Shropshire Star comment: British public have shown discipline
One month on from the start of the lockdown, the British public has responded with a discipline some would have thought not possible.
The public gets it. Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives.
With weeks of more of the same in prospect, the public is being asked to keep up those levels of discipline.
There is an alternative, an unofficial “exit strategy”, in which people simply get fed up, stop heeding the messages, or think the battle has been won and take matters into their own hands, leading to an accelerating breakdown of the lockdown.
It is vital then that politicians and health experts do nothing that breaches trust, nor undermines faith in the belief that what we are doing is the right thing.
Coronavirus is a global pandemic and its sobering lesson is that in the face of such a virus the world is a small place, and in an era of global trade and travel, what happens in a far-off place may be on your own doorstep the next day. And political posturing and rampant egos have no place, and certainly no effect, in trying to combat the disease.
Donald Trump’s apparent determination to politicise Covid-19 has not been helpful.
With different countries at different places along the trajectory of the disease, a number of nations in Europe are looking at ways to begin a return to something approaching normality.
This is potentially the most dangerous step of all.
People around the world are yearning to get back to “normal” but get the decision wrong, and the timing wrong, and it will open the door to a second wave. That would result in many more people dying.
Amid the pandemic, there have been some positives.
Community spirit has been abundant. Across the world, nations have been co-operating and there is a worldwide drive to develop a vaccine.
Coronavirus has hinted at a pathway to a better world – one that embraces the spirit that this common threat to us all has engendered across nations and across peoples.
