Get together

I will gather (Joel 3:2) 

Like all of you, I am poring over the details of government advice to try to make sense of what will happen next. The media are rightly doing the same and asking some difficult questions as a result. My personal favourite reply so far was Dominic Raab's suggestion that if you have to share a seat, sit alongside rather than opposite. It left me wondering if anyone had done the maths on it. Tell me if I'm wrong but sitting opposite on a bus, tube or train means you are about 4-6 feet away, whereas sitting alongside it's 1-2 feet. So is the virus better able to cross 6 feet directly or 2 feet at a ninety degree angle. I suspect enhanced waffle from Raab, but who knows, maybe he got advice.

More interesting to me is the advice on gathering. I am allowed to meet up with one other person outside, provided we stay 6 feet apart, but not to visit my parents even if we meet outside and stay 10 feet apart. His logic was that contact with family is likely to be more regular once permitted, though this again seems a bit spurious. If a couple are going out, as I think the phrase still is, and have been living apart, I'm pretty sure they are more likely to spend long hours than I with my parents. They, love me though they do, will probably have had enough of me after an hour or two, and certainly won't want to see me every day. And anyway, the last two times I heard someone from government give advice they got corrected almost immediately. Wednesday not tomorrow, Boris. One person not two. Oh, yes, and they can come by ferry from France without 2 weeks isolation because, well, they're French aren't they so that's okay. Again, seems spurious.

So what's the real issue here. Well, of course they are doing their best, so one has to be careful not to snipe from the sidelines too much, but I think it's the 'economy, stupid' as Carville is supposed to have said to Clinton's campaign managers. Somehow they need to get us back to work without causing an uncontrollable spike in cases. For me though the question is all social, so that's what I hear. When can we gather, I want to ask. When can we get together and show how much we care for one another? For our government it's all practical. How can we get people into employment and keep them there, they're telling us. How can we allow economic activity without social contact? So of course the messages are mixed. Meet but don't meet. Travel but don't travel. Even, stay at home and go out.

The last one is interesting. At the risk of sharing fake news, one study of studies has found a strong statistical link between vitamin D and resistance to the virus. The more the vitamin D the higher the chance of shrugging it off without any trouble. Now this may also be spurious. In the USA highway deaths between 1996 and 2000 correlated almost exactly with Mexican lemon imports. Correlation is not cause. But here there may well be a connection because vitamin D is a key factor in controlling immune response. So we're told to go out in the sun as much as possible. 

However, I don't think I'm alone in feeling an increasing need to gather. I know the need to be with others varies quite a lot with character, and some seem to only have limited need for company. I always thought I was one of them, but this enforced separation has taught me that I am not, which makes me suspicious that even those naturally comfortable being alone are beginning to get the urge to meet up with others. So what can we do. Well, stick to the guidelines as much as we can make sense of them, of course, but I for one am focussing on being grateful for those who are living with me. It has been a bit of a storm shoving the recently escaped students back into the household, but we seem to have got over it, and it is becoming a treat. If this hadn't happened then they would never have come back in this way. Every moment we have them here, now, is precious beyond counting and I intend to savour it. Provided they cease showering at 2 in the morning and stop stealing all the crisps, that is.

Spotted on a walk basking in the sun