The world turned upside down

When Lin Manuel Miranda wrote the song Yorktown (The world turned upside down), he was writing of a time of war and revolution with political orders being overthrown. He certainly wasn’t considering a global pandemic. For the last few days though, the song has been going round and round in my head and I think it is fair to say that for many of us across the globe, the world really has turned upside down. 

I live in the U.K. and I can remember starting to hear in early January the news reports from China. It was terrible but seemed so far away at the time. As Covid-19 started its insidious creep across Europe, I started to feel more concerned. We cut out a few planned trips to London in February and I made sure my youngest daughter had  hand sanitiser for school. Then it started to get worse through March and picked up speed like a steamroller out of control on a hill. My oldest daughter’s firm introduced home working. Company after company announced closures and panic buying hit the shops while the government continued to tell us to sing happy birthday and wash our hands. My daughter’s athletics club shut and British Athletics stopped the track season. Then schools shut and finally the government introduced a vague and inconsistent lockdown.

Here we are four weeks later from that day. There have been a few highs and sadly many lows. Highs have included the weekly clap on Thursdays for the NHS and caters. Most of my road joins in and I must admit I was surprised at how moving I find it and the sense of community it gives. There is still a little part of me that wonders how many of my neighbours voted Tory though and agreed without policies of starving the NHS of cash investment. Let’s hope their newfound appreciation makes them think again at the next election.

Low points have included a friend texting me that her mum had died. Hearing of people dying alone in hospital without family members and funerals being held over FaceTime because of restrictions. The rising death toll of NHS workers and the confusing shortages of PPE. All while the media focused on Boris Johnson and his recovery.

One thing literally made me shop in my tracks yesterday. The U.K. death toll of 596 was announced and I thought to myself “ Oh that’s good” because it had fallen. In a normal situation 596 deaths would be a huge unforgettable tragedy. This showed  me how frighteningly easy it is to normalise tragedy. We cannot become accustomed to this but at the same time it is often hard to visualise the scale of this horror.

People are finding lockdown hard even though many European countries had imposed a tougher lockdown than the U.K. social media is full of people saying that they can’t wait to get back to normal. I hope we don’t as normal wasn’t working. We need to build a new kind of normal with a society where people will look after each other. Homelessness and food banks shouldn’t be acceptable. A universal basic income needs to be introduced to alleviate the poverty trap. People need to care more about others rather than materialistic goals and social media profiles. The pandemic is not going to go away quickly. But it will go eventually. Let’s hope that we can aspire to a better world after and a better normal where people are recognised more for what they do than for the size of their paycheque or their celebrity status. 

We can also do this. Think of others, be kind, support others, educate yourself about the people who lead us and make wise choices. Don’t go back to normal, move forward to a better normal for everyone.