Crisis - what crisis?

1. “At the beginning of a pestilence and when it ends, there’s always a propensity for rhetoric. In the first case, habits have not yet been lost; in the second, they’re returning. It is in the thick of a calamity that one gets hardened to the truth–in other words, to silence.” (Albert Camus, The Plague)”

 The  link contains some useful tips on household cleaning.

 Covid19 is the most serious epidemic to hit mankind since the plague when interestingly enough the measures put in place in London we’re not dissimilar to what is being put in place now, “Dig all the graves six feet deep,” one of the orders from the Mayor of London during the Plague of 1665, as reported in Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year. This historical novel, written 45 years after the plague from oral histories and diaries,  is well worth re-reading, as it outlines in detail the extreme containment measures London imposed very quickly after the plague appeared (embargo, isolation, closure of pubs, Inns, tippling joints, lodging the infected in “pest-houses,” restrictions on travel, curfews, and the deployment of “watchers” to enforce the quarantine)”

 The cuts that the Tories and Liberals have forced upon us over the last ten years are having terrible consequences for us. Together with Johnson’s mate Trump, who closed down much of the research on virus testing as part of his making, “America great again” , it is both ironic and tragic that two of the richest countries in the world are amongst the worst in the developed world to have a ready stock of  the vitally important testing kits which reduce the spread of the disease as the graphic below shows.

 The importance of testing has been shown in Germany where their ability to quickly isolate those with early stage Covid19 plus those who are asymptomatic and their contacts has vastly reduced the infection rate there.

 Situation in Italy