LETTER TO THE KIDS
Hi Guys – good to get your texts and the odd phone call – hope you’re all adapting to this unusual time. Well, since I’m probably home most of the time, it’s not really that unusual for me, but it is hard for Mum because she loves to get out and about with her mates – and away from me.
Like the polio virus that swept the world when Mum and I were kids, this epidemic is a bad one and not to be taken lightly. But in the long term it’s likely to be with us for the long term, an annual visitor like regular flu, for which we’ll get a jab. Or it might be dealt with in the same way as MMR.
The trick now is to flatten the curve of Covid19 infection as it emerges in the community, like that creature in that scene from Alien, to give us time to get fully prepared to deal with its big-time onslaught later, which will come!
A plasma product, developed from the blood of people who have recovered from the virus, is being developed and may not be too far away, but a proven vaccine is likely to take longer, because of the time it takes to prove it’s proven.
Because Covid19 has such a long gestation period in someone infected, before symptoms start showing, the virus had time to get established here some weeks before we realized it.
And because the damn thing is so infectious, requiring us to trace all those who have been in touch with the infected person, and to trace all their contacts as well, so we have to have this lockdown, to slow the spread to give us time to catch up.
Things are going to get worse before they get better, but don’t let that overwhelm you and don’t become frightened to live your lives. Practice all the keep safe protocols, keep things in perspective and you’ll be OK.
And while you’re keeping yourselves safe, don’t forget the grocery workers, corner dairy and vege shop operators, market gardeners, horticulturists and farmers, meat processors, delivery truck drivers, food manufacturers, nurses, doctors, cops and essential services personnel and even the odd politician, who are all still working, to make us being safe, possible.
We’re experiencing the same fears the gay community did when Aids loomed as such a terrible threat to them, and as Ebola did to all those living in Africa. Sadly back then many of us weren’t as concerned as we should have been, because we didn’t feel personally threatened, but now we are.
The statistics of this virus suggest that, excepting for those over 60, the mortality rate is actually quite low, but it’s the lag time between infection and detection, that’s the problem. That’s when the virus is so easily passed on, and when, without this lockdown, it could so easily be passed to everyone in the community and probably wipe out most of us oldies, and a few of you lot too
And while we’re working to beat this thing, give some thought to what we can learn from it, particularly how cooperation and caring for each other, not greed and meanness, is going to get us through, and how we might try and keep those principles alive when later we come to rebuild our lives, businesses, communities and our country, when coronavirus is conquered
But for now – if you want to keep your baby sitters, grandkid minders, your sources of tried and true recipes, baby care and child-rearing advice, knitting, home handyman help, fresh garden veges and a reliable fishing trip buddy, with a boat, and who knows where the big ones are, stay away from us.
Love Mum and Dad
To note:
And while you’re keeping yourselves safe, don’t forget the grocery workers, corner dairy and vege shop operators, market gardeners, horticulturists and farmers, meat processors, delivery truck drivers, food manufacturers, nurses, doctors, cops and essential services personnel and even the odd politician, who are all still working, to make us being safe, possible…
And while we’re working to beat this thing, give some thought to what we can learn from it, particularly how cooperation and caring for each other, not greed and meanness, is going to get us through, and how we might try and keep those principles alive when later we come to rebuild our lives, businesses, communities and our country, when coronavirus is conquered
So do take this Daniel Dunkley seriously. This is the last thing we want for our kids – to be stuck on a planet where you have been displaced by bloody machines; where to do anything that involves someone else, you have to register at some point with a machine. and which can detect a rude word and an up-pointed finger from space.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/better-business/120587848/cashierless-stores-and-online-deliveries-are-the-future-of-supermarket-shopping
Cashierless stores and online deliveries are the future of supermarket shopping –
In Seattle, Amazon has just launched its first Amazon Go supermarket with “Just Walk Out” technology.
High-tech sensors identify what you pick up from the aisles, so you can grab your groceries and go. Customers get a receipt five minutes later, and no cashiers are needed.
Jeff Bezos’ e-commerce giant is a trailblazer with the new technology, and is set to launch more stores soon.
Amazon has adapted its shopping system so other retailers can use it, meaning more grocers are likely to embrace checkout-free shopping in the years to come.
An Amazon supermarket in London’s Notting Hill is lined up as one of the next pilot stores.
That sounds great for Johnson’s post-Brexit economy and the UK young people – who are employed and have no sense of risk.
I say to think of people like lettuces, great when they are fresh but left at the back of the shelf they go rotten and mouldy. Now that isn’t a nice future for the majority of young people, and knowing there was no love to go around in society, that if you got off the gravy train there would be nothing but ignominy for you, you would harden your heart to others. We are on the way already with people not caring about those who can’t get even a stable to lay their heads in. Grim, grim, grim – much grimmer than the old Grimms Fairy Tales which tended to seem dire, but not when you actually hold our lives up to the light and really see the bad that we can do, without even trying.