Another week ticked off, but as to how many more we face who knows? Certainly not this government, or social media, or the so called experts expressing their opinions on various platforms.
Reading the various predictions it will be April at the earliest, possibly September, but with a following wind Christmas before we are back to normal …. so long as we all get vaccinated, obey the rules and any new strains of the virus play ball with the vaccines we have. You will note I have not actually said which Christmas, but as a rule of thumb take whatever Boris says and add 12 months seems a reasonable start point.
As to what “normal’ is being referred to I have no idea and as to the predictions: I will believe it when I see it as my Gran used to (regularly) say.
Strange times indeed: the R number is reported to be between 0.7 and 1, so in theory the pandemic is in decline (again), and the number of cases is reducing (again), but still remains closer to 20,000 a day than the 1,000 many people are saying is the level we need to achieve before we are all returned to the wild. We have c10million first doses of the vaccines administered (hoorah) but only 500,000 second doses (b00).
My inbox is fill of promise though with International Cricket dates confirmed, County, One Day and T20 dates confirmed, and talk of being allowed back into the grounds in April, or May, or June, or …..
If you look in the sidebar of this site you will see that our first concerts are scheduled for 17th March (The Who) which is rescheduled from 2020 and which I have no hopes will go ahead, and if it did I would not go, too early for me being a mere youngster in the vaccine league table. Sophie Ellis Bexter on the 9th May I reckon is 50/50, but again I wouldn’t go if I hadn’t at least had the first vaccination dose. Queen on the 10th June” 75/25 and to be honest I would be happy to see this one put back as I also have tickets for the England v New Zealand Test at Edgbaston, which being outdoors would certainly be my preference.
Talking of Cricket this is due to start in April (watching 8th) playing at the end of the month. Much as I would love it to go ahead, and let’s be honest County Cricket, in April, outdoors is hardly going to attract huge crowds and if they made it members only nobody would really complain (or lose out), but the inner grown up in me says we will be lucky to go to live cricket before June, so in time for the internationals and Vitality Blast T20, which would be acceptable.
I suspect a lot will depend on what people are willing to accept as “normal”. Much was made of the “new normal” we would a) be able to create and b) would have to learn to live with during Lockdown 1.0 – the one that started back in March 2020 – but the one thing that pretty much everyone will find it hard it not to agree with is that on the whole, the population has shown very little interest with the “new anything”, favouring a rapid return to the “old ways”.
As someone who would happily live without franchised restaurants, pubs, night clubs, cinemas, bowling alleys or shopping centres I am a little bemused as to how these seem more important than life itself (100,000+ dead accredited to COVID-19 and many more through the knock on effects it has caused) but I recognise a) I am a tad weird and b) many would feel the same as I do about Cricket, Theatre, Football and concerts.
My issue is this: how tolerant are we going to be of each other post pandemic? Jeremy Vine today on Radio 2 had a segment saying those that had saved money during the pandemic should “spend, spend, spend” to help get the economy going again. Is some merit in this I suppose, if you put aside the concept of someone telling you what you should do with your money! What, though should you spend it on? The old normal? A new normal? Things you like to do? Things that others like to do?
I have happily donated my 2020 Yorkshire and Warwickshire Cricket Club memberships and renewed early for 2021. I have bought my England International tickets in the hope that live cricket will be an option this year, but also in the knowledge that if not I will role the spend over again to next year.
I did not take any refunds for concerts or theatre tickets we had booked in 2020, hopeful again that they would take place in 2021 – although given the band members ages I think I would hesitate to do the same again for The Who and Queen.
I am happy, as you can see, to support the things that I want to maintain in my life, and feel that this should be acceptable, but I am not so sure it will be.
But you know what? I really don’t care! The pandemic has shown that too many people have “done what they wanted”, and whilst I have been critical that they have extended the pandemic for us all, maybe they have a point? If we all concentrated on what we wanted rather than what the Government, Politicians, Marketing Men, Main Stream Media wanted us to do the country would start to reflect the population better?
So as we move forward, whenever that is, I will favour establishments that insist people have been vaccinated (or have a medical reason as to why not); I will only invite people into our home that have been vaccinated; I will focus on outdoor social events initially all the time eventually as much as possible; I will continue to support businesses, charities, clubs and events that I want in my life.
Selfish? Yes! Apologise? No! Criticise others for doing the same? Hopefully not.