This virus situation….. we seem in this country to only just have a loose grip on it, wouldn’t you say?

I’ve spent the weekend in Sevenoaks. It’s the same there as it is everywhere else ( including in my own situation ) in that we all bend the rules to suit ourselves, and that ensures that the virus keeps on spreading. That was brought home to me by chatting to a friend of Lizzy’s who lives in Singapore. He was here because he had been given special dispensation to leave the country to visit a sick elderly relative. On his return to Singapore he’ll be sent immediately ( without passing Go ) to a quarantine hotel where he’ll spend a compulsory 2 weeks. After that he’ll be allowed back into society there… except in Singapore they have a complete handle on virus suppression. No one is allowed to visit another household, and you MUST wear a mask ALL OF THE TIME once you leave home. You keep it on even at work if you work by yourself in your own personal office, and NO ONE has an exemption. In Singapore there have been NO NEW CASES for a month, and there in ONE PERSON IN HOSPITAL with COVID 19. One.. in the whole country!

If you break the rules at all, you are immediately arrested and fined ( I think he said it was a thousand pounds ). If you break the rules and happen to be foreign, you are IMMEDIATELY DEPORTED.

Guess what? Mmmmm, everyone obeys the rules, and short of socialising the country has carried on running pretty normally. They’ll do this until everyone has been vaccinated. The population are behind the measures and there’s no dissent. Everyone can see the endgame, and the logic of the measures.

I compare that to here. I’m currently on a train, and was just talking to the Guard. He spoke about the large numbers of passengers who don’t wear masks, even though it’s the law. The Guard has no absolute authority. All he can do is ASK people to obey the law. He can’t enforce it…. unless there happens to be a member of the Transport Police on board, then EVERYONE breaking the law just gets away with it. To make matters worse there are constant announcements over the tannoy that say that many people are exempt from wearing masks. Why? Why is anyone exempt? It’s a flimsy piece of cloth over you mouth and nose. Why on earth can ANYONE here be exempt from that ? In Singapore there are no exemptions.. so are the humans different in the UK? And what, loads of them are different here? People have some kind of aversion to wearing a bit of cloth? C’mon, seriously? Do those same people refuse to wear scarves around their necks and faces when it’s snowing for example? I very much doubt it. Why do we here just pander so much to the whinging minority… I don’t get it.
In the Welsh borough of Torfaen where I come from, and where most of my family live, 480 people have died of COVID. It’s not even a county, it’s a small area. 480 people… twenty fives times the number that have died in the whole country of Singapore ( 29 to date ).

You couldn’t make it up.