Watching practice today and there was a crash. The car started to skid, the driver corrected to get control, failed, then tried again and it worked – just too late.
When you get taught about skidding you are told to steer in to the skid – point the wheels in the direction you are travelling. This allows the wheels to turn and get connected to the road again. Only after you have control you should turn toward the way you want to go.
This is the rules of pandemic control. People will only obey restrictions for so long, then they will start to disobey – government control is no longer pointing us in the right direction (this is one reason for starting lockdowns just before numbers rise, because the aim is to cover as much of the tail end of the wave as possible).
So people head to beaches, go on protest marches, and more importantly meet each other indoors (if you want to meet people then a house is the last place to meet).
So what does government do, well they steer in to the skid. They announce more relaxations in line with what people are doing. And once they gain control again they start to steer back toward where they want the country to go.
Following the science is not just about numbers of infections – it is just as much about managing a society by consensus. I don’t think it is any surprise that the stronger the state control of a society the better the response to coronavirus seems to be.
One of the big successes in one country was apparently that all infected people were placed in isolation wards (no self-isolation), and their families were placed in isolation houses (I think that means a cosy prison). That hit the virus on the head quickly.
What price are we willing to pay for personal freedom? It is part of our Human Rights. But do we have Human Responsibilities as well as Rights? One item I can’t find in the European Human Rights Convention which is in the Universal Declaration is
Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.
What does that mean to you? How does that fit in with following lockdown rules?