What is so good about normal? Does anyone actually think Britain before lockdown was an idealist utopia? So why is there this desire to return to normal when that normal is flawed. It looks like there is a vast lack of willingness to help when society could be enhanced.

“I want to be able to do the things I enjoy doing,” say some, well nearly everyone. The difference is that some want it now and some think it would be better to wait a little longer before we get our freedoms back. Let us look at who is saying what:

The British government say that it is safe to remove most of the restrictions but to leave the wearing of masks as a personal choice because of the number of people expected to have had two doses of vaccine by the autumn, saying we must still exercise caution. At the same briefing that Prime Minister Johnson announced this Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty announced that he would continue to wear a mask indoors.

Almost immediately afterwards Dr Michael Ryan, director of the WHO health emergencies programme, said that even for countries with an advanced vaccine programme: ‘The idea that everyone is protected and goes back to normal, I think right now is a very dangerous assumption.’ 

More than 100 scientists and doctors signed a letter to The Lancet accusing the Government of conducting a “dangerous and unethical experiment” and urging it to reconsider its plans to abandon all coronavirus restrictions.

As well as medical objections many people with disabilities and chronic illnesses are worried. A Tweet on Sunday 11th July said:

My wife is immunosuppressed. She can’t afford to catch Covid, so please wear a face mask if you meet her.
What’s that? You don’t think you would recognise my wife?
Oh, then you’d better wear one anyway, just in case.
That’s how it works.

So I will continue to wear a mask on public transport and in shops and at other times when I am likely to be meeting people, especially when the infection rate is rising. Deaths due to Covid are running at only one in a thousand of those infected, but it does mean that if the infection rate rises then deaths will rise too. Help the most vulnerable, please continue to wear masks where possible.

I want to be able to enjoy the things I like doing, but I shall wait a little longer for the sake of other people.