Until we start helping people instead of hectoring them, Lockdown 2 will be at risk of falling apart
In the midst of the 1918 flu pandemic, with his pregnant wife lying near him, infected and close to death, WB Yeats wrote the famous lines from his poem The Second Coming: “Things fall apart; / the centre cannot hold; / mere anarchy is loosed upon the world”. His words are a fitting description of our own predicament. As England enters a second lockdown, people are tired and frustrated by restrictions that seem to bear no fruit. They are becoming fractious and divided; many who supported the first lockdown have fallen silent, while those who object to lockdown measures are becoming more flagrant in their opposition. The optimism of early summer feels like a distant memory.
A recent report on the BBC website captured this growing sense of dissent and disarray. Headlined “COVID in Scotland: Police break up hundreds of parties every week”, it picked out five examples of parties and gatherings to illustrate a supposed tide of excess. Two of the examples explicitly mentioned students, while the other three referred to large gatherings without identifying those involved.
