This strapline is a variation of ‘a nation awaits its fate’ from the film Downfall. Even if you haven’t seen the rather excellent film, you have probably seen one of the myriad video parodies spawned by one particular scene (clue: it will include a roundabout or road in your area that gets really congested). As Emperor Wannabe-Winston Johnson wants us to believe we are at war, the film’s plot seems particularly relevant to read across here.
The war has been lost and the pandemic is defeated. While its population occupies bombed-out houses and dreams of now ruined businesses & lost employment, the nation’s leader is holed up in his bunker. Not taking calls and not listening to his generals. The generals know that the game is up but they are still going along with their orders, despite their increasingly futile and insane nature. Sound familiar?
This nation has been under effective house arrest for approaching 14 days now. This period is especially relevant and thank you to The Telegraph for this clear and helpful graphic:
If you were exposed to more than a minimum infectious dose of the virus on Day 1 then you would start showing symptoms, if not asymptomatic, from Days 3 – 9. So think about one week.
In that first week you also reach peak shedding. This is when you are at your most infectious and are expelling the most excreta which in the case of SARS-CoV-2 is mucus.
After a week you are becoming less infectious on a daily basis and moving rapidly toward viral clearance.
By Days 10 – 11 you are clear of the active virus. So think two weeks.
This does not mean that the virus has left your system but rather you can’t infect others and what is left in your system are dead virus cells, along with the newly acquired antibodies produced by your body. As the dead virus cells – known as viral debris – will remain for some time in your system, this is a key weakness of virus testing along with the fact it doesn’t indicate for how long the virus has been present.
Therefore, the first week is the most important one as peak shedding occurs during this period. Hence the self-isolation period of 7 days banded around.
Two weeks is being on the safe side as this takes someone beyond the 10 – 11 day period at which point they can no longer infect others; have an adaptive immune system response producing antibodies and feel better.
Well Emperor Wannabe-Winston Johnson, the Great British people have been under house arrest for almost two weeks. After 14 days there is no justification to continue with your incorrect strategy.
Even if everyone was exposed to a minimum infectious dose on Monday 23rd March (Day 1) by Monday 6th April (Day 15) they would be clear.
You can go outside. You can resume your normal existence. The NHS and everyone else will not die if you go outside.
And on Monday 6th there will still be seven days left. So at the end of three weeks on Monday 13th (which will be Day 22) there will be absolutely no justification whatsoever to continue with house arrest and the destruction of this nation. None whatsoever.
Let everyone in this nation put the government on notice. When this ends and people realise they did not all get sick and did not die and this was little different to this year’s winter flu outbreak, there will not be the need for a truth & reconciliation commission but rather for a war crimes trial. After all, Emperor Wannabe-Winston Johnson and his Cabinet generals were so keen to evoke the Blitz mentality and unite us all in a wartime spirit. Except they are on the losing side.
The leader and his generals and everyone who was complicit in the hysteria, fear and lies will be accountable for nothing short of genocide.