2020 – Get you gone!
2020 – the year everything changed. 2020 – the year everyone wants to forget, but no one will.
The Coronavirus – Covid 19 was first identified in the city of Wuhan in China, at the end of 2019 and the World Health Organisation declared an International Public Health Emergency in January 2020. That bastard spread. As of October 2020, WHO estimated 10% of the world’s population had been infected, and over 1.7 million people have lost their lives. Many more have lost their jobs, businesses or been left with long lasting health issues.
Suddenly social distancing came into force, millions of Brits (and elsewhere) were furloughed. Most of these folks had never even heard this term before March 2020. Capitalism and economies around the world trembled.
Politicians took decisions, failed to take decisions, took the wrong decisions, took more stringent decisions and then it all began again.
Then there was the US election….
2020 was a year of reflection, a year to consider others and doing one’s duty to protect one’s fellows. Many did, some didn’t. There were conspiracies aplenty – protests in the streets (which did nothing to slow the spread of the virus). There was Captain, Sir Tom Moore – a world war 2 veteran who pledged to walk 100 laps of his garden to raise a £1000 for NHS charities. He stole the heart of a nation and raised £32 million – this humble man who had given so much before gave again and brought the nation hope in humanity. Others followed, the old, the young, rich and poor. Concerts were staged online, carehome workers moved in to protect their residents and did not see their own families for months. Strangers stood together (socially distanced) and clapped for the NHS. There’s a good possibility that this awful pandemic saved the NHS – especially after the Prime Minister got the virus.
It brought out the good in people, and the bad and downright stupid. In my town we had a businessman who knowing he had been exposed not only flew abroad, but opened his shop, refused to mask and cited Magna Carta ‘for his rights’. Wrongly. The part he cited was not only repealed and has not been law for 800 years but was never meant for the common person. World leaders ignored the advice, the science and infected their staff.
2020 – the year of stupid, the year of science, the year of humble folks uniting nations, the year capitalism and politics were found wanting. (If they hadn’t been before.)
As the year draws to it’s close, I doubt there is anyone who will not be glad to see the back of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Tom
