DOOM
And not the good kind, involving a BFG9000. Here is why I said what I said the other day, according to The Swamp.
So when can we expect to get back to normal? Do we just have to stick out the winter, before Health Secretary Matt Hancock's "cavalry" - a vaccine, mass testing, better treatments - arrives, and everything is fine?
Or will Covid be with us for years, even decades, to come?
"We might be back to some semblance of normality by summer time next year," says Prof Julian Hiscox, from the University of Liverpool. "But we won't be 'back to 2019' for five years," he predicts.
...
Some degree of social distancing is likely to continue even with a vaccine next year, says Prof Hiscox, but it will be "less stringent". He also believes at-risk groups may still need to "shelter" themselves, or take extra precautions, because of uncertainty about the amount of protection.
"What you might not be able to do is be an 18-year-old back from university who goes and hugs granny who is 85," he says.
But he warns that going back to normality will require a vaccine that both stops people getting sick and prevents them spreading the virus. That, he says, will take five years.
"For most people," says Prof Woolhouse, "I suspect life has changed to some degree forever, I don't think there is a going back.
"There is a 'new normal'."
In his optimistic view, that means there's sufficient immunity to make transmission rates low, so there is no "crisis", but we would still need to keep wearing face coverings, be extra careful with hand hygiene and socially distance.
REPEAT AFTER ME:
This is not "the new normal". It is not even remotely close to "normal". It is not "normal" in any way, and must never be considered as such.
"Normal" is 2019.
When the last Coronatarian restriction has been rescinded, when the last Orwellian phrase such as "social distancing" and "the new normal" has been confined to the dustbin of history, when the last cuck-muzzle has been cast to the purifying flames of Liberty, then - and only then - will we be "back to 2019", and back to normal.
Then, and only then, will the conditions return under which my life can be kickstarted.
And I hold out little hope that it will ever arrive.
Only a few days ago, I had to tell all my family that if any of them died, I could not go to the funeral - there'd be little point if I couldn't actually be inside the building to watch the proceedings; likewise, if any of them divorced and remarried, I wouldn't be at the wedding, and if any of them won a huge award, I wouldn't be at the ceremony. And I told them in no uncertain terms that if I was the one to die, they should fling my lifeless body off the nearest cliff (somewhere like Hunstanton by that time), let the sea do its work, and say no more about it. It is now not only that I have not lived a life that is worthy of a funeral in the first place, but it is no longer possible to get to that stage.
And on top of all that, America is about to elect Kamala Harris as the 47th President, by fair means or foul. I watched as much of the election coverage as I could, until about 3:30 am, on ITV - thinking that they'd be considerably less likely to be cheerleading for the Democrats, but despite the presence of the odd Trumpist, it's obvious whose side they were on. I can only speculate that it'd have been the same on Sky News as well, and I don't need to mention what the BBC thinks.
There was evidence along the way that The Swamp's predictions for Democrat victories here, there and everywhere (including Texas - seriously?) were misguided, because, as we have all known for at least four years now, one side cannot say what they want without reprisals (actual violence, or loss of job, house, family, friends and everything meaningful), while the other side proudly shouts their dedication to "the right side of history" from the rooftops. The polls are skewed in one direction. But unless The Swamp has got it really wrong this time, the last bastion of Liberty is about to be extinguished. President Sleepy Joe is going to bring in a lot more Coronatarianism to the country we all thought was least likely to accept it, but if one thing's even more certain, he's going to die within the next Presidential term and if it's him in the White House, then the United States of America becomes the United States of Tumblr.
Canada will applaud in a docile, Trudeau-approved way, right up until the point where Vladimir Putin has nothing more to be scared of from the Orange Man with the very short fuse, decided there won't be reprisals, and launches an invasion on Vancouver...
This is, as they say, it.
Life, as I know it, has effectively ended.
So I'll exist for a while yet - I have to, until the end of next year, for reasons none of you want to know, and then there's my brother's 40th birthday in April 2022 which I wouldn't really want to ruin... but I will not live. I will survive, for some unspecified time, but I will not thrive. It can no longer happen. It's over.
A ghost among the ruins, a mistake that the universe is trying ever harder to correct, The Thing That Should Not Be.
Facts don't lie.
So when can we expect to get back to normal? Do we just have to stick out the winter, before Health Secretary Matt Hancock's "cavalry" - a vaccine, mass testing, better treatments - arrives, and everything is fine?
Or will Covid be with us for years, even decades, to come?
"We might be back to some semblance of normality by summer time next year," says Prof Julian Hiscox, from the University of Liverpool. "But we won't be 'back to 2019' for five years," he predicts.
...
Some degree of social distancing is likely to continue even with a vaccine next year, says Prof Hiscox, but it will be "less stringent". He also believes at-risk groups may still need to "shelter" themselves, or take extra precautions, because of uncertainty about the amount of protection.
"What you might not be able to do is be an 18-year-old back from university who goes and hugs granny who is 85," he says.
But he warns that going back to normality will require a vaccine that both stops people getting sick and prevents them spreading the virus. That, he says, will take five years.
"For most people," says Prof Woolhouse, "I suspect life has changed to some degree forever, I don't think there is a going back.
"There is a 'new normal'."
In his optimistic view, that means there's sufficient immunity to make transmission rates low, so there is no "crisis", but we would still need to keep wearing face coverings, be extra careful with hand hygiene and socially distance.
REPEAT AFTER ME:
This is not "the new normal". It is not even remotely close to "normal". It is not "normal" in any way, and must never be considered as such.
"Normal" is 2019.
When the last Coronatarian restriction has been rescinded, when the last Orwellian phrase such as "social distancing" and "the new normal" has been confined to the dustbin of history, when the last cuck-muzzle has been cast to the purifying flames of Liberty, then - and only then - will we be "back to 2019", and back to normal.
Then, and only then, will the conditions return under which my life can be kickstarted.
And I hold out little hope that it will ever arrive.
Only a few days ago, I had to tell all my family that if any of them died, I could not go to the funeral - there'd be little point if I couldn't actually be inside the building to watch the proceedings; likewise, if any of them divorced and remarried, I wouldn't be at the wedding, and if any of them won a huge award, I wouldn't be at the ceremony. And I told them in no uncertain terms that if I was the one to die, they should fling my lifeless body off the nearest cliff (somewhere like Hunstanton by that time), let the sea do its work, and say no more about it. It is now not only that I have not lived a life that is worthy of a funeral in the first place, but it is no longer possible to get to that stage.
And on top of all that, America is about to elect Kamala Harris as the 47th President, by fair means or foul. I watched as much of the election coverage as I could, until about 3:30 am, on ITV - thinking that they'd be considerably less likely to be cheerleading for the Democrats, but despite the presence of the odd Trumpist, it's obvious whose side they were on. I can only speculate that it'd have been the same on Sky News as well, and I don't need to mention what the BBC thinks.
There was evidence along the way that The Swamp's predictions for Democrat victories here, there and everywhere (including Texas - seriously?) were misguided, because, as we have all known for at least four years now, one side cannot say what they want without reprisals (actual violence, or loss of job, house, family, friends and everything meaningful), while the other side proudly shouts their dedication to "the right side of history" from the rooftops. The polls are skewed in one direction. But unless The Swamp has got it really wrong this time, the last bastion of Liberty is about to be extinguished. President Sleepy Joe is going to bring in a lot more Coronatarianism to the country we all thought was least likely to accept it, but if one thing's even more certain, he's going to die within the next Presidential term and if it's him in the White House, then the United States of America becomes the United States of Tumblr.
Canada will applaud in a docile, Trudeau-approved way, right up until the point where Vladimir Putin has nothing more to be scared of from the Orange Man with the very short fuse, decided there won't be reprisals, and launches an invasion on Vancouver...
This is, as they say, it.
Life, as I know it, has effectively ended.
So I'll exist for a while yet - I have to, until the end of next year, for reasons none of you want to know, and then there's my brother's 40th birthday in April 2022 which I wouldn't really want to ruin... but I will not live. I will survive, for some unspecified time, but I will not thrive. It can no longer happen. It's over.
A ghost among the ruins, a mistake that the universe is trying ever harder to correct, The Thing That Should Not Be.
Facts don't lie.