Covid-19 perspective for bikersCoronavirus | NHS | Lockdown | Government | Orthodoxy | Joyrides | Essential
Story snapshot: Some of you are going to get very irritated by this article... ... but probably because you're not carefully listening to what we're saying
Firstly, let's get it clear. Covid-19 is a terrible disease. We think the government guidance on how to behave during the emergency is about right. Repeat: about right. In other words, park the bike in the garage, stay put, chill, have lots of sex, watch the telly, follow the instructions on the government tin. Stay there until further notice. You know the drill.
But if you do have to go out (commuting, shopping, exercise), maintain social distancing, wear a face mask (without depriving the NHS of one), avoid touching your face, wash your hands regularly and thoroughly, and generally work out sensible strategies for minimising catching the disease and/or transmitting it.
However...
There are a couple of things worth mentioning here, so hang on to the grab rail. We can argue about them now or later, but the argument won't go away by ignoring it. Simply put, keeping people in lockdown is home imprisonment. Repeat: home imprisonment. It's jail time. Incarceration. We're in the pokey. The hoosegow. The slammer. We've committed no offence (except the offence of being alive). We've been charged with no crime. We've had no trial. We've not been convicted. But we're all in our boxes by government decree, and so far no one can tell us how long that will last. It's an open sentence and we're staying put at Her Majesty's convenience—and if that isn't an affront to fundamental human rights, we don't know what the hell is. But we're living with it. For now.
Yes, up to a point we're prepared to meekly follow the government orthodoxy and keep on message. We're looking for answers too, and we don't want to see anyone hurt. But how many of us will be quite so compliant three months down the line, or six months?
Some however would argue that we should simply end the lockdown and let nature have its wicked way with us. Catch the disease. Live/don't live. Develop herd immunity. Come what may.
We're certainly not advocating that. Not yet. And maybe never. But it's a valid argument nonetheless. As it stands, the reality is that the stronger among us are being held captive by the weaker, and you can decide for yourself how fair that really is (and check that question again in three or six months). To put it more strongly, the younger and fitter members of society are being locked down by the old. Yes, younger folk are dying too. In very small numbers. But broadly speaking, this is an "age thing" centred around people with underlying health complications.
So we repeat; we're not advocating throwing the elderly to the Covids. Far from it; at Sump we're mostly in the danger group too. But the argument has a certain logic, and we're not ignoring it. Why should the weak hold back the rest of society? Or to be blunt, why should we let the nearly-dead stop the very much alive from living their lives? For now that argument isn't being seriously discussed. But if the crisis endures, and it probably will, the tone will change.
Next, a lot of folk are talking about putting the health service at risk by "unnecessary" extraneous activity. Well guess what? The health service has always been at risk (see the column on the right for more on this). It's always been on the point of collapse. It's always been under-funded. Nurses and doctors have always been underpaid. But it always muddles through, and perhaps always will (and truth be told, there are thousands of folk using/wasting NHS resources through simple vanity—and many others taking silly risks with their lives and bodies because there is an NHS to put them back together again).
However, during this lockdown people are routinely being challenged and bullied and fined for sitting quietly in the park or walking on the beach, and some would argue that that's unfair and extreme and even illegal.
What if everyone sat in the park?
What if everyone did this?
Or that?
What if everyone took their money from the bank on the same day?
What if everyone tried to board the same bus?
What if everyone fell off their bike on the same afternoon and needed NHS help?
So goes the fallacious generalisation argument (look it up). Imagine the chaos? Well you can apply that argument at any time, anywhere, anyhow to anything. But it's a question of balance; a matter of accommodating practical behaviours. It's all about examining individual actions at specific points in time and space. Never mind what theoretical harm it might do. We can also ask: what harm is it actually doing right now.
Walking to the shop for ESSENTIAL supplies and then sitting down in the park for an ESSENTIAL spot of relaxation in the ESSENTIAL sunshine isn't likely to kill anyone. You've probably got more chance of a heart attack whilst climbing the living room walls after six weeks or more of confinement. And if you want to avoid using NHS resources, homes are hardly safe places to be; not statistically speaking. Domestic accidents are rife. Check some numbers.
Eventually, we'll have to relax the social distancing rules. Perspective will be forced by circumstance to return. But for now, in the white heat (and suppressed-hysteria?) of this coronavirus battle, we might be better advised to be extra cautious. And so we have been, mostly. But as we said, things will have to change, and we'll soon have to push at the boundaries and accept new levels of risk.
What's happened meanwhile is that many folk have TOTALLY lost perspective and are allowing others to do all their thinking. Being "on message" has for many become the default and is more important than intelligent personal analysis. Blindly following the instructions has become a substitute for rational questioning. Just remember that we're in this bloody mess largely because the experts and the authorities and the systems and the procedures got us here.
Remember this too: for every argument made by the government regarding how to behave and how to live during the lockdown, there are counter-arguments—many of them compelling and increasingly persuasive. These arguments often lead to hard and painful choices. But life (and death) is all about such choices.
So at Sump we're advocating murdering the coffin-dodgers, abandoning the rules and introducing anarchy? Well no actually. Hardly. But we'd be stupid not to look beyond the orthodoxy and maintain some kind of perspective. Tip: don't be stupid.
People are afraid. That's natural enough. But when you are afraid, that's the time to back off as far as you can and begin questioning and challenging everything and everyone. The obvious. The not so obvious. The voices on the fringes. The experts. The other experts. The fools. The armchair professors. The bigots. The good. The bad. And especially the people who clearly couldn't follow an argument with a tow rope and a flashlight. And don't confuse people with opinions with the opinionated. It's not the same thing. The former means having a viewpoint. The latter means being unwilling to question that viewpoint or change it.
So let's have it then? Who have we upset this time?
Study the propaganda
It would be facile and pointless to suggest that we shouldn't listen to the propaganda. But it's always worth reminding ourselves not to immediately (if ever) accept it as fact. Much of the information we're currently hearing about the coronavirus is pure nonsense. It has to be. Why else is there so much disagreement even among the usual experts?
Fact is, even though most of us believe we're rational and logical thinkers, most of us simple aren't, and we have enormous trouble recognising this even when its pointed out to us. We have personal bias, private agendas, ordinary bigotries, emotional knee-jerk reflexes, spiritual cravings, deep rooted notions and suspicions—and a huge number of us are just plain effing stupid.
So does that include us at Sump?
Maybe. You can decide that for yourself. Certainly, we have our moments of intellectual darkness.
The point is, bikers are not inherently smarter or better balanced that anyone else; not intellectually or emotionally speaking. And what that means is that we're also apt to blindly follow the messages that are constantly being piped at us. Not necessarily all the time, mind. But often enough.
Sure, we all think we're skilled at analysing such messages. But the truth is, the message-makers and deliverers are highly trained in the noble art of spreading total bull$#i!t, especially on TV. Cue on-demand serious faces, dramatic music, subtle camera zooms, artful colour and grain adjustments to images and film stock, fast cuts, slow cuts, jackets-off presentation, jackets-on presentation, and a thousand other tricks, mis-directions and devices.
Is some news "better received" when presented by a man, or a woman, or a black man, or whoever? Is some news better received if we hear it on a Sunday or on a Monday or Tuesday? Is some news better received formally or informally? And bad news is, of course, often obscured by well-timed press releases bearing good news.
Graphs easily mislead us depending on the length of each axis and the spread of detail. Two well spoken, well dressed experts in agreement can sound pretty convincing—never mind the scruffy conga line of dissenting voices just out of shot who don't get a look in because they're not on message. Throw in a few carefully screened vox pops, and then mix it up with the commercial or political agenda of the respective TV network or corporation (and they've all got agendas, of course) and you've got a pretty heady and compelling mix that will convince the vast majority of the population of just about anything. And note that even the networks and the publishers who appear to disagree with each other are often actually broadly in agreement, albeit with differing detail and nuances aimed at appealing to different audiences.
So we come back to perspective again, and experience shows that it's hard for any population to keep a grip on that—at least until history and the passage of time has had the opportunity to make numerous adjustments.
But you're different. We're different. Everybody's different. We're smart. We don't get fooled that easily. Well think again, and then flip the propaganda coin and see what's on the other side.
The next time you see an incoming message from anyone (including us), do what the CIA do and that's asking not simply what was said, but why did they say it? And why now?
It can be highly revealing.
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BAD-ASS BIKER T-shirt
Assessing personal risk
Pretty much everyone these days is talking about risk. Maybe that was always happening. Imminent doom & destruction has, after all, long been a popular theme for discussion. However, most people totally fail to understand what risk really means, not least with regard to the coronavirus.
Currently (1st May 2020), the chance of contracting the virus is said by some "experts" to be around 1 in 1,000. That's per day, apparently. Now, we don't know if that number is correct, but let's assume it is—and if so, it means that each day you have a 1 in 1,000 chance of contracting the virus. Simple. Except that you don't. Not necessarily.
That figure is the average risk for the UK as a whole. In other words, it's the collective risk rather than an individual risk. So if you're Joe or Jo Average living in Average Town and are average in all other respects, 1 in 1,000 is the number to watch. Or not. But if you live in an area with a very high population density, and/or if you travel by public transport, and/or if you're in a danger group, and/or if you're careless, your infection risk will be much higher; certainly higher than, say, someone living fairly remotely in rural England and travelling by motorcycle or bicycle and otherwise being healthy and careful, etc.
Just remember that a tenfold increase in risk would mean a jump to 10 in 1,000. And a 20 fold increase would mean 20 in 1,000. That's not a risk we very much fancy, but it's still very small. Remember too that doubling your 1 in 1,000 risk means elevating it to just 2 in 1,000.
But we listen to the "experts" talking about risk, and we often get it way out of proportion—often because the experts fail to provide any meaningful context or hard numbers. The bottom line? Don't conflate the general population risk with the specific individual risk. Just think about about the bloke who drowned in a river with an average depth of seven inches. Or, if you prefer, an average UK citizen who supposedly has a 1 in 16,500 chance of dying this year in a road accident, but who is in fact bed-ridden and has been there for 20 years. He or she might die in an ambulance, of course. But generally speaking, dying in a car crash for them just ain't gonna happen.
Joyriding risk
Meanwhile, we're hearing a lot of loose talk about bikers breaking the lockdown and going for a joyride. And recently we reported on such a joyrider who crashed and became stuck in a fence. This triggered the air ambulance. Other emergency services also attended. And the rider suffered serious back injuries. Suddenly he was being accused of putting the health service at risk—which is no doubt true.
But wait. The health service has long been in the business of being at risk and successfully managing that risk. People lose track of this simple fact. Hospitals are (pardon the pun) a hotbed of infections. Never mind MRSA, pneumonia is in pole position. Gastric infections and blood infections are high on the list, and there are many other infections and pathogens at large in hospitals that we're too squeamish to explore. Suffice to say, that if you ride a motorcycle and crash it at any time of the year, a long line of people are ALWAYS in the firing line of risk, any of whom might end up in a hospital bed beside you and face the same dangers routinely floating around the wards and operating theatres. And remember too that these people volunteer themselves; meaning that they assess their personal risk and live and, sometimes, die by it.
It's a free country; at least, it used to be.
Of course you should minimise the risk to yourself and others, especially during the coronavirus crisis when emergency services are stretched. But don't for one second think that keeping 56 million people in lockdown is going to preclude ALL risk.
Already we're hearing about people afraid to go into a hospital for "genuine emergency" reasons. We're talking about people with serious home-based injuries and chronic medical conditions; people who've perhaps misjudged the risk of catching the coronavirus and will instead die soon of something else (sepsis, for instance, or some other infection or shock).
Meanwhile, we're becoming a nation of snitches spying on otherwise decent people who in some shape or form have flouted or circumvented the lockdown rules. And most of this spying is predicated on the notion that the risk is personal rather than general. In other words, if everyone in the country breached lockdown, the R-number (rate of infection) would undoubtedly soar. So collectively, that would be totally irresponsible. But that doesn't mean that any individual is necessarily adding significantly to the overall risk. Of course it can irritate when others break the rules that we see fit to obey. But don't lose your sense of proportion. Back off. Think. Recalculate.
Yes, we should all stay locked down. For now at least (and there will come a time when we collectively have to challenge this demand unless the government develops a rational, practical and generally acceptable plan to unlock the cages).
Meanwhile, don't get the individual risk out of proportion. Don't get sucked into the idea that everyone who breaks the rules is public enemy number one, because they're not.
Ahh! says the orthodoxy, but we have to condemn the rule breakers to hell and back because they set a bad example for everyone else.
Well that's true. They do set a bad example. But unless or until EVERYONE—or a significant number of people—decide to break the rules, the actual risk of being infected with something nasty, or passing on that infection is small—and for all we know, it's actually no higher than the general chance of coming to grief when you're riding your motorcycle in more normal times with the roads filled with traffic, etc. So if you must, be angry with the rule breakers. But don't lose sight of the underlying truth.
Still can't accept the biking risk? Okay. Give up motorcycling. Buy a car. Store some of your own blood in the fridge for emergencies. Move to an area where there's no air ambulance coverage. Don't drink, don't smoke, and definitely stay away from step ladders, hedge trimmers, chainsaws and all other power tools.
In short, think very carefully about the risks involved in anything, then try and draw some perspective about what is actually happening right here, right now.
Stay at home, we repeat. But once again, don't think for a second that 56 million people sitting in their armchairs gazing at the TV are necessarily enjoying (for want of a better word) a risk free existence. They're not. The danger will manifest itself somewhere further down the line.
We could be wrong, of course. But the chances are that we're right.
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Copyright Sump Publishing 2020
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We're all prisoners of our homes until the gaolers deem it fit to let us out and start living our lives again—or start dying our lives again. But the worst prison you can be in is a prison of your own stupidity, obstinacy, narrow-mindedness and blind compliance.
