LONDON – During a recent visit to a private London hospital, I was horrified by the sensation of a delivery man wheeling in a supply load without wearing a face mask. The order of blue scrubs was standing inside the elevator, three feet from me, his mask wrapped around his chin.
The hospital scene can be a particularly shocking example of how many people in London are facing an epidemic in which more than 57,000,000 Britons have died, but this is rarely unusual.
Although cases of coronavirus are on the rise again, shoppers regularly roam the wings of a supermarket in our north London neighborhood, Hampstead, without wearing a mask. Cafes and pubs serve drinks nearby.
When I asked the owner of our local indoor fruit and vegetable market why, despite the fact that masks were mandatory despite the rules, he was allowing countless people to enter the defenses absent in their narrow premises, he arrogantly turned me away. “We’re not the police,” he said.
Every morning, I take my kids to school on the public bus, where the 14-passenger limit is regularly violated with the rules of face masks. What do we do for a place near an open window.
In our international school, children must wear masks. But as I walk home from the leafy streets I see children and parents chatting happily without masks as they wait for their school doors to open. They look like people in a line to board the Titanic.
In addition to the fact that this equestrian behavior is annoying, it has increased the widely shared sense that Britain – famously following the rule – is now operating without adult supervision. In a recent survey, more than half of respondents revealed that the government is prepared to handle the epidemic in public, up from more than one percent in May.
The lessons of history that modern Britain we know about were supposed to display its untruthful character during World War II, when Winston Churchill urged the persistent German bombing campaign to remain steadfast in the face of the Blitz. The people were drawn together and endured in a collective effort, whose inconveniences and ambiguities were borne as the cost of defeating the enemy.
“The government issued fifty million gas masks to citizens who took them to work and to church, and kept them in their beds,” writes Eric Larson, in his History of the Blitz, “The Spinded and Villa.” “Strict blackout rules made city streets so dark that it became almost impossible to identify a visitor at a train station after dark.”
How did that society turn into this? Or is society more or less the same, when the nature of fear has changed, giving a different response?
People with long memories are advised against using romanticized depictions of the past that jump points for perceived regret.
Timothy Garton Ashe, a European historian at Oxford University, said, “To quote the Russian proverb, ‘It was a long time ago, and it was not true in any way.’ “If you look at the actual history of the Blitz, it wasn’t this wonderful national costume of people with bowler hats and rolled umbrellas, waiting patiently for a cup of tea.”
Not everyone was cooperating so much that he did not resign, he said, despite differences in discipline from place to place.
The current crisis seems to be exacerbated by the sh-fashut of virtue celebrated in traditional historical narrative – an admirable refusal to give a twist. The national mantra of “keep calm and keep going” seems to have been rearranged to mislead that nothing is wrong.
“There’s a sense of bravery, and there’s no temptation about illness, and you can only be a soldier through it,” said Selma Dabbag, a British-Palestinian novelist living in north London. “The idea is, ‘Don’t riot, be a man, move on with it.’
Preventing the transmission of a virus requires behavior that seems rude: not holding the door for fear of getting close to others; Wearing a mask that gives a vague smile; Avoiding unnecessary interactions. This seems more prestigious in England, given the degree in which social discourse is governed by etiquette and ritual. Talking small with a butcher can be uncomfortable.
Other cultural features can protect people. “England is the only place I know where better people know each other, they have less physical contact,” Mr Garton said.
But the spirit of eliminating it will make it more difficult for people here to follow the strict measures imposed to stop the virus. No matter how much both stereotypes and observable truths are, many English people need the help of lunjan to bond with others. This means that closing pubs is tantamount to canceling a basic human connection.
When my family moved from New York to London in 2016, we were immediately surprised that everything was so tightly controlled.
Instead of the dilapidated New York subway, we found good performance facilities supervised by people in uniform, who were pleasantly available to the consultant. Post office fees were no ordeal. Heathrow Airport was a surprise of efficiency. Competent people appeared to be in charge.
The first change in this impression came from the vague, tyrannical (and continuing) courtesy of Brexit, Britain’s departure from the European Union.
Faced with warnings from business groups that Brexit is tantamount to an elaborate act of self-harm, and despite the expected expected recession in the economy, the political class is moving forward, engulfing itself in parliamentary proceedings, while never fully resolving what. Come forward. The word “symbolic” got a heavy workout.
Experience divided the country into two warring races – the Levers and the Remnants – a polarized state in which facts pertaining to almost any subject, from health care to foreign policy, were reduced to arguments on Brexit.
This legacy of mistrust has survived as the epidemic emerged in Britain, now led by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose materialistic hypothesis for stagecraft is often compared to that of President Trump.
Mr. Johnson made the first coronavirus light. On the same day in March, top government scientists urged people to stop shaking hands, the Prime Minister told cheerful reporters that they had gone to the hospital treating Kovid patients, and I shook hands with all of them. “
After that, Mr Johnson contracted the virus himself, a serious case that required intensive care at a London hospital. When he emerged, he presented himself as a modern-day Churchill, fighting a deadly threat in the country.
But its policies are widely inconsistent and vague as a turn. The rules for wearing masks did not come into force until the end of July. Schools and playgrounds were closed as pubs reopened. As the case progressed, Mr Johnson recently ordered the pub to close at 10pm, but he was initially exempted from serving Parliament.
My family reluctantly canceled our daughter’s 8th birthday party – an outdoor gate-tour with half a dozen school children – due to new restrictions against gatherings of more than six. That sounds like a legitimate sacrifice, if not for the fact that we can legally disclose to many strangers inside a restaurant.
One incident took a deep toll: Mr. Johnson’s chief adviser, Dominic Cummings, brazenly slammed the lockdown, who was caught driving more than 200 miles to visit his parents at the worst time of the epidemic, followed by a trip to a picturesque country city. . His elaborate and evolving revelations – which focused on using the drive as an opportunity to test his vision – dismissed him as widely frictional.
Despite strong calls for his resignation, Mr. Cummings remained, supported by Mr. Johnson. It was as if Mr Churchill’s right-hand man had been caught hosting a barbecue during a German bombing at night, flipping over to light a garden.
The consequences of all this – hypocrisy, confusion, messy messages – are responsible for why so many people break the rules.
Novelist Ms. “This is a time when you really need a government and you need to be very clear about its message,” Dabbag said. “I think people will respond to messages if they are clear. Now, the individual has been forced to make all these decisions. ”
