Anyway, today is another day. Here we go.
I find myself wondering if some members of our government live in a fantasy world when they come out with things like this, from Matt Hancock during the daily briefing:
“I want to tell you what we've been doing to protect people in care homes throughout the crisis. (From 2 March to 1 May 2020, there were 12,526 care home deaths involving coronavirus.)
Right from the start, it's been clear that this horrible virus affects older people most. So right from the start we've tried to throw a protective ring around our care homes.”
Or maybe they just manipulate the truth. I am reminded of some of my former students coming up with explanations about the (lack of) progress in their coursework!
How do they sleep at night?
Then, in the middle of all the other madness going on at present, we have the religious nuts. My friend Colin wrote in his blog yesterday about Somali imams who are saying that muslims are immune to the coronavirus. Well, today I read about American Christians. According to this article “Fifty-five per cent of American believers say they feel at least somewhat that God will protect them from being infected.
Evangelical Protestants are more likely than those of other religious backgrounds to say they believe that, with 43% saying so strongly and another 30% saying so somewhat, while Catholics and mainline Protestants are more closely split on feeling that way or not.”
There are a lot of believers in the USA, some 82% of the population apparently. I really don’t know what percentage of the UK population would declare themselves believers.
Anyway, it seems that about 2/3 of American believers think that with the virus God is telling humanity to change how we live.
Well, yes, I could go along with the need to change bit. I might not need a deity to tell me so.
The virus hasn’t changed people’s beliefs much, it seems, despite its having killed some 80,000 American citizens. 2% say they believe in God today, but did not before. Fewer than 1% say they do not believe in God today but did before.
(I wonder if the virus, and the government’s handingling of it, has prompted any to want change the way they vote - in both the ISA and the UK.)
It’s easy to poke a little fun at the beliefs of other countries. So what about the leader of the Catholic church here in the UK? Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, has apparently said that Catholic churches should be allowed to open sooner than Pentecostal churches and mosques. This is because catholic believers, he explained, are more likely to want to go in alone to pray.
That smacks to me a little of holier-than-thou. And surely, if your god is listening to you it shouldn’t matter if you speak to him from the church or from your home or from the bottom of your garden!
Okay, enough of that.
The Health Service Journal on the 15 May 2020 reported that NHS staff in London have been warned by national regulators not take part in public protests asking for a payrise. It seems that there was an email about a “spontaneous” protest involving 10 protesters holding a banner which said ‘We saved Boris. Now give us a pay rise’. The gist of the message was that protesting at the current time could adversely affect public confidence.
It’s a bit more let’s-not-rock-the-boat stuff.
We finished yesterday with a nice evening walk, the sun having finally come out after a rather gloomy day.
Today’s forecast suggests that the current gloom might also give way to a bit of sunshine later.
On the menu yesterday was rainbow trout on a bed (as the best cookery writers say) of potatoes, onions and peppers, accompanied by a very nice glass of Albariño wine. Today is simpler: soup and leftovers and salad.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone.
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