Covid Tiers, Tears and Fears
Our experience of the covid thingy is obviously embryonic. Whereas the Far East developed systems and procedures to combat infectious disease honed during the SARs epidemic etc we were caught like rabbits in the headlights.
Chuck in a significant element of ‘don’t tell me what to do’ and our liberal attitudes went into overdrive. During a national mergence lockdown we ended up with Durdal Door Dorks, Bournemouth bananas and Lake District Loons, where masses flocked to the beaches, beauty spots and second homes spreading virus as they went.
The government didn’t quite fire on all cylinders issuing guidelines and rules like a machine gun hoping they would hit some of the targets. People complained they found the rules confusing. First came a four stage alarm level, 1 – 5 operating in reverse to the military def con levels?
Britain then aligned itself as four separate countries trading as the UK. Each subsequently developed their own interpretation of the rules and then renamed them as tiers. The result:-
The original 4 alarm levels became either 3 or 4 tiers. Each country having differing data within each tier. The result is astonding
Original UK lockdown levels 4
Scotland tiers 5
Northern Ireland tiers 3
England tiers 3
Total Sets of Rules 15
Rename them as circuit breakers 4, except in the North of England where it was known as Fasened (Fassened) In – 1 and we have a grand total of 20 different sets of rules operating simultaneously like a railway ticketing system.
And now we have Christmas with a three day moratorium and another set of rules bringing the total to 25 sets of rules. And looking to the future as the vaccination programme gets underway there will be those who are vaccinated, those due to be vaccinated and the anti vaccination brigade. However, ignoring Brexit we are led to believe that Tuesdays will follow Mondays and lie a day ahead of Wednesdays.
