Hopes of an end to the pandemic are dashed. How did we cope in the Blitz?
Ludgate Hill, London late 1940 (Shutterstock)
Long before Christmas Day, in Covid Britain it is Groundhog Day. At midnight, London enters Tier 3, only a fortnight after emerging from the second national lockdown. The capital perhaps needs reminding that much of England has already been living for weeks under Tier 3. Wales in particular is facing a surge of infections that have already crowded its hospitals. But the Principality is not the only part of the Kingdom to be afflicted by privations of the pandemic. The whole of the UK is now suffering. It is too late to prevent the second wave of coronavirus. What about a third?
Matt Hancock’s warning in the Commons that a new variant of Covid-19, originating in Kent, is now “increasing rapidly” will have been a revelation to most people. Epidemiologists will not be surprised, given the adaptability of coronaviruses, but the public has not been prepared by our politicians for the possibility that this pandemic may be entering a new phase.
Not only do this and other possible mutations presumably make a third wave more likely, but they also raise questions about the likely effectiveness of the new vaccines. Will the new strain prove to be resistant to the Pfizer-BioNTech drug with which thousands of vulnerable people are now being innoculated? Scientists probably won’t be able to answer this question with any certainty until new tests are carried out.
Further questions follow from the first. Will new variant Covid-19 delay the approval by the MHRA of other vaccines, especially the Oxford-AstraZeneca one of which the NHS has purchased the largest number of doses in advance? This vaccine is much cheaper than the imported drugs and does not require expensive refrigerators to keep it at minus 70C. Will the Oxford vaccine, which it was hoped would be the “workhorse” of the pandemic, prove to be able to keep pace with our shape-shifting enemy? Lurking behind all these epidemiological and pharmacological unknowns lies our deepest anxiety: will this nightmare ever end?
The nation has just been hit by a triple-whammy: the return to “lockdown lite”, the fear of a new strain of Covid and the failure so far to conclude a trade deal with the EU that does not tie the UK’s hands indefinitely. Nor do we have much to look forward to. The promised five days of Christmas, when restrictions would be temporarily lifted, now looks precarious.
The national mood, already low, now threatens to dip into despair. We seem to be entering a new circle of Hell — or perhaps one should say, a Vale of Tiers. Many restaurants, pubs and other businesses that have clung on this far will be tipped into bankruptcy by the forced closure.
In Second World War terms, we are in December 1940, when British cities had just endured 57 nights of devastating bombing by the Luftwaffe. In The Spirit of the Blitz: Home Intelligence and British Morale (OUP, £30), Paul Addison and Jeremy A. Craig have edited the secret reports compiled by the Ministry of Information to keep track of morale. Phones were tapped, letters opened, conversations overheard: defeating defeatism took priority over privacy.
What is striking about these reports is that even at the height of the Blitz, people carried on living their lives. They refused to let the bloodshed and destruction get them down. The report for the week from 18-24 December begins: “The continuing good news from Africa and Greece has made people feel justified in forgetting the war for a little and thinking instead of Christmas and their families. There are suggestions that some are over-optimistic about the recent successes, forgetting that it is the Italians and not the Germans who are being beaten.”
By this time, fear of a Nazi invasion had receded, though Winston Churchill and Lord Beaverbrook, the Minister of Aircraft Production, warned that they would not let down their guard: “People were glad to hear that the Army would remain keyed up over Christmas but the prospect of invasion is for the most part shadowy and there is no alarm.” There were continued demands for reprisals against Germany, with many feeling that “the time has come to stop the slogan ‘Britain can take it.’ The public is now more concerned about ‘giving it’.”
The “acclimatisation to the dangers and difficulties of the blitz” meant that public concern reverted to more mundane matters. Chief among them were the lack of food and fuel, but even here the report speaks of “an increased realisation that the shortage of food and luxuries must be faced”. A special report about Eire (the Republic of Ireland) reveals starkly conflicting views: “Hopes that a Hitler victory will settle partition are expressed in the same town in which a Spitfire fund is organised.” No irony is intended when it is reported that “complaints about the inadequacy of local bus services in the provinces are as numerous as ever”.
Plus ça change…The predicament in which we now find ourselves cannot be compared to that faced by our grandparents and great-grandparents. Yet there are some similarities about the ways in which we shall “see it through”. The invisible, mutating coronavirus may be less spectacular than explosives and incendiaries, but it has already killed more people than the Blitz. Yet, just as it was hard to escape from aerial bombardment, so we have no choice but to endure the pandemic and the restrictions in daily life that it has forced upon us.
It is time, surely, for the Prime Minister to steady the Buffs. This is pre-eminently a time for leadership. Boris Johnson will have to raise his game — and show that he cares about those who don’t have a country house to which they can escape. Nothing is more demoralising than the thought that those we entrust with the stewardship of our government are insulated from the reality the rest of us have no choice but to face. The PM has never been more popular than when he was fighting for his life in hospital. Now he needs to show us that he understands not only what it is like to catch a bad case of Covid, but also what it is like to have no income, no contact and no hope.
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