I’m quite an instinctively cynical person – I think people are fundamentally selfish and a lot of the things that supposedly bind us together are false realities that fall apart when it’s boiled down to a choice of us vs them. Even so, I don’t consider my life any more valuable than anyone else’s and I respect other beliefs and choices, as long as they don’t infringe on what I believe to be basic human rights. Despite this, it has still surprised me that there are such a huge number of people who appear to be so openly dismissive of the threat that the current pandemic poses to not just their own lives, but the lives of everyone else around them. I know I think people are fundamentally selfish, but I’m still astounded at the extent to which this seems to be true. 

First of all, the number of people I’ve encountered who feel the need to announce that they’ve “had enough of it all” is staggering. I realise that the restrictions we currently face are less than ideal, but it’s hardly as if we have much direct control over a pandemic caused by a respiratory virus which we know very little about, and, in my opinion at least, the restrictions are a relatively small price to pay to protect human lives. Realistically, we’ve all had enough of the virus and everything it entails at this point, but that doesn’t give us the right to go around flouting the rules, rather it should reinforce the necessity of following said rules until we can find an adequate treatment or even a vaccine for the disease. 

Secondly, even worse than those who claim to have had enough of it all are the people who insist that it’s their god given right to refuse to wear a mask. If you refuse to wear a mask because they’re irritating, then you should grow up – it’s been proven that mask wearing dramatically reduces the risk of transmission and, at the end of the day, it’s now the law. However, when they argue that it’s their right to refuse to wear a mask because it violates their freedom, I would suggest that perhaps they should consider the freedom of the people who could potentially die if they unknowingly pass the virus on to them. Excuse me if I struggle to sympathise with their feigned outrage just because they find a bit of fabric on their face an inconvenience whilst they’re doing their shopping. It’s also amusing, and by amusing I mean terrifying, that the vast majority of anti-maskers are also anti-vaxers – do these people have a death wish and hope to take as many of us with them as possible? 

Thirdly, following on from that, those that claim this is all some Government conspiracy similarly need to take a long hard look at themselves. The Prime Minister asking you to wash your hands and wear a mask hardly sounds like the prelude to the introduction of a tyrannical world government. I understand that having your freedoms temporarily restricted is frustrating and I sympathise, but to suggest it’s part of some larger conspiracy is lunacy. As usual, the theories about vaccines being used to control us and Government’s refusing to relinquish their temporary powers have all been circulating, but the logic just astounds me – the people pushing these theories are more often than not the same people that salivate over distant memories of the Second World War, during which the Government had total control over what you ate, wore, read and watched. The only thing that reassures me that these nutjobs are harmless is the complete inconsistency of their beliefs and their fundamental misunderstanding of the history of this country. 

Finally, there are those who completely accept all of the above – masks and hand washing help prevent the spread, vaccines could help us save lives, the restrictions are a necessary evil etc – yet still choose to ignore all of the rules because they’ve judged the risk to themselves to be minimal. Whilst it might be true that the survival rate is improving and young people are relatively low risk, this is an extremely selfish argument as it ignores the glaringly obvious fact that, although you might survive it, the people you could potentially pass it on to might not. During a national health crisis, this viewpoint is irresponsible, ignorant and arguably dangerous – the right to make a decision based on what is in your best interests should be superseded by the need to make a decision based on what is best for the wellbeing of the public as a whole. 

To be clear, this piece does not wish to blame the public for the resurgence of cases – I am very clear that the Government has handled this abysmally. They had the entire summer to implement an effective test & trace system and ensure that we had a large enough testing capacity to support it, yet they appear to have spent the last three months focusing on getting back to normal as quickly as possible with absolutely no regard for the potential devastation of a second wave. I have no doubt that I’ll be posting my thoughts on that at some point. Nevertheless, it is obvious that, as a nation, we are not pulling together in the way I thought we would. Whether it’s through ignorance, nonchalance, selfishness or just plain stupidity, people everywhere seem to be vastly underestimating the risk this virus poses to our very way of life. 

I suppose the point of this piece is to vent my frustration at the disregard some people seemingly have for the lives of others and hopefully convince some people that they should buck their ideas up. I understand that it’s an uncertain period of time and no one is really sure what they should do or what is going to happen, but it isn’t hard to follow the basic rules and try to be as safe as possible. I’d be interested to hear other people’s thoughts and opinions on the subjects I’ve discussed, so please get in touch, but only if you’re one of the sensible ones. Also; wash your hands and wear a mask.