//But what does " living with the virus" mean?
It means:
the mandatory wearing of masks.
the strict compliance of social distancing.
the vaccination of the population.
working at home wherever possible.
That's what living with the virus means.//
No no no no no, sqad! Living with it involves behaving normally. Wearing masks and shying away from people is not behaving normally. In the winter of 2017 “ordinary” ‘flu claimed 50,000 lives in the UK in the space of three or four months. Nobody batted an eyelid. No questions in Parliament; no face coverings; no “social distancing;” no businesses forcibly closed. That’s what living with a virus means.
//Its an excuse for what sort of thing?//
It’s a perfect opportunity to exercise control by instilling fear into a population to make them compliant to any instructions the government sees fit to issue. No need to go into too much detail about the efficacy of face coverings when worn by untrained and undisciplined people in the wider community. Sufficient to say that the WHO’s stance on the issue was neutral at the start of the pandemic and in December 2020 it changed its advice to what could be described, at best, as ambivalent. This ambivalence is accompanied by lengthy advice on the techniques to be employed and the precautions that need to be taken (which scarcely anybody adheres to) if more harm than good is to be prevented.
However, all that is by the way. The disease is now endemic in this country and is likely to remain so for decades to come. It is one of the many virus-based respiratory diseases with which we have to cope. However, the current strategy to cope with this particular outbreak is to continually threaten to curtail or withdraw the population’s liberties, using that as a tool to regulate demand on the NHS. It is said to be necessary to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. Well here’s some news – the NHS is already overwhelmed. It has been overwhelmed for as long as I can remember. Before the pandemic patients were waiting months and years for routine treatment. A&E departments were regularly overrun. Now, having endured a period of 18 months or more where those treatments were largely sacrificed on the altar that is Covid, the situation is immeasurably worse. This is not due to Covid; it is because the NHS Is not fit for purpose. The NHS is overwhelmed all the time, but simply not by Covid as it’s been decreed that this will not be allowed to happen (and bad luck if you suffer from anything else). And don’t even think of starting me off on the GP “Primary Healthcare Service” (my inverted commas).
There is now no legal requirement to wear face coverings in England and the measure was almost impossible to legally enforce anyway. So, “wear a mask to save Christmas”? Not a chance because doing so will not save much at all, least of all Christmas, which doesn’t need saving anyway.