January will be the hangover from hell

 Hi All,

So the  national lockdown ends on December 2nd. In order to "save Christmas" ( but not Diwali, Rosh Hashanah, Eid etc) the lockdown will be sufficiently watered down or suspended until 1st January. Covii would like to celebrate Christmas as well you see, so he's taking a two week break. 

The agitation to 'save christmas' has nothing to do with any religious piety, but everything to do with the reality of what Christmas is to most people. It is not a religious festival for most of the nominally Christian population, but a capitalist opportunity for businesses to sell you excess amounts of food, alcohol and to get you to spend way too much money, more than you actually have so bust a credit card doing so, on presents. This is why it is deemed to be important for all sorts of business sectors. The sentimental fluff about visiting people is not why the newspapers, conservative MPs or opinion formers  want to end the lockdown, but because they need advertising revenue from companies during Christmas. Those companies often make the bulk of their profits during this time. And conservative MPs know their party is reliant on business donations. The Prime Minister doesn't want to be a scrooge. He doesn't want to stop Christmas. So instead he hopes that we can pause the virus for two weeks and then deal with it after Christmas. By which time another lockdown will be necessary. 

The trashing of the economy, businesses on their knees, record deficits and high unemployment and families split apart is, we've been told,  for a greater good. That 'greater good'? It's  making sure the NHS doesn't get to over full capacity and for the government to start deciding who gets treatment and who doesn't, To think that this tap can be switched off and then on again- lockdown- undo lockdown for Christmas -  is a joke. They either continue with some form of tier restricted lockdown and make Christmas manageable in the way we did with our festivals and Hindus have done with Diwali or go on with a full lockdown. There's zoom, facebook, All sorts of ways to connect with people. But just to pause these sacrifices - so we can have  a two week bout of drunken, glutton filled and spending more money than you've got - then go back to them- seem to me like a complete waste of time.