How come yous arnae wearing masks?
More to the point, how come I’m not wearing one either?
Genuinely, I dinnae get it. Are we not meant to have “learned” to live with Covid? There hasn’t been very much learning happening, I dinnae think.
The whole time we all sat at home and stewed through the umpteen lockdoons, the chat wis fleein about around the subject of “whit we can learn from this pandemic?”.
All sorts of guid stuff would emerge, we convinced wirsels. And some of it has.
Whit huv we actually ‘learned from Covid’?
We thought that workin’ from home would be a more constant reality after lockdoon.
That’s certainly been the case. Most job advertisements I’ve seen have given “hybrid working negotiable” as a stipulation of the gig. Guid.
A better work/life a balance was spoken about at length too. All those valuable hours spent at home with the family minded us of the importance of love and proximity to wir ain wee clan.
From informal conversations I’d say that many folk are indeed choosing to spend more time with family ahead of their careers. Also, guid.
But the one thing everybody I spoke to over the lockdoons was sure of, the one absolute nailed-on change to the world as we kent it that’d emerge from Covid was this: we’d be way more sensible with wir health.
One pal of mine said: “Noo and again ye turn up tae Tannadice, sit doon, and some auld boy behind ye starts up wi’ this mingin phlegmy cough.
“Ye dinnae dae anything about it. Just sit there and think ‘well that’s me got the cold then.’ And sure enough, a couple days on and you’re coughin’ an sneezin’ yersel.
“We just wilnae dae that: folk will stick on a mask when they’ve got the cold. Or if they’re ill they’ll just no go to a busy place.”
Others said more or less the same. Masks and hand gel. Total game changer.
We dinnae need to just be sickly, nebs dreepin, sair heids, wabbit for whole chunks of the year. We can stop spreading these common auld infections we’ve been passing round for centuries. Progress!
Well. That really hasnae panned oot.
‘Stay home’ isn’t just a slogan, Steve
Dafties wi’ colds insist on coming into my various places of work, even when we now ken there’s absolutely nae need. If ye’re contagious, stay home. Work from there.
We managed for twa year of a pandemic without ye here, Steve. We can make it through another 3 days. Take yer hackin’ hoast and yer tootin’ snoot and get away fae me. Mankit.
But there’s worse happening than that.
I ken a couple folk personally that tested positive, but have still been doing things like going to the barbers, sitting in the pub wi’ folk, doing their messages – wi’ no mitigation at all!
No even having the decency to tell the folk they’re wi’ that they’ve the Covid.
Masks. There wis folk that loved them. There wis folk hated them. And there were thousanss like me ans you that didnae really mind either way. But they are gone.
I’ve never been oot gigs, events, trains and cafes this past week, and aside from yer occasional tourist, ye just didnae see any masks.
Hand sanitiser anaa, it’s evaporatit from gyms, nobody uses it at the supermarket anymore. We just stot aboot wi’ oor clarty mits spreading infections like the bad auld days pre-Covid.
And now Scotland has taken the first dunt of a new strain of Covid that’s got just about everybody in my WhatsApp contacts tested positive and feelin’ gey ropey.
Gigs are called off as stars fall sick, pals are doon and oot, the puir sowels that have complex health needs already are back to keichin themselves every time a body sneezes near them.
It isn’t the ill months of peak Covid. But it’s a new, shite reality where everything is subject to change and yer health is far from guaranteed.
It’s not just folk – the Tories need to ‘learn from Covid’ too
It is of course exacerbated by the weirdo Tory policy of gettin rid of free tests from the chemists, so nobody kens if they’ve Covid or a cauld until its ower late.
And then without clear instructions to folk that do test positive, they are oot there cuttin’ aboot, making the rest of us sick.
And we’ve ditched wir twa basic defences of hand sanitiser and face masks.
Without them, we’re like a boxer stood aboot the ring wi’ his chin jutting oot an his hauns doon at his waist. We’re askin’ for a chapped pus.
It’s a sair ane. How can we no just pop on a wee mask when we ken Covid rates are high, same as we pop on a jaicket when the weather report tells us rain’s comin’?
Free tests. Normalise masks. Publish regular Covid level updates like weather reports so we ken where about and when we have to be a bitty more cautious.
I’m happy to keep livin’ wir lives. Ye couldn’t get us back into lockdoon wi’ a shotgun at me heid.
But I do think that “learning to live with Covid” should involve a bitty more learning.
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