Freedom News

Stay at Fucking Home

I have been at home for 12 days. I live with someone vulnerable and we have been isolating ourselves as best we can since I realised that going to work wasn’t worth the risk anymore.

Today we went for a drive, never getting out of the car, just driving around with the windows closed looking out at the world we’ve had to give up for a while. It was full of people. They were everywhere wandering around the streets, hanging out in the park and generally acting like there isn’t a pandemic happening. Even though I’ve seen pictures online of busy markets and high streets and parks full of picnics I was still shocked. And then upset. And then furious.

I can appreciate that some of these people were like me and my partner and they just needed to get out of the house to keep sane. I find that it’s important to see the sun, breathe fresh air and be outside to feel grounded for my mental health. I know that others will be feeling similar and I hope that they would be getting that outdoor time responsibly like we were trying to. I am angry with the people who are acting like nothing is going on, swathes of people roaming around parks and markets, spending time in close quarters so they can buy and consume and feel special and normal.

What the fuck is going on? You aren’t special and this isn’t normal! If you are still going out like everything is fine then this aimed at you and I’m not going to apologise for my anger because its completely justified.
Stay the fuck at home you fucking idiot! I don’t know which of the selfish reasons you’re using to justify your outings so I’m going to go through a few to try and persuade you. Maybe one of them will break through your narcissism.

“I won’t die cause I’m young and healthy”

First of all what a shame… What a shame that it’s not you who will suffer the consequences of your ignorance. Let me spell this out for you: you are probably going to help kill someone. The point of having us all stay at home is to stop the spread of this virus. It isn’t because everyone is going to die from it, its because everyone is susceptible to catching and passing it on. When you decide that you’re the exception to the rule and go to meet your friends you run the risk of picking up or passing on a virus that is looking increasingly deadly. Maybe your friends all happen to be young and healthy too? What about their partners, their mums and dads and grandmas and grandads? The shop workers that they’ll meet? The driver of the bus they’ll get? What about their family? This isn’t just about you.

It’s not worth being over-confident anyway. As this virus spreads, we are seeing more and more young people hospitalised and dying. It’s still a small percentage but why couldn’t that be you? It’s going to be someone and you’re the one being reckless and drastically increasing your chances of getting it after all. Maybe you’ll be one of the young people lying in a hospital bed, your lungs filling with blood as stressed and distressed NHS workers battle to save you cause you were an idiot who thought they were special. How come you can be the exception to the Stay At Home rule, but are safe from being the exception to the Young People Won’t Die rule? Be careful of arrogant thinking. Try to use your imagination.

By the way, there is a huge realm between dying of COVID-19 and surviving it unharmed. Just because you won’t die doesn’t mean you won’t have a terrible time or suffer long term consequences.

There are vulnerable people out there.

Older people, sick people, disabled people, poor people, homeless people… These people don’t necessarily have the choice to go and swan about having play dates and chatting to their equally stupid friends. Some of these people are already isolated and are having to isolate themselves further because you won’t behave.

Some of these people have no choice but to be exposed to the virus: not everyone can work from home and not everyone’s boss is considering their health. If someone has to go to work, then give them the space to do that as safely as possible. Don’t be on their bus, don’t be on their walk to work, don’t be in their workplace.

There are 25 million people in the UK considered vulnerable enough to be given a free flu shot. These are the people who we’re meant to be looking out for. That’s 37.7% of the population of the UK. 11% of our population have heart disease. 6% of people have diabetes. All these conditions are aggravated by poverty. Why do I see so many people that view themselves as the political left or anarchists lacking in such a basic principle as solidarity?

Talking of solidarity, do it for the NHS

Hospitals are already filling up. A hospital in the UK has already declared a critical emergency and reports are coming from many saying that they’re struggling. Inside these hospitals are underpaid nurses caring the best they can for dying people, doctors struggling to make the limited equipment they have work for as many people as possible, porters and administrators still going to work every day even though they risk getting very ill.

Currently the hospitals are treating people in the advanced stages of this disease who contracted the virus two weeks ago. This means that around 20% of people who contracted it in the time between then and when our pitiful, callous excuse for a government decided to do something are going to need help in the next week or so. By the time that anyone I saw walking around today needs help the hospitals are going to be bursting.

In Italy and in France doctors are having to choose who to treat based on their life expectancy. Older people and those with less chance of surviving are being left to die on trolleys in corridors or sent to die at home. Health care workers are dying of this disease across the world. Those who survive are going to be deeply affected by this. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that anything is going to be better here. If anything, it will be worse. Italy has one of the best health care systems in Europe, while we have a national health service that has been under a systematic, ideological attack until it is creaking. We have less hospital beds per person than Italy, France, Spain, China or the USA.

If you doubt me then have a look and listen to some of the accounts from British, American and Italian health care workers:

A medical worker describes terrifying lung failure from covid19 even in his young patients

Italian town turns chapel into mortuary chamber as it struggles to cope with deaths

Fuck whatever Foucault said

I’m sick of hearing from anarchists and lefties excusing their behaviour with political theory. I know that the right wing will use this to consolidate power. I know that we were on a dangerous and slippery slope to authoritarianism before this even happened and that this will be used to further that. I know these things…Now I want to know why you being selfish is going to help fight that?

I used to think that by living my life in a rebellious way that I was fighting the powers that be, but I was just making things easier and more fun for myself. The state didn’t crumble because I ate from bins and lived in old factories and worked in a co-op, the same way that the authoritarians won’t give up because you refuse to stop going to the park.

Of course we need to be careful and vigilant, and of course we need to dis-trust Boris fucking Johnson and his gang of money-hungry, psychopathic, private-school emotional cripples. But them telling us to stay at home is not the problem here. You should be complaining that they didn’t tell us the real risk sooner; that there isn’t a liveable sick-pay in this country; that he ‘suggested’ places closed leaving bosses to decide the fates of their workers; that he tried to throw millions of people to the wolves to save the economy.
If you want to rebel against the state don’t refuse to isolate yourself, refuse to stop caring about the vulnerable. Refuse to let your local food bank get empty. Refuse to help make this situation even worse by making someone end up in a hospital bed. Solidarity is springing up everywhere. Join in and hopefully we can come out of this stronger, more connected and in a better state to fight.

Please. Stay at Fucking Home.

~Laura Dinosaur

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