(This is a response I posted to someone on FB, a fellow pro-Palestine activist who I deeply respect and love, but who told me that I am placing myself together with Trump and Johnson by objecting to the lockdown. She also argued that because I live in rural Scotland and away from crowded cities, it affects my lack of concern.)
Thanks for your honesty, I appreciate it but the lockdown isn’t a way to eliminate the virus, only to delay infections. You can’t eliminate a virus, any virus, and you don’t ‘save lives’ at one end by creating a policy that will lead to a massive death toll and plenty of long term trauma and the health problems it leads to, at the other. It makes no sense at all and it’s cruel and inhumane.
You also don’t bring about any useful political or social change this way. I promise you that plenty of NHS-clapping people will still vote Tory in the next elections…
The virus itself is not that deadly (325,000 dead globally out of 7.7 billion four days ago).
There’s mounting evidence it affects BAME disproportionately not just because of socio-economic circumstances and pre-existing trauma that leads to predictable health conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease among others (read the ACE study) but also a known and serious vitamin D deficiency. I’ve a darker skin so have to be permanently on high doses. Dark skins evolved in an environment that is abundant in sunlight. It’s unable to make enough of the vitamin where there is little sunlight. Vitamin D provides protection against viruses in general and they think possibly against this one too. Certainly the studies are showing a strong correlation between deaths and complications from the virus and severe vitamin D deficiency. It’s easy enough to check this.
The elderly also tend to be severely deficient in vitamin D. Read up on it.
The lockdown has highlighted existing problems and this fear of a pandemic has caught the Tory government unsurprisingly with its trousers down. Of course a neoliberal regime is not suited to deal with problems that are global in nature. It’s a selfish ideology intended to benefit only one class of people. Btw, Boris is selling your NHS England under you right now to US data mining companies while everyone’s distracted…
I have clients who are GPs in front line work in England and here, senior nurses in responsible positions in hospitals, hospital lab technicians involved in testing and medical consultants as well so I’m not as ignorant as you might think. I would have the same opinion regardless of where I live.
I left Israel because it’s a society that condemns everyone to live in permanent fear and excessive ‘safetyism’ with all its ills and people there really believe their very lives are in danger every moment, so put up with anything they think will ‘save (Jewish) lives’. I come from this so am well seasoned and well trained and I know I wouldn’t be any different if I lived where you are. It’s not easy to scare me.
I pay attention when media & government go mad with propaganda style communication and with throwing numbers at people that are out of context. I’ve always been suspicious of any policy that’s supposedly intended to save lives in the short term while sacrificing long-term wellbeing, quality of life, purpose and anything that makes life worth living.
I’ve always lived in busy, crowded cities and mostly in flats. It’s only at this stage of my life (the past 10 years) that I am fortunate enough to live in a semi-rural environment by conscious choice, given the limitations it also has. I’m sad about the suicide you mentioned. I hear of a few every day in my work, including an increase in domestic and child abuse under lockdown. Some of my clients are police officers as well so they tell me what is going on out there.
Anyhow take care of yourself. I know how intelligent and broad thinking you are and hopefully that’ll lead you in the right direction for you.
I don’t really think that questioning the wisdom of lockdown puts me in the company of Johnson and Trump but if this helps you cope with what I say, then knock yourself out. I know precisely who I am and what I believe, I moved countries twice in my life, a really big thing to do by choice, and work in a front line profession that gives me a unique insight into the fabric of society and its undercurrents. Dismiss me if you like but I don’t dismiss myself and on this occasion I know with every fibre of my being that I’m right… X