More pandemic speak

 In the seemingly never ending progress of Covid 19 new terms and buzz words keep popping onto the scene. 

As I write in October 2020 the phrase to be heard and read everywhere is ' local lockdown ' It has a melodious sound to it but the reality is not appealing. The idea is to restrict the inhabitants of a specific area in the way they can interact  with each other So you may be banned from meeting people from other households indoors and restricted to a number who can meet outdoors.  Similarly you should sit in cafés and restaurants only with those in your household.

The decision to lock down is based on the rate of the R Number . This means the rate t which one person with Covid 19  will infect others. The idea is to keep the number down to 1. If it claims as it has to 1.6 or 1.7 then the virus is spreading more quickly.

Here in Wales we are told not to leave our local authority area except for named purposes such as work, medical needs, caring for someone vulnerable or education. Our lives then continue with strict geographical boundaries and it becomes important to know whether a certain large store or garden centre say is within the county boundaries. We are fortunate in having coastline in the area where I live together with pleasant rural areas and a couple of attractive small towns so it could be worse. 

In England a  tier  system  has been introduced and this is a frequently  under discussion in the media  now. There are three tiers with three being the one used for the area with the most cases of covid 19 and where restrictions will be greater such as closure of bars and pubs . As of today only Liverpool is in tier three  but other cities like Manchester are said to be not far behind. 

Some scientists are calling for a ' circuit breaker ' which is a national lockdown of two to three weeks such as we had in the spring , the aim being to stop the spread of the virus. Of course as we have seen this virus has a knack of sneakily re - appearing just when you thought it had gone away so ultimately would that succeed in stopping its progress ? I think not.  Politicians have now climbed up on to this bandwagon which is unfortunate as at a time of crisis we do need to be working together. The economic  consequences of total lockdown are so terrible that any government must hesitate before imposing one.

The 4 nations of the U.K are no longer following the same strategies. So Northern Ireland is going into a strict lockdown  tomorrow which entails closing of pubs, bars and restaurants and , significantly , schools. The government  of  Wales is trying to prevent people who live in covid hotspots   from travelling to areas of Wales with low incidences of Covid and are trying to enforce this order from tomorrow. Who knows how they are going to enforce this .

We are all encouraged to download the NHS app which is tracking the cases of covid 19 in proximity to you. This is hoped to be an important weapon  in the identifying of infected people. These strategies come under the heading of track and trace .

Stop Press. Mark Drakeford, the First Minister of Wales is calling for   a  firebreak   to stop the spread of the pandemic, meaning a short sharp lockdown where people are encouraged to work from home. Seems he plans to start it on the 23rd of October.  It's just another way of saying  circuit breaker I think.

Another word which has become very common when talking about the fast growth of  case numbers in the pandemic is exponentially.  What did we use because this word became the go to adjective ?


The language will keep on growing and adapting as it should. I hope I don't have to revisit this blog too many times though.