Thursday 12 March 2020

Keep Calm and Carry On!


The famous British 'stiff upper lip' may be unfashionable and even mocked in the world of woke but the wobbly lip simply doesn't serve us!

I am shocked that the 'nuclear option' of potential economic ruin is even being considered re putting Britain on lockdown over what is, essentially, a particularly nasty dose of flu. And sadly every flu epidemic brings deaths.

Here are my emergency measures if I ruled the country:

Personal Safety Measures
·        Boost immune system with plenty of sleep, good hygiene, nutritious food and vitamin C and don’t let yourself get run down or dehydrated
·        Don’t kiss babies, toddlers or the very elderly or sick on the face.
·        Don’t kiss pets
·        Wash hands with soap each time you go indoors/feed your pet/change a nappy/prepare food etc.
Clean your mobile phones, remote controls and keyboards daily
·        No public handshaking, hugging or kissing. Reserve intimacy for intimates.
·        Carry a packet of tissues around at all times (coughs and sneezes spread diseases) and don’t spit in public.
·        Don’t buy uncovered food or share food and wash all fruit and vegetables before using.
·        Extra measure: Face masks are not known for efficacy but wearing latex gloves can be more beneficial. The Queen has a habit of wearing normal gloves (replaced every day) to reduce her own exposure to germs. They are not just an accessory to her outfits. And she is apparently hardly ever sick.
     Invest in a thermometer and check your temperature every day. If it's above normal, self isolate.
·        Keep calm and carry on! Business as usual.

Public Safety Measures
·        Invest in temperature scanners at airports, train stations, shopping centres and venues to pick up anyone with a high temperature who might need further testing.
·        Bring back public ban on spitting or coughing/sneezing without handkerchief (as used to exist to prevent spread of TB) and chewing gum deposits as well. Extend to sports pitches and activities.
·        Isolate only those who need isolating. Keep everything else open for business as usual
·        Reopen any closed wards or nursing homes as emergency isolation centres and offer incentives to NHS staff to come out of retirement to staff them.
·        No buffets or food sharing
·        No uncovered food in cafes, restaurants or shops
·        Cleanse public building and public transport door handles daily and businesses need to cleanse shop trolley and basket handles
·        Keep calm and carry on! Business as usual.

   A pandemic of panic helps no one and the stress of being triggered into a heightened or
   prolonged state of anxiety is enough to bring many people’s immune systems down and
   render them vulnerable to infections.


4 comments:

KeyReed said...

Over the years we have become too 'clean' in that everything sold is anti-bacterial (no good to cure a virus), be it hand soap, wipes, kitchen-cleaning fluid etc. However, folk are not clean because they have substituted common cleanliness with laziness thinking that basic hand-washing does not matter. Parents do not train their children. In many matters people think 'the rules do not apply to me': use of mobile phone whilst driving being one example. I do think this is panic on the scale of the Y2K bug which came to nothing. With Brexit gone, the media need something to get their teeth into. With so many young people being gullible, and not having lived through hardship, they have no clue what to do.

The Poet Laura-eate said...

Thank you for your sensible comments. Further to your thoughts on Brexit I can't help thinking that it suits various powers that be to have us all living in fear of some major threat or other in order to extort more taxes and exert more control over us, however big or small the risk is in reality.
I may live to eat my words of course. Or not, as the case may be, but fingers crossed that this threat is over very soon. Certainly they didn't go around locking down whole countries over the Year 2000 threat, though people took it quite seriously at the time.

KeyReed said...

I think a degree of panic and concern is now appropriate, but not panic buying. Clearly this Covid-19 HAS come to something serious.

The Poet Laura-eate said...

I would like to know the figures of those who've died of CV (and no other cause). Yes, it can shorten people's lives if they have pre-existing conditions but can it kill outright?
And why only the over 60s and those with pre-existing conditions? You would expect babies and small children to be at equal risk.
They are now suggesting that elderly people spend up to a year indoors? For some that might amount to their last few months on earth naturally, separated from their (in some cases) few forms of human contact. I find this inhumane to say the least. And not all are online either so cannot necessarily participate in life from afar.
I am also angry at Boris for not checking everyone coming through our ports and airports months ago. Why is he suddenly the hero of the hour for crashing this country unnecessarily?
Of course it could just be incompetence but the whole thing stinks.