Signs of the Times – April 2020
You don’t need me to tell you that there is a global crisis caused by the virus pandemic which is radically changing society as we know it. Little by little everything is shutting down and we don’t know if or when it will open up again. Now India has joined in, a quarter of the world’s population is in lockdown.
Optimists hope it will all be over in a couple of months. They point to the fact that China is already returning to normal and that the rest of the world will follow suit in a short time. Pessimists warn the crisis will last months, if not years, and there will be hundreds of thousands of deaths.
Boris Johnson has faced a lot of criticism for the initial strategy which was to allow people to be infected with the disease as a means of defence by creating what they termed ‘herd immunity.’ Realising the number who would die as a result, the government has now changed tack and brought in the most unprecedented laws in history, confining people to their homes and giving the police new powers of arrest backed by the army. Most people are accepting the restrictions to freedom, as warnings go out that the pandemic could kill thousands and overwhelm the NHS.
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