Life in the time of Coronavirus | Who is really to blame?

It's been nearly four months since our country first went into lockdown, and as we emerge out of our homes into a phased approach back to normality, it's safe to say that the world around us is virtually unrecognisable. We've all been in our own veritable prisons (some plusher than others) for a long time now, having gone months without seeing friends or family.

Unfortunately, when I say that all of us have, that's sadly not the case. I should really use the word 'all' with a pinch of salt. Because it really hasn't been all of us. It's only been some of us. And this is where things start to look shaky.

Now, I can hand-on-heart say that I have followed the rules to the absolute letter. I had no choice - I had to do it to protect a vulnerable member of my household. I didn't hesitate and had that not been the case, I would have stuck to the rules regardless. I know of others, who for other important reasons had to be flexible with the rules - and I respect their reasons. But there has been a growing feeling that other indiscretions point to a real problem in our society.

On the 28th March, Matt Hancock stood aloft at the podium during the UK's daily coronavirus update and told all who were watching that as a measure of success in our containment of the virus, '20,000 deaths would be a good result for the UK'. At the time, I remember hearing that figure feeling shocked and frightened by that number. Yesterday, the latest death toll reported by the BBC was 43,081 deaths - and that's just those who had tested positive for coronavirus. That number is startling but unfortunately, it's been all too easy to become desensitised to it. It seems in some respects, it's almost not shocking enough (which is shocking in itself).

43,081 is more than double the 20,000 figure touted by the UK government. So ultimately, I can only call it out for what it is - a colossal failure. 

As we start to move into a time where we can begin to reflect on what went so badly wrong for the UK, we can start talking about the reasons why our response has been so utterly shambolic. We could raise how for years, our wonderful NHS has been under-funded and our vital health workers' importance woefully unrecognised. We could talk about how our government completely failed to recognise the seriousness of the virus before it was too late. We could discuss our lack of a robust testing system or, we could talk about how a severe shortage of PPE, which had been raised previously as a threat to the UK being able to handle a pandemic effectively, left thousands of NHS workers unprotected and unable to treat patients properly. 

And as for blame - well the list is virtually endless. We could blame the UK Government as a whole, which would almost be too easy. We could blame Boris Johnson's puppeteer, Dominic Cummings for his unorthodox method of testing his eyesight. We could blame the thousands of protestors who failed to socially distance during the Black Lives Matter protests, although that would be a cheap shot compared to every single person who has flocked in their thousands to parks, beaches, hiking trails and outdoor spaces without any regard for lockdown measures.

The point is, we could point fingers at many people. But I think that the collective who should bear most of the blame is actually us: the 'GREAT' British people.

Where once, the term Great Britain was something to be proud of, I find it now a laughable, mocking concept. One of my colleagues at work encapsulated the attitude perfectly: British Exceptionalism. It's what our government suffers from, it's what people like Dominic Cummings suffers from, and it's what everyone who hasn't obeyed the rules suffers from. 

We see it everywhere, a sort of pompous pride in how we, the 'Great' British public are the best at everything, that we know everything. It's why we're a 'world-leading' nation, a 'great' nation. All of which is emblazoned underneath our Great British flag fluttering in the wind, or in more recent times, taking off in the form of the UK's newest £900,000 paint job, the plane Voyager. In reality, Britain being 'great' couldn't be further from the truth.

From what I've seen over the past few months, to be British nowadays is to have a complete unwillingness to take personal responsibility for other people's safety. It's about thinking you're untouchable and above the rules and culpability. It's about catering to your desires only, not thinking how your actions could affect other people. It's at its core, wanton and reckless selfishness of the highest magnitude. And it's deeply embarrassing.

Through the Black Lives Matter movement, cracks in our version of history have started to emerge, which is an important step forward. We've never been that great. But everything that was truly great about us: our sense of community, our resolve, our pride in civic duty and everyone looking out for each other - that's all a distant memory now. We've embraced individualism too much. And yet, we try to cling onto those old-fashioned ideals in a bid to ignore what's staring at us in the face. The 1966 World Cup being aired again, VE Day street parties (and along with it cringe-inducing conga lines), Vera Lynn making it to number one in the UK Album Charts or Boris Johnson telling us how great country a country we are until he's blue in the face - these are all attempts to brainwash people with motifs and symbols of British nostalgia so we don't realise what we've become: a global laughing stock. 

I see photos on social media of people, gathering with others who I know for a fact do not live in their households, and they're not socially distancing. And I ask myself why they would almost incriminate themselves with hard evidence of them flouting the rules, and I come to the realisation that they simply don't care. And it's these displays of British Exceptionalism that have enraged me so much.

In particular, the images we've seen today of people crowding in places such as Bournemouth (where a State of Emergency was announced) and Glasgow's Kelvingrove Park have been hard to stomach. The litter, the destruction, the lack of common sense - you wonder if there's actually any intelligent life out there anymore or if coronavirus has left us all gormless, brain-dead husks whose only purpose in life is to seek the most crowded beauty spot on a summer's day.

British exceptionalism is a sickness. It's the rotten core of our society. And at this point, I don't know how we overcome it.

I don't want to be in lockdown again. I don't want there to be a second wave. I don't want more people to die. But if all of the above doesn't happen, and by some miracle, we manage to get through this without further repercussions - I will truly be surprised. And whilst you can blame whoever you want, ensuring public safety starts with you. 

I know that I can look back on this time and say to myself that I did everything right. The question is, can you?