The communications media in the UK have been having a field-day in relation to the mayhem at our south coast seaside resorts over the last week. Also the police in several major cities have been having a hard time attempting to regulate informal street parties that have been getting rather out of hand. Both of these developments have been taking place in defiance of the government’s advice about the need to continue restrictions on free movement in order to limit the spread of the current pandemic. There have been reports of behaviour that goes beyond the merely unwise, and well into the territory of the insane. While I have been working in the garden over the past few days I have found myself reflecting on the possible reasons for this.
One suggestion that comes to mind is that what we are seeing is a consequence of the government’s own handling of the crisis. By a very large margin indeed public information about how to respond to the virus has emphasised the need to avoid becoming infected. The first slogan to be adopted was “Stay safe!” Reporting of the spread of the virus has tended to emphasise differences in the vulnerability of various age groups, and has repeated frequently the idea that younger people are less vulnerable than are older people. I suspect that the message that has been received by youth is that the most important thing is to look after oneself and minimise the risk to oneself. “Look out for number one.” If I am safe then that is what matters.
The other side of the story has not received sufficient attention. It is possible to be an asymptomatic carrier of the disease. Consequently, while remaining at a relatively low level of risk oneself one can still be a serious threat to the health of others who are more vulnerable. The conclusion that many people (especially younger ones) have reached with the loosening of destructions on movement is that “I’ll be OK”, but without having a proper awareness of the continuing risk to others. The slogan “Stay safe!” deflects attention from this dimension of the duty one has to others, and concentrates only on controlling the risk to oneself.
We have had already one highly publicised case of the way this mentality works, in the controversy that raged over the irregular family trip made by Boris Johnson’s adviser Dominic Cummings. Listening to his account of the event it is clear that his interpretation of what was acceptable behaviour was based primarily on an assessment of personal risk, and only later, when challenged, did he re-evaluate his behaviour in terms of its possible consequences for others–in particular his belated realisation that as a public figure he might be regarded as a role model. This kind of solipsism is the template for the behaviour we have seen over the past week in our seaside resorts and city centres.
I do wonder whether, perhaps, it all began to go wrong when the government, with typical Conservative individualism, premised its public information about an appropriate response to the pandemic on the idea that we should each make our priority to “stay safe”.