LONDON, U.K. -- The mutant virus is out of control, the country is under another national lockdown—second, third, I’ve lost track—and it’s back to the self-administered trauma of cutting my own hair. A woodpecker comes to mind.
Welcome to Tales from Plague Island.
It only took a single word—mutation—for the world to put a whole country under quarantine. This country. The one where I live and breathe behind a gauzy blue surgical mask and yell at joggers to quit huffing and spitting.
Close the borders. Ground the planes. Lock the doors. Britain’s infected by a new and surging strain of virus and you could be next Canada!
In fact, it’s already spread to more than 30 countries.
There’s a head-spinning blurriness to what’s happened in the last weeks. Boris Johnson canceled Christmas and then suddenly, there were thousands of transport trucks jamming roads to the English Channel—like a mad dash to escape a sinking ship.
That seems so long ago now, so 2020.
Here’s an update then.
Brexit happened and the nation barely noticed, though a defiant neighbor across the street hung a European flag across his doorway.
Prime Minister Johnson called it “an amazing moment for the country” in his New Year’s address. His father Stanley announced that he was applying for a French passport. Explain that one.
The new strain of virus, named B117, swept viciously from the south of England into London where a brand new level of lockdown was imposed—Tier 4.
“It’s out of control,” declared the Health Secretary, rushing from talk show to talk show, scaring the hell out of people, which may have been the unstated goal.
Even so, the prime minister said with absolute certainty that schools would reopen after Christmas. The next day, he closed the schools.
I mean, what’s going on here?
Let’s accept that Johnson is a compulsive over-promiser and hates to disappoint. A man who lives in a universe of daring “moonshots” and “world-beating” exploits.
Nor does he seem put off by the mockery and scathing reaction his multiple U-turns and broken promises inspire.
“Does the prime minister have any idea what he’s doing or where he’s going?” asked the Daily Telegraph. Johnson used to be one of the paper’s star writers.
The pandemic has been like a Biblical flood on his good times parade. For the second time in a year, British hospitals are in danger of being overwhelmed.
In our bingo-land of revolving numbers, we’re told that 1 in 30 Londoners is infected. It makes you look around.
Johnson is now pledging—with “a fair wind in our sails’—that he can deliver vaccines to the 14 million most vulnerable people by the middle of February. That’s two million a week.
Roll up your sleeves Britain, the good times parade is back.
