This Brutal Lock Down

Over the last day or so I've been quite conscious of the human aspect to all this. People not being able to see dying loved ones. People that have died because they haven't been able to access healthcare the way they would in normal times. The cascade of stories on social media, coupled with stories from everyday life creating quite a familiar picture by now.

Normally I don't like to get too personal or sentimental. It's not really my style and tone. However, I think I'm duty bound to comment on this stuff. To give one example from my own everyday experience. My uncle's friend died of pancreatic cancer a month or so ago. He died with no friends and family beside him. When his sister received the death certificate it had Covid-19 down as a co-factor. Even though it was clearly just the cancer that killed him. She wasn't too happy.

This is pretty brutal stuff. A basic lack of humanity.

Of course, I'm against the lock down anyway, but even so. Even if I thought some of these measures were necessary I could never stoop to removing the rights of relatives to see their dying loved ones. How can we be so insensitive to this? Isn't showing respect for the recently deceased a basic cornerstone of all civilisation?

I worry this will brutalise society. When you start forcing people to be so cold it will inevitably harden people. When people can't express due emotion towards their closest family members how insensitive will they become towards strangers? We're even hearing stories of politicians and other public figures that have forgone seeing dying parents, grandparents and other relatives because of this. If we're not careful we'll end up with a class of very cold, calculating people.

For normal people this experience will just leave them broken, angry and distraught. They had no real choice in whether they saw their dying relatives or not. They didn't choose to take this route.

..but the politicians and other leaders opted for this. They calculated that this was an acceptable price to pay as part of the pursuit of some 'greater good'. If we don't reflect and turn back from this I fear where we'll end.