Everything wrong with a second lockdown
All this lockdown will do is restrict people and ruin their mental health while allowing for the virus to run wild.
Right now, I feel very helpless and a little bit mugged off. After watching the announcements which were made on Saturday evening, I cannot help but feel as if Boris is still not taking the issue at hand seriously. Going into a second lockdown with the hope of saving Christmas at this point is useless and will not make much of a difference, people are just going to have to understand that Christmas this year will not be the same and as unfair as that is for some, many people this year have experienced holidays during lockdown that just weren’t what they had hoped for. Many people celebrated important birthdays, religious holidays and some people even had to go through the birth of their child, alone. The world right now isn’t great but no amount of lockdowns will help that anymore.
One of my biggest issues with this lockdown is that kids will still be going to school and many people will still be going to work. Can someone please try to explain to me how it makes sense that children are fine to walk into a building with over 1000 other students inside and then stay there for 6 hours a day but I can no longer see my friends. University students across the country are being forced to do a majority if not all of their work online due to the risk involved with coming onto campus but for some reason this risk magically doesn’t apply to the younger generation who are in school. Making masks mandatory within schools doesn’t apply any line of defence since many of them will be removing said masks during lunch and break times to eat or even during class to have a drink. Kids sat in a classroom with up to 30 other students for an hour at a time will result in spreading of the virus. Most classrooms are already purpose built to be able to hold a certain amount of students meaning that they will not be able to social distance either. I don’t understand why I am locked away and only allowed out for essential shopping but people are still in school. Children can still get Covid, children can still be carriers of the virus, children can take the virus home and infect their families, but for some reason it feels as if Boris just doesn’t understand this.
I can understand that children cannot be restricted from learning for any longer, that the extended summer break has already impacted many students and young children. However, students are able to learn online, worksheets can be sent to them, classes can be held via zoom or the multitude of other platforms which have been developed to aid online teaching, and as much as it’s not as interactive as face to face teaching it prevents anyone from contracting the virus.
Who will take care of the kids? Who will help them while they are sat at home learning?
Well personally I cannot understand why some people are still being made to go to work if they cannot work from home. Anyone who cannot work from home should be given time off. Kids should not be sent to school and their parents should be at home with them.
All of this is not me agreeing with a lockdown may I add, although I seem to be very persistent that kids should be at home, that’s not entirely my stance. I believe that if a lockdown occurs it is rendered useless if people are still going to school and work.
In the first place, lockdown shouldn’t be happening again.
Mental health is a subject which has gained a lot of awareness of the past couple of years. Lockdown badly affects people’s mental health. I can speak from personal experience and say that over the course of lockdown earlier this year my mental health deteriorated to the point where I had to visit a hospital.
Many people are trapped in abusive households and are cut off from their support network and although Boris states that we are able to have ‘bubbles’ it is so much easier now more than ever for abusers to cut their victims off from the rest of the world. Many people don’t realise that this is not just limited to abusive relationships but also can apply to family members or housemates. The Samaritans did an amazing article summarising the keys issues many of their callers were facing over the course of lockdown.
People are struggling and realistically the outcome of this lockdown will not be the desired one. Cases will not go down, deaths will not go down, people will still contract the virus with schools being breeding grounds for the virus. When are children able to wash their hands during a 7-hour school day — during breaks and lunch? 1000+ students rushing into the limited school bathrooms during one 15-minute break in order to wash their hands, does that sound feasible?
All this lockdown will do is restrict people and ruin their mental health while allowing for the virus to run wild.
