begin with. Also means it’s easier to cover up any damage related to… you know. Covid is a very convenient house fire in many respects.
That we’re coming up to two years deep and a lot of people still don’t even understand how masks work - ie that they don’t protect you from others, they protect
other people
from you, which is why if people don’t collectively wear them in huge numbers then it’s pretty much pointless - is pretty indicative of why we are where we are. Either almost everybody wears a mask or it won’t work, but we’ve been more worried about how annoying they apparently are, or calling them face nappies in a very divisive manner. We’ve never really taken it seriously and that comes from the top and trickles down. Hence why you have the leader of the commons saying words to the effect of, “We don’t need to wear masks in here, we all know each other.” Well done, sh*t for brains. Back to the family estate. The horse and carriage is outside.
You’ll always get a small percentage of people who don’t care or are massively selfish / don’t believe in it, but you can’t create the sort of nationwide nonchalance we have unless that mood is set at the highest level. We won’t change that at this stage. The only logical solution is to go to The Winchester, have a lovely pint and wait for all this to blow over