Stay-at-home-go-to-work-stay-at-home edict

It was Michael Gove who first gave an inkling of what Boris had in mind and then Boris confirmed it. Gove, Cabinet Office Minister Extraordinaire (or some such title) suggested quite sweetly on the radio that after all it was probably best that people now going to work in their offices, as ordered/pressed by the government, should go home and start working from home. Again. Boris then stood up in the House of Commons and put us all on lockdown duty. Not quite lockdown as per March but pretty well lockdown. So not full lockdown but as close as dammit. Schools and universities will carry on functioning but everyone else should return to their sitting rooms. And if they don't there is a new threat. Not from Covid as such. But a last resort turn to the military to make sure everyone is wearing a mask, not mixing households, not engaging in raves on the local common, not playing rugby or doing anything sweaty like that, and basically not doing as they are told. Troops will be on standby to rush in with firepower - Boris's word - to instal discipline amongst the daring-to-disobey section of the community. Wow. It has come to this. The army is to be brought in. Now I'm all in favour of the government taking sensible precautions to keep this wretched virus pandemic at bay. But we are going backwards. The economy which was just beginning to stir itself and look slightly healthier is now going to hit rock bottom. And yet, as we know from the last seven months, managing everything on the basis that the worst scenario is the right scenario is potty. The quarter or half a million people who were going to die, as predicted by the government health advisers, never happened and is never likely to happen. Even with the 5,000-a-day infection cases in this second wave the number of deaths is very low. The total figure is more than 41,000 but it has been more than 41,000 for weeks and weeks. I know there are terrible stories of older folk being separated from their families as they lie in hospital intensive care units. It is heartbreaking.But the pandemic has to be seen within a context of balanced decision-making. Apocalyptic warnings of doom and disaster and Britain being on a "perilous" turning point are madness. You don't want to panic the country, Boris, but that's what you are doing. We want the truth but we don't want the truth as seen by the medical data analysts who have all been proved wrong from the beginning. Stay at home, sorry go to work, sorry stay at home, go on holiday, sorry don't go on holiday, start planning for family Christmas, sorry no Christmas this Christmas, just a few more weeks, sorry at least six months. Lockdown shockdown!!