What does freedom feel like? For to believe the commentators and opinion jockeys, this is freedom day, the day when the Great British Public can go about its normal business without face masks, without social distancing and able to wander into a pub, strike up a conversation at the bar before heading for a casino or night club. This will turn out to be a strange kind of freedom, nothing like the collapse of Communism, the end of the second world war or slavery in the US. And of course the UK will not be free of the fear of infection by Covid and all the risks that come with it.
The government argues that we must learn to live (or perhaps die) with Covid, that it can never be eradicated but that thanks to vaccination, it can be contained; that it is more important for the economy to wake up than to continue with damaging lockdowns. Not everyone will agree. A whole line up of scientists, NHS staff, union leaders and more fear that another wave of unchecked infections must be followed by a rise in hospital cases and inevitably deaths. For many working in offices and factories, including print factories, freedom day comes with more uncertainty. And like the virus itself, we will have to learn with this side effect.
Work from home strategies and the continuation of online meetings and demonstrations will help these members of staff. Different shift patterns will help those that can’t do this, while in the medium term automation to reduce the numbers that need to be around the production equipment at any one time. In the meantime social distancing measures must remain in place along with hygiene routines and regular testing to maintain the freedom so dearly won. In many ways then Freedom Day will not be so different from last week, nor for that matter, next week.
Freedom Day or groundhog day?
What does freedom feel like? For to believe the commentators and opinion jockeys, this is freedom day, the day when the Great British Public can go about its normal business without face masks, without social distancing and able to wander into a pub, strike up a conversation at the bar before heading for a casino or night club. This will turn out to be a strange kind of freedom, nothing like the collapse of Communism, the end of the second world war or slavery in the US. And of course the UK will not be free of the fear of infection by Covid and all the risks that come with it.
The government argues that we must learn to live (or perhaps die) with Covid, that it can never be eradicated but that thanks to vaccination, it can be contained; that it is more important for the economy to wake up than to continue with damaging lockdowns. Not everyone will agree. A whole line up of scientists, NHS staff, union leaders and more fear that another wave of unchecked infections must be followed by a rise in hospital cases and inevitably deaths. For many working in offices and factories, including print factories, freedom day comes with more uncertainty. And like the virus itself, we will have to learn with this side effect.
Work from home strategies and the continuation of online meetings and demonstrations will help these members of staff. Different shift patterns will help those that can’t do this, while in the medium term automation to reduce the numbers that need to be around the production equipment at any one time. In the meantime social distancing measures must remain in place along with hygiene routines and regular testing to maintain the freedom so dearly won. In many ways then Freedom Day will not be so different from last week, nor for that matter, next week.
Gareth Ward
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