It’s been about two months since the start of the lockdown. We manage. A routine has emerged, adults have worked out a system to both get homeschooling and a bit of work done, daughter seems to be doing well, she’s not at an age where she questions things too much, or has more than superficial friendships. None of us have gotten sick (yet?).

But the UK is not doing great. Excess deaths per million are second only to Spain. Lockdown is being relaxed as a dubious political move - an attempt to make people forget about Dominic Cumming’s irresponsible behaviour.

I do not think that relaxing lockdown is a good plan. I’m also not sure it’s a bad plan. My point is more that we don’t know. There’s just not enough data to say that the worst is over and that we can go back to normal now. Testing has never reached a hundred thousand a day, the contact tracing app never got to full-scale deployment (thankfully, it was a privacy nightmare) - there’s no way to tell how many infectious people are still out there, and how far we are in or out of the woods.

It’s not like the current government inspires confidence. The guidelines from Westminster are ambiguous and more changeable than the weather - which is unfailingly sunny these days. One has to wonder whether the cabinet members are committed to solving this crisis, or if they find this pandemic convenient to hide various going-ons regarding to Brexit. Human rights, immigration guidelines, a power grab by the executive (where is parliament)? Worse, some might see an ongoing pandemic - topped by a no-deal brexit - like the opportunity to engage in some cheeky disaster capitalism. Say, shorting british stocks or selling off public assets for untraceable commissions and favours amongst friends. With a side benefit that demonstrating that democracy doesn’t work, so maybe it’s time to try something else?

The other alternative is that we’re dealing with extreme Peter principle - those people were ok-ish as MPs, maybe fine as one-issue campaigners, undoubtedly great at sucking up to the right people - but are hopelessly out of their depth when managing a country, let alone a major crisis. All too plausible.

Whatever the case may be, I (we?) don’t trust them to do the right thing. Whether through incompetence or malignancy or a combination of both, the end is not yet in sight. The longer this goes on, the more casualties. The more economic casualties. The more suffering. The more boredom.

I’m fortunate in that I don’t have any relatives or close friends who have caught COVID-19. I don’t fear for my health, at least not from this bug. Statistics are favourable for my age range, I’m fairly fit, and so are the other people of my household. I can work from home. But I missed attending my mother’s seventy-first birthday celebration, and I’ve never held my cousin’s baby son. While this is going on, no sane country will let british residents travel without quarantine. I’d like to go back to having a drink with friends or colleagues. I’d like to have my daughter back in school, adequately socialized, in a normal setting, taught by patient professionals rather than harried parents.

We soldier on, armed with disinfectant wipes, soap and social distance, and wait for sanity to prevail. We’re on our own.