Tuesday 7 April 2020

We Got This


We’ve now been under lockdown restrictions here in the UK since March 23rd, and it’s amazing what becomes important when your freedoms are curtailed.


Balconies and gardens. Open spaces. Internet. Board Games. Joe Wicks.

The coronavirus crisis has shown us who we are. And by and large, we have not been found wanting.
Yes, there are those who refuse to believe social distancing is something that applies to them, that a day at the beach with mates is perfectly okay during a pandemic crisis. I do not understand those people who put others, including our health workers, at risk.

But they are the exception, not the rule. Even with the temptation of sunny weekends, most of us are abiding by the rules. And it makes me so proud to see how we, as a nation, can come together when it counts.

When the call went out to help relieve pressure on the NHS, we didn’t shirk. More than 750,000 people signed up to join the "volunteer army" - three times the government's original target. And thousands of retired doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers offered to return to work during the coronavirus crisis.

We have a ways to go. Every day we eagerly scrutinise the figures to see if our sacrifices are ‘flattening the curve’, but the crisis won’t be over anytime soon. Many of us have lost loved ones, and many of us will continue to do so. The US is just starting to realise the full extent of what’s to come.

But as of now, it does seem as if Italy and Spain, the worse affected European countries, have managed to control the relentlessly upward trend of new cases. South Korea has largely contained the spread of the virus. And China, where it all started, today reported no new coronavirus deaths at all.

Even when the deaths stop, the economic hardship will continue. Jobs lost, industries shattered, and a global recession almost inevitable.

But if there is one thing we should take from this, it is the indomitability of the human spirit. We never give up. We never give in. We will not go quietly. We will come out of this stronger and better.

We are human. Hear us roar.