The Numbers
324 deaths taking the total to 38,161.
2,095 new cases. The number of cases does not seem to be going down. Interestingly, compared to other European countries who are also beginning to ease lockdown restrictions, our number of cases is high. Spain, Italy, France and Germany had 658, 516, 597 and 567 respectively. Maybe, we are moving too quickly. That is what the scientific experts are saying. They fear a second wave and several “experts” have come out and said that the government has begun to ease lockdown for economic reasons and not scientific ones. We will see.
Sweden, who never really went into lockdown also have relatively high figures. They have had similar numbers to other countries but have not “wrecked” their economy in the same way. Maybe they did get it right after all? We have still to see the economic impact of the lockdown and it is predicted to be bad!
The News
The Dominic Cummings saga rumbles on.
The big news is not about Covid for a change. It’s all about an unarmed, 46 year old black man who died as a result of police brutality in Minneapolis. This came on the back of another incident in New York where a white woman called the police and told them she was being attacked by a black man. This was not true. What actually happened was that the man, who was a bird watcher, and was “birding” in an area designated for the purpose where dogs were required to be on a leash, had altercation with her over the fact that her dog was running free and scaring the birds. The man had video evidence of the whole incident and posted this online. The woman has been sacked from her job for racist behaviour.
A few weeks ago another black man was shot and killed by two white men while he was jogging. They said they though he was a “burglar”, even though it has now emerged that he jogged the same route every day. Again the while event was filmed by another man. All three have been arrested and charged with his murder.
In the Minneapolis incident, a man called George Floyd was arrested on suspicion that he was in possession of counterfeit money. George had lost his job as a bouncer in a restaurant in Houston as result of Covid. He had moved to Minneapolis to try and find work. The police claimed that he resisted arrest but again, video evidence does not support this. What it does show is an officer kneeling on his neck as George pleads for him to stop saying “Please, I can’t breathe. The knee on my neck. I can’t breathe. They gonna kill me.” And they did.
The four officers involved have been sacked and the one who had his knee on George’s neck has been charged with murder. The killing has triggered a wave of protests from the #blacklivesmatter movement. Many have resulted in violent clashes with the police all over America.
Totally unacceptable blatant racism. Heartbreaking tragedy.
The New Way of Life
Today was our youngest granddaughter’s 2nd birthday. So sad that we couldn’t celebrate it with her.
We did take her cake over in the morning and had a little driveway visit. She knew she couldn’t come close to us and was very good about it, but you could see the confusion and disappointment in her little face. We played hide and seek with her around the cars on the drive for a while. When we came to leave I asked her to blow me a kiss and, for a moment, she thought I meant a real kiss and her face lit up as she rushed forward. I had to step back and put my hand up to stop her. I know she doesn’t understand why we are all behaving in such a bewildering way! I long to have a huge kiss and cuddle with her. I don’t know when that will be.
M and I went for walk in a nearby park after that. M was quite nervous. It’s the first time he’s been anywhere except for his bike rides and our little sorties around our village.
It was another sweltering day. This is turning out to be the hottest May on record. So ironic that this has happened in the middle of a pandemic.
After our bike ride we took our beach chairs down to the village green again. This time I dug out an old drinks cooler from the garage and filled it with gin and tonic! A friend joined us and we sat 2 metres apart and whiled away the afternoon together. M went home to refill the cooler and I’m ashamed to say we polished off the best part of a bottle of gin over the next few hours! Oopsie! M really enjoyed it. We both did. It was such a lovely relaxing day.
We headed home for dinner around 7pm, more than a little the worse for wear. A combination of the sun, the gin and the food eventually defeated us and we were in bed not much after 9pm. I didn’t even write my blog. It’s 12 noon on Saturday as I write this post.
Thankfully, because we stopped drinking when we got home, we managed to re-hydrate a bit before we went to bed and slept through our hangovers!
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