Andy Richardson: Britain remains united during crisis
The light turned green, the door pinged open and suddenly I was in.
In non-Covid-19 times, gaining access to the office might not cause an adrenalin rush. But these are not normal times and going to work brings a frisson of excitement.
Before anyone imagines I’ve done a Robert Jenrick, I have a letter permitting travel. Journalists are on the Government’s essential worker list – though I know my place and binmen, hospital porters and sewage workers are all more important. I visited work to obtain essential files, met no-one on the way and obeyed the rules.
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A colleague was at his desk too. We exchanged polite greetings and maintained a two-metre distance. Before sitting I took out an anti-bac wipe to clean my hands. The whiff of disinfectant hit my nose and I spent the next four hours smelling like a hospital, without the grapes and flowers.
Visiting the office was a return to more innocent times; before we found ourselves facing the worst economic crash in 300 years and before it became normal for the daily death toll to exceed that of the 10-week Falklands War by three times. Every. Single. Day.
Covid-19 is spreading like wildfire in more than 2,000 care homes. The elderly are dying alone in their beds. The Government is not yet publishing care home deaths alongside statistics for hospital mortality. Credible economic forecasts predict the economy is facing the worst hit since 1709 – worse even than The Great Depression of the 1930s. Unemployment is set to rise above the levels endured during Thatcher’s Britain. House prices are expected to fall by between 12 per cent and 20 per cent. And shaking hands is now more dangerous than placing a lit firework beside a fuel tanker.
And yet Britain is stoic, Britain is united. NHS staff and care home workers are applauded from the doorstep. The inspirational 99-year-old Captain Tom Moore has raised many millions for NHS charities.
Severe challenges remain. Businesses are folding. Despite rent holidays and furlough, despite Universal Credit and bank loans, many people cannot put food on the table. Authors in science predict social distancing may be in place until 2022 unless new treatments or a vaccine are found.
My colleague left the office, offering the contemporary cliché: ‘Stay safe’. We’d survived the first three weeks of lockdown. Every little counts.
