#Mockdown

Posted on by Karen Sealey

As the rest of the country readies itself in preparation to ease into the new normal, Leicester goes back to square one and full lockdown begins again… It’s hardly a fucking surprise… The only thing that does surprise me is why Sir Peter Soulsby is being given air time…

Oh… He understands the need for firm action…

Hmmm… OK… Yup carrying on like your life is a remake of Confessions of a Window Cleaner… Yep, that definitely qualifies you to lead the way in telling people how and why they need to lockdown again…

At the outset, the daily bulletins were lead by Scientists… Politicians deferred to the experts… Somewhere along the line, the Science has been sidelined and despite Scientists murmuring that coming back out is a very bad idea, good old Boris urges us to do our civic duty and shop until we drop… To queue outside Primark because #BLM black leggings matter… Oh and don’t even get me started on the statistics… What a load of bollox! But hey the British education system has made it acceptable to be innumerate and so it’s super easy to spout charts and figures and not be questioned by the general populace because the vast majority have no idea whatsoever as to how to read data… Ffs! When are people going to realise #numeracycounts… Or at least remember the old quote :

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

I remember well my old Statistics teacher, who taught us to be cynical about how numbers are presented, taught us how numbers can be easily manipulated to ‘prove’ pretty much anything… Just for fun, she played with numbers and demonstrated to us that if you applied a 2 year time lag, then you could claim a positive and causal correlation between the cases of dysentery in Scotland and frequency of telephone usage in the Lake District…

Call me cynical but I find it curious that this return to lockdown has been timed to coincide with the spike that was being predicted as a result of BLM demos… (That’s Lives not leggings!). Don’t go out and protest or you’ll all be sorry in 2-3 weeks time… Yet, when you look at the figures, the spikes have been there for weeks, they’ve been high enough to whack-a-mole Leicester for a good couple of weeks… Oh, but then that may have suggested that the whole shit show was down to clueless politicians… Locking down now… Well that’s obviously the people’s fault because we told them to stay in and they ignored us…

Then there’s the figures being released, listing the top 10 areas of Leicester with the highest infection rates…

If you know Leicester then it sticks out like a sore thumb, what’s particular to those areas… Yet the news seems to actively avoid saying Asian communities are being hardest hit… Wtf is that about? Why are facts being buried and fudged rather than addressing issues?

Then there’s all these fairy tale promises of new vaccines that will be found… Really? I dunno, I’m not an immunologist nor a virologist but I guess my first question would be – Hmmm HIV? Around since mid-80’s? No vaccine for that but you’re gonna find one for this in a matter of months?

Looking at all the lists and numbers… Watching the comings and goings as I’ve been driving around as a key worker… I think, I may have found the solution, that everyone is seeking…

I work in the middle of Clarendon Park… Since lockdown, especially in the evenings, that area has been the busiest I’ve ever known it… Most days, I weave through thinking – What lockdown? Is it over? Did I not get the memo? Yet, miraculously they’re not making the lists… Somehow, they’re remarkably plague free… Hmmm… What are they doing differently…

Fuck me! Eureka!

Sourdough culture! Yup! Swapping and sharing sour dough across the community obviously confers some kind of immunity… Back that up with glugging Prosecco and mashing avocados… Toss in constant whining about #firstworldproblems #seekingcourgette… Add a pinch of whining about students, dog shit, and fireworks… A spoonful of bashing Karens and hey fucking ho, you’ve got a golden bullet to take down covid-19…

But what do I know? After all… I’m not a politician…