Covid-19 and the madness of crowds

Thanks Lewian. The Scottish question of independence and membership of the EU, and to a far lesser extent the same debate in Wales where I live, is a strange one.

My argument as to the remoteness of central government holds here. For someone living in the Scottish Highlands, Westminster government might as well be on another planet. Ironically, both Scottish devolved government in Edinburgh and Welsh in Cardiff Bay are also seen as being remote and disconnected. Ask anyone who cares about these matters in Gwynedd, North Wales what they think about the administration in Cardiff, they will, by an overwhelming majority, speak ill of them. What a lot of people do not realise is that the government model in the devolved countries of the UK is exactly the same as its “parent” in Westminster - very centralised with power and prestige exclusively in the national capitals.

I was, for a little while, a member of Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, despite not being remotely Welsh. I was attracted by the idea of government at its lowest possible level. However, Plaid, as with the SNP in Scotland, are committed to not just independence, but also the independent country rejoining the EU. And that is where I get off the bus. I simply cannot understand why, intellectually, you are unhappy with being ruled by an unaccountable elite in London, but are more than content with being ruled by one in Brussels. It makes no sense whatsoever.

Actually, though, there is a far simpler reason why a majority of people in the Welsh speaking areas of Wales (a minority of the country itself) vote for the nationalists. It is because they hate the bloody English, and I have no doubt it is repeated in many parts of Scotland, and I, for one, got extremely tired of the petty nationalism and small mindedness demonstrated.

I find your points about Germany interesting, if nothing else because the lower mortality rates and better testing there have been held up by people in the UK as a glowing example of how regional government is better at coping with such emergencies. Go figure, eh?

Your final sentence also beautifully exemplifies the problem we have here. Should some general principles override localised preferences or, in this case, prejudices? I suspect that we will never have a general consensus on this, and, believe me, it is something that I do struggle with both emotionally and intellectually.

As an example of what I was trying to get at, the wife and I watched a good film last night, called Clemency, a powerful study of a black female prison warden in America whose job it is to prepare and oversee the execution of prisoners on Death Row. As we all know, the majority of such unfortunates there are black and dirt poor. I don’t want this to become a debate about capital punishment (I am implacably opposed and campaigned for some years as a member of Amnesty International), but the point here is that for all of the laws passed as general principles to get rid of morally indefensible rules such as the Jim Crow laws and slavery before it, they don’t seem to have made that much difference in terms of the quality of the lives of the people they were designed to help. You can pass all the national laws you like, but if they make no difference on the ground, well if I were a victim of economic and social deprivation, I would quite reasonably ask what the point of said laws was. My alternative is a more localised and nuanced approach which would persuade and educate, as opposed to bullying and imposing, but I do genuinely appreciate the difficulties this brings, and the moral and political choice you highlight.

To close, a very interesting discussion, which does bring out the best in us, at least.

Thanks, yes mine came back a few hours ago, negative luckily.. phew..

Have you heard yet Chopper?

By the way, Happy Birthday Steve!

Is it at all possible that the faster spreading variant of Covid is as the result of the old (and my favourite) “law of unintended consequences”?

By this, I mean; Western governments have spent months now pushing their people into and out of varying restrictions and lockdowns in order to suppress the transmission of the virus, or as Boris puts it, “putting our foot on the throat of the virus”. There has been an almost obsessive and relentless primary concern about infection rates and infected numbers, and the need to keep these down.

Is it at all possible that the virus (perfectly naturally and in line with usual evolutionary effects, given that it does not consciously think) has evolved a new mutation successfully in order to spread more quickly, more effectively, and by targeting a larger spread of humanity, in particular the younger personages? Has it done this as a perfectly natural evolutionary reaction to efforts made by us to suppress its spread?

In other words, had we left the bloody thing alone to spread quietly in its original form, would there have been ultimately less damage in terms of infection rates and transmissions?

Have we, by our efforts to suppress something which biologically and naturally exists to spread, in a wholly unnatural manner encouraged it to mutate into a form which more effectively achieves its biological purpose?

This is a serious question on my part, and not a piss take. I have not read this anywhere, and I am surprised that I haven’t, because it strikes this layman as a perfectly natural and logical conclusion to make.

Perish the thought, dear chap!

Absolutely, it does perhaps show the lockdowns to have been effective, but, in my opinion, in the long run, causing more harm than good in terms of the virus as well as the economic, social, and mental costs.

If the virus had not needed to mutate in this way, then it would not have done so, and alternative strategies to deal with lurgy when it was a plodding, rather than super as it is now, spreader might have been better. To be fair, I have consistently argued for this, so it is not merely the benefit of hindsight.

And that is where we diverge somewhat. A more effective virus means more people get infected, and at a faster rate, and it is clearly becoming better at spreading despite restrictions and lockdowns.

Beforehand, it did not appear to be that viral, excuse the pun. I quoted Qatar’s extensive testing regime before, and that suggested only 11% of the population had caught the thing, and that does not strike me as being atypical.