A short, sharp shock

News leaked yesterday of there being consideration given to a circuit breaker lockdown either over or after the half term school holiday in October.

This was denied by the Department of Education, or the denial was for the school holiday period only, noter before or after.

Yesterday there were 209 deaths, a surge in the rolling 7 day average of 39.2%! Tis might be due to deaths being recorded over the weekend, but even taken into account, that is a short haul aircraft full of passengers, dead.

Piper Alpha, Hillsborough, Valley Parade, Herald of Free Enterprise are remembered decades later due to the death tolls, and yet most are less than 209. Its just they were accompanied by dramatic pictures.

209 deaths are a statistic, 97 deaths at a football match is a story with dramatic pictures. Not to mention the cover up.

Back in school, I remember watching a documentary on how BBC news reported on the meeting of OPEC which resulted in the reduction is supply of crude oil, causing the crisis in 1973. Pitures of people in Arab dress getting out of big black cars and walking into buildings was about it, and I think that as none of those deaths were accompanied by pictures of a car or plane crash, twisted wreckage, it gets mentioned as a number, not the fact it leaves families behind, shattered and broken.

And now on Wednesday, 191 have died, with another nearly 39k freshly infected.

We are not out of this yet, never were, but the Government gave up, the country gave up. Now the dead are just an afterthought, something to mention, in passing, before the football results or the final feel good story of the day.