Much is being made in the press here in the Netherlands about the psychological damage corona, and the resultant lockdowns, is causing, especially among young people.
Terms like ‘scarred for life’ are being bandied around with abandon. A panel of teenagers interviewed on the radio today were asked the question, “And who feels more lonely this year?” It makes me wonder if we aren’t creating this problem by asking that very question!
Since the first lockdown began in March of this year – nine months ago – I have set foot in only one other person’s house. I wasn’t able to go to the cinema for my birthday, and almost all my non-essential shopping has been done online. I have seen a few of my friends at the church where, as an organist, I was part of the team providing streamed services or, during the summer, services for a maximum of 30 worshippers. I think I have spoken to my next door neighbour twice in all that time. In the apartment block where I live, we all give each other a wide berth in the stairwell and entrance hall where the letterboxes are.
I retired a couple of months ago, but in the preceding months I worked from home, only going to the office a couple of times since the first lockdown began. Even my leaving ‘do’ was done online, which was quite surreal. An hour or so online, opening presents sent on by courier and openly drinking wine instead of the normal coffee, and then my working days were over.
I have applied for citizenship here since I have no intention of returning to a post-Brexit Britain, but if it is granted, there will be no citizenship ceremony due to corona restrictions. Instead I will take the oath of allegiance at the counter in the Town Hall, rather in the same way the ‘free’ civil marriage option is done one morning a week. You can also only be accompanied by two other people when attending the Town Hall – so that will be my lodger (same household, thus ‘safe’) and one friend.
Am I depressed? No. I belong to a generation of Brits familiar with the expression “wartime spirit”. My parents lived through the second world war and knew how to ‘grin and bear it.’
By the time daily life starts returning to normal post-corona, due to the advent of vaccinations, it will have been more than a year of unusual and unprecedented restrictions.
Young people, normally berated in ‘peace time’ for excessive use of their phones and apps to keep in touch with each other, have found the digital solutions unsatisfactory during the lockdowns! However, I do think that the populist reaction of feeling hard done by could be tempered with a bit more patience and resolve. Nobody asked for a pandemic, any more than one prays for a severe storm. Shit happens, only this time on a global scale.
Corona does not discriminate and does not observe public holidays. The death toll worldwide is just under 2 million. One such death this week touched me when I read about it. A newly elected US congressman, who had a wife and two children, was tested positive for the virus on 18th December. He was admitted to hospital the next day, and after just 4 days transferred to intensive care. Less than 2 weeks after his test, he died. His age? Just 41.
Many of those flouting the ‘measures’ to combat corona are young people, often, I suspect, under the impression that only ‘old’ people – who would have died anyway – succumb to Covid-19. Many more are in their 30s and 40s and object to heavy-handedness by governments. This chap did not live to see out his 40s. He must have been talented and popular to win a local election – but corona does not discriminate.
While I am on the subject, the vaccination programme in the Netherlands is causing much debate. The only EU country not to have started administering a vaccine seems to be prevaricating. I accept that the original programme envisaged was based on a vaccine that did not have to be stored at sub-zero temperatures, and that the government is having to re-think the order of the groups to get the jab.
One thing sticks in my gullet however. The priority groups selected for the corona vaccination were as follows: patients and carers in geriatric, handicap and home health care, then 60 plussers, then onder 60s with underlying medical conditions, and then general health care workers, and so on. That put me in the second group. Now, representatives of hospitals and health care workers in general are arguing that they should be first, so that there are sufficient numbers to man all the posts in the hospitals. Interestingly, historical anecdotal evidence shows that health care workers generally prefer not to have the annual flu jab – but then flu does not achieve the same global morbidity rates.
Don’t get me wrong, it is a valid argument, and hospitals already have the freezers necessary to store the vaccine now available. My problem is this: only a few weeks ago, a poll among hospital staff showed that 1/3rd were prepared to be vaccinated, 1/3rd did not want to be vaccinated, and 1/3rd were undecided. The acceptance has since moved to around 60%, but my point is that many in the 60 plus age group were already determined to be vaccinated – myself among them.
I have been restricting my life for 9 months to try and avoid becoming infected, and have openly said for ages that I would respond immediately to a call to be vaccinated. Some nurses and doctors have gone on camera and said they do not wholly trust the safety or effectiveness of the vaccine. I try and keep up with opinions (both scientific and lay) and I can find little evidence to support these misgivings.
I would actually be in favour of vaccination being a condition of employment for health care workers. If I were suddenly hospitalised now, I wouldn’t want to have to ask each nurse or doctor who attended me if they had refused the vaccine. Indeed, I would hope that they had all done what they could to avoid transmitting corona.
Vaccination programmes for infants have beaten back diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, and polio[1]. The vast majority of parents accept this. Smallpox is also an example of a disease totally eradicated by vaccination. Health care workers in the front line should accept vaccination against corona too. If they do not, they should be withdrawn from the front line.
This isn’t the moment to debate the practices of pharmaceutical companies that make huge profits from much needed medicines. If history shows that they have profited unfairly from their sales of corona vaccine, they will face judgement and curbs in the future. However, we need their expertise and ability to fight a pandemic that we are otherwise losing due to small minorities ignoring basic guidance and ‘measures’.
A century ago, the so-called Spanish Flu claimed many more lives. Science has advanced somewhat since then; let us grasp that knowledge with both hands and use it to beat back the corona virus. And when we are prioritising those that should be vaccinated first, let us not ignore those who have been patiently waiting at home for this moment. I don’t mind giving up my place in the queue for a health care worker that needs the vaccine, but I do expect them to actually want what I am still waiting for.
[1] Young people today will not know much about polio. When I was young, I knew a few survivors personally who had escaped with minor limitations to their daily life. Go back one more generation and the term ‘iron lung’, a metal coffin-like machine where only your head stuck out, and which enabled polio sufferers to breathe, was still common. Western Europe was only declared polio-free in 2002, and only as a result of a global vaccination programme.
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