Lock down week 7; at last the adults are in charge...

On Saturday Tobermory was still and quiet; we were still keeping our distance there were no visitors, no cruise ships, I had the ferry, "Loch Tarbert" to myself again and the inshore fishing boats were tied up in harbour. The economy is in stasis but we are all trying to stay safe.

Back in February The UK government bumbled along complacently despite what was happening in the rest of the World and warnings from health experts here, rather like the Trump administration in the US. We lost the initiative by acting too late.

We are now in week 7 of "lock down" and  have the highest Covid19 death rate in Europe, over 40,000. The government is keen to open up the economy  to get people back to work and on Sunday 10th May the UK Prime Minister (Boris Alexander de Pefeffel Johnson) presented us with a road map showing how  his government would deal with the next phase and open up the economy. I don't think any of us are any wiser or safer.

Inshore fishing boats tied up in harbour

Johnson's prescription could be seen as an attempt to shift responsibility from his government on to us as individuals by exhorting us to, "Be alert" what ever that means in this situation.

Meanwhile... nurses and doctors still don't have the personal protective equipment they need and we don't seem to have an effective testing and tracing system.

In Scotland our devolved government has it's own policy....... no change, we stay at home and only essential workers go to work. There are some adults in charge at last!

The first priority of any government has to be the safety and health of it's citizens ( subjects in our case) the economy although vitally important has to take second place. Unlike in the USA where the Trump administration with the pandemic not yet under control and heading for over 100,000 deaths seems to favour the economy over it's citizens safety. Trump isn't alone in passing the buck;  it also looks as if Vladimir Putin is shuffling off responsibility for Russia's Covid19 problems on to the country's regional governors.