The heightened risk of infection, if stepping outside one's local, trusted social bubbles without full personal control over whom one might encounter, has just made me back out of a proposed evening meetup with people who live at a distance, only two of whom would have been more than occasional friends.
I'd know one of them well, one other fairly well, and the rest hardly at all. I'd have only a sketchy notion of everyone else's daily lives, and who else they mix with. And I couldn't take it on trust that all present on our table had kept themselves free of infection. How would anyone really know? I have no strong faith in regular testing. It doesn't protect anyone encountering a virus-carrier immediately after the test. There is no sure protection just now, except total isolation from other people.
I'm prepared to think that observance of 'the rules' as one goes about in the world will reduce the risk to a manageable level. I'd say my personal practice here is excellent. I don't want to catch the virus, nor pass it on. I'd say the same for most other people in my circle, as we are all thinking, responsible people with very good reasons to be careful. Even so, I couldn't, hand on heart, swear that I am infection-free after all these months. I could be one of those symptomless carriers. I would have picked up the infection from any place I might have gone to - the supermarket, the filling station, who knows where - merely with an accidental close encounter, perhaps from some infected person who came too close as we passed. Or by touching some door handle. As easy as that. I probably wouldn't even notice when the critical contact occurred.
I can infer that I remain personally infection-free, as none of the local friends I see in my village has become ill after contact with me. And those particular friends are mostly 'vulnerable' for one reason or another, whether it's age, or some ongoing medical condition. We are none of us bouncing youngsters. But an inference is not a certain indication.
Back to this cancelled meetup.
As I say, it would have been an evening event, and although the venue itself would doubtless be safe and well-managed, an adjacent table or two of boisterous boozy revellers would be a risk I'd be keen to avoid. This is the thing: a bit of wine or lager, and people relax and forget those health rules, and the obligation to safeguard other people's well-being. Maybe it wouldn't be like that at all. But I don't have a crystal ball to consult.
No, the risks of an evening meetup were were unacceptable. The event has been postponed for now. And if the present surge in new coronavirus cases gets worse, it may have to be postponed indefinitely.
At least that meetup would have been in low-risk West Sussex, with nobody attending from a high-risk area. I wouldn't like to even contemplate a meetup in some other parts of the country. The urban parts of Wales, the Midlands, and the North, for instance. I have to say it puzzles me why those areas are so high-risk, and not others as well. I've heard media commentators say that it's the consequence of high population density, poor housing, low pay, poor diet and poor health. That all seems to make sense, until you consider that the Southern cities and big towns - which also have their share of high population density, poor housing, low pay, poor diet and poor health - haven't, apart from London, sunk into similar pits of infection.
Nobody in the media or in politics likes to say it - because it will offend - but mass-infection could be caused by hidebound local attitudes, entrenched family customs, the stupid, unhealthy tribal standards and conventions of different social groups, and selfish or ignorant individuals bent on having a good time together, whatever the consequences. I'd go along with all of that. And yet, surely, none of those things is solely a Welsh, Midlands or Northern thing. I can certainly bring to mind the boorish bigoted young men in rugby shirts that I've seen in Welsh streets and shops. It's easy to imagine them doing all the wrong things. (And by the way, I can put certain Welsh men down because I am Welsh myself, so there) But I've also seen similar boorish young men in places like Bournemouth, Hastings and Tunbridge Wells. It's a breed you can see everywhere, in the southern counties as much as anywhere else. And yet, generally speaking - excepting London, of course - the southern counties remain low-risk.
So it may not be down to local culture at all. Or not much.
What about local climate? Many of the worse areas for infection are the rainiest in the country. Could dampness be a big factor? Or rather, cold and damp housing?
I'm off on another caravan outing shortly. My final fling of the year. A week in South Wales (at Pandy, only a few miles from the border with Herefordshire, and well away from the urban parts that are now in lockdown), then a week near Wareham in East Dorset. Both of them rural spots well away from high-risk areas. And, as with my recent West Country holiday, I shall be meeting only careful, responsible people I know.
Who knows, before I set off President Trump may be fighting for his life in the hospital he's just gone into, or even dead from the virus he pooh-poohed so much. He's only six years older than me. I don't want to end up the same way. Or even have a bad time if I pick up an infection.
