Community | Mick McCann VS Covid 19

COVID-19: Mixed Messaging, Paranoia, Robin Hood and the Logic of Lockdown. MICK McCANN lets rip.

Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re in extraordinary times, to say everything has changed is a cliche so…. Everything is nuanced… maybe.

Unfortunately, nuanced, informed instruction has been banned, placed in lockdown and it’s sending many of us a little doolally while inflicting extra, unnecessary mental health pressure on the righteous.

These righteous, conscientious people are being scared into, partly illogical, submission by government and police and, even to a renegade like me, that’s fine… almost. It’s starting to rattle my rebellious, rogue bones and that’s bad.

In some crucial ways, we are being instructed more by group psychology and simple messaging than science; worsening mental health.

At the Coronavirus press conference (8.4.20) Prof Angela McLean (Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser) piqued my interest and nudged my aberrant instincts. She said, ‘I don’t want to get into hypotheticals about what might be better, one way or another, I suspect that simple strategies might well turn out to be the best to use but we’ll see.’

Ooh, I love  a bit of nuance, me. For me, this meant ‘Forget scientific rigour and complexity, reduce our messaging and diktats to the lowest common denominator. Big broad-brush orders that may contain illogical, unscientific details but are largely sound.’ … ‘Keep walking, don’t sit down.’

Apparently we’re a nation of simple souls who can’t understand detail, can’t smell bullshit, no adults here. Boris, Dominic Cummings et al. have proof of this.

TAKE BACK CONTROL — £350 MILLION FOR THE NHS— GET BREXIT DONE 

They’ve even managed to simplify the COVID-19 ads further:

STAY HOME > PROTECT THE NHS > SAVE LIVES 

I’d suggest that the people they’re simplifying the message for haven’t been listening, as the 660 parties broken up recently in Manchester shows. The people who are listening and trying to adhere strictly to the orders (the law) can follow more complex instructions but are instead being penalised.

These people could follow my rogue advice and walk to their struggling (possibly suicidal, possibly beaten — abuse relies on isolation) friend’s houses, stay outside, 10ft away, don’t exchange anything and have a natter in person. They wouldn’t because they see themselves as good and responsible, even though BBC journalists do the equivalent every morning. This lack of human (distanced) contact is central to people’s worsening mental health and to follow my advice they’d have to break the law, which is fucking ridiculous.

Is, Apart from shopping, don’t enter any building you don’t live in, too complex for people to understand?

What about Don’t drive anywhere you can’t get home from without external help?

The BREXIT kerfuffle convinced me that a section of society don’t do news or current affairs programming. It’s not a crime, they’re not necessarily stupid, just lack sound information and form opinions via hearsay.

Things first got draconian (23.3.20) after people were having barbecues, rucking 50 deep at supermarkets, playing tig in the park. We all like to judge but maybe it wasn’t simply disobedient and selfish. Most clearly lacked knowledge, perhaps sound leadership or a good example.

Maybe they’d heard Boris saying he hoped to visit his mother that weekend or caught images of our politicians French kissing, 650 deep all over the budget —when we knew the virus was already rampant in the House — the week before the confused, bumbling (almost not) instructions and six weeks after the World Health Organisation declared the ‘international emergency’.

In the country that seems to’ve got it most wrong, our politicians are deep in their own multilayered shit, having to make complex, thankless decisions. What they mustn’t do — as they need to dictate and stretch the patience of good people — is lie to us as Dominic Raab did when he said (press conference 7.4.20) that ‘all’ the government had been following their own ‘guidance’. We need to trust you, especially when you’re being so controlling; this mustn’t get abusive.

After telling us not to leave our houses without strictly defined purpose, and two days before Boris declared his infection, he, Matt Hancock and friends, huddled around the speaker’s chair (25.4.20), checking out each other teeth — for no reason. See the ‘one rule for you’ picture I took from Newsnight.

Our politicians visibly weren’t taking social distancing very seriously while telling everybody else to.

Every time a minister says, ‘the government has been following medical and scientific advice,’ I growl, ‘not on a personal level, you’ve been infecting like mosquitoes.’

Political scrutiny has been on a respirator and will any official say publicly, even in 30 years, that Parliament was the centre of one of the UK’s largest COVID-19 outbreaks? Putting the massive strain on the London (and national) NHS that, apparently, we’re trying to avoid. I’m guessing obviously, but I’m right and I pity all the support staff in that notoriously bullying work place. ‘How many deaths directly caused, Minister?’

On the 5th of April Matt Hancock said that people were being disobedient and threatened the country that, unless we did as we’re told, there’d be no leaving the house even for exercise and fresh air. The recently kowtowed BBC cut to drone shots of people sitting in parks at least 30ft from the nearest people as an example of these shameful devils. I heard myself shouting, ‘They’re fucking miles away. Leave them alone, their behaviour is perfectly safe.

Before Easter weekend Matt said, ‘Don’t have BBQs.’ I replied, ‘Fuck off, families living together can cook food in their garden. We’re not fucking children.’   

Some of my best friends live alone, are human and isolated. Their mental health isn’t its best. One has been completely isolated for five/six weeks, she’s high risk and needed medicine I could get. She’s conscientious, following instructions, told me I could post them or leave them round the back. When I suggested we might sit apart in her back garden and have a quick natter she was spooked, thought not. She thought about it overnight and decided it was OK. Worried, she warned her neighbours — she shouldn’t have to.

Try not to be too judgemental, look to yourself. As long as you and yours are socially isolating properly, others can’t harm you.

I whooped with the joy of rampant logic when, on Question Time (9.4.20), Peter Openshaw (FRCP FMedSci. Clinician-scientist working on lung immunology, particularly defence against viral infections) talked proper, honest science and went rogue. Respect, brother.

‘It mustn’t seem irrational or punitive. I think it’s very important that people understand, when they’re following the science and doing things which are not going to promote infection. I personally can’t see what’s wrong with sitting down and taking a bit of sun…. Sun is very bad for this virus, damages its genetic material.’

Outside, our breath ‘doesn’t go very far…. It gets completely diluted in the air all around you.’ (Professor Wendy Barclay, Dept of Infectious Diseases ICL, Newsnight, 26.3.20) The official 2 metre rule is blanket and applies to the most dangerous place we go, the supermarket, inside, where the virus is less diluted and more dangerous.

As I’m almost middle class, I can get my tits out for the lasses in my front or back garden, Boris can ride a horse around one of his estates, so perhaps we could let the (social distancing) less fortunate sit down outside? Just chill outside their oppressive four walls? Already disadvantaged kids, not having the middle class garden or perfect Wi-Fi and laptop for ‘virtual learning’, might need to let off some steam.

Some basic science: VIRAL LOAD generally means the more virus you’re in contact with, the greater the illness. The smaller the viral contact the lesser the illness. ‘The animals that get infected with the very high dose are the ones that are going to get sickest.’ Professor Barclay again.

I wouldn’t worry if you just happen to’ve organised being on your daily walk at the same time and local place as your friend. You can still hear each other 2-3 metres away, I’ve checked, and your mental health will improve markedly.

I don’t agree with government opinion that we’re a nation of simpletons who can’t understand more than two or three words at once. Maybe there’s a small percentage who aren’t listening but they’ll continue exchanging bodily fluids at open orgies in their gardens no matter what the authorities say or do.

My love for those closest is far greater than my fear of getting caught in my outlaw activities, so I’ll safely and scientifically go rogue. If I get done I’ll bitch, complain and pay the fine (I’m lucky, I can) cos that’s the contract I’ve agreed to in a ‘liberal democracy’.

My rogue advice is take a flask to your mother’s back garden and tell her, 10 feet away, that you love her. Let her see your eyes smile in the flesh. As long as you stay outside, don’t pass/touch objects and keep your distance, you will not infect her with anything but love. This applies to all nearby loved ones.

PS. To all you who are properly isolated and life’s getting weird, you’re ace, we’re still out here and we still love you.