It’s been clear for a while that you have to be very careful with Covid. It should be a strapline. Sometimes you get lucky. I think the UK has got incredibly lucky with our re-opening. It surprises me greatly, given how much this government fucked it up in the early stages, causing massive and unnecessary death. But somehow the re-opening programme, which to me always seemed driven by political expediency rather than scientific basis, has not caused any increase in cases.

I didn’t think it would. I remember thinking in May that people were basically now acting like the virus didn’t exist. It angered me, but at the same time I felt like it wasn’t really going to matter. It appears that the key to fast transmission is all those fun indoor things we all like doing. Seeing families. Social events in one another’s houses. Churches. Choirs. Restaurants. Pubs. Cinemas… and they were all basically either zero or being minimised. I think most people were being cautious about it, though in public, the feral behaviour of people in supermarkets and shops left a little to be desired.

So our government has pushed on, and re-opened those indoor things. If there is ever going to be a spike it would be now. I don’t think that will now happen either, because there is still some caution, keeping numbers in places down and separate, and, crucially, we have got the virus numbers down to such a small amount that the extremely low base of transmission means it is effectively zero within the community.

A few weeks ago I got a fascinating letter. It was from the NHS inviting me to do a home antibody test to see if I had developed immunity to it. I filled it in hoping I would be picked, and sure enough I was. I got a kit a few days later, and in 15 minutes I had a result: no antibodies. While it was a clear sign I’m still at risk, it was somewhat satisfying to me. It suggests I have been nowhere near – or if I have the mitigation measures have worked – anyone with Covid 19. And it somehow instinctively felt right. I have read so much about this idea we’re all basically immune, and it’s only the weak who are dying. And that herd immunity is very near because the virus has been circulating for ages now. It’s all bullshit.

The evidence from abroad, however, is clear, that re-opening is not risk free. We, magically, have re-opened at the right time. I don’t credit the government with this. They have got lucky. Their urge to get us all back to work just so happened to co-incide with waiting roughly the right amount of time. If Covid cases had been higher, I have no doubt we would have still re-opened. This shambles of a disgusting, economically illiterate and socially repugnant government would have done no less. Other countries with moronic leaders (USA, Brazil, Russia, India) that have whipped up a cultural war, instilling crazy people to behave suicidally/homicidally, are suffering enormous damage because of how fuckwitted they are. They care not for their so-called supporters, who blindly followed the wilfully, terminally, pathologically ignorant, who revel in their piety whilst cravenly imploring their acolytes to do their worst, safe in their ivory towers.

So here I sit again, a month since last time, wondering what to do about my life, other than raging about how backward we are as a society. A month later, work has improved, and has at times gone back it its disgusting worst with the way people treat me. J is clearly suffering as a result of this, I’ve not heard him mentally or physically unwell for a little while now. He is struggling again, and he won’t ask for help, so I fear there’s a disaster coming down the tracks. I try to engage with him about it, but he rejects it. On Friday we had a bastard of a day, with endless phone calls from some of our whinging clients, and he snapped because of the pressure, and was essentially useless for 4 hours in the afternoon. I get that it’s hard, and I’ve felt the same, but a) it then put way more pressure on me to deal with everything; and b) we have to find ways of coping. This is our life. It isn’t going away. We have been dodging the shitstorm of our life thanks to what I’ve felt has at times been an endless holiday with no pressure. I have loved it, and will miss it. At times, when things get back to their worst (Mondays are particularly cruel) I know it is over and wish it would return. It won’t.

It is essential we all get back to the way we were. Our government said so, and we must sustain capitalism for the capitalists and the rentiers. Their profits must be maintained.

The virus doesn’t care. It will quite happily wait it out.

And if it’s not this virus, it will be another one.

We really need to stop and re-evaluate ourselves as a species. It felt for a brief moment we might just be clever enough to take advantage and change.

But no, there are too many Trumps out there.