The press are predicting a difficult winter period, the so called quadruple whammy of Covid-19, influenza, Brexit and climate change (flooding).
We hope it will be much better than that. With good fortune and good behaviour the second spike of coronavirus can be avoided.
Flu vaccines are already being shipped and in the Southern Hemisphere, now in winter, measures to prevent Covid-19 infection are reducing the number of flu infections.
The hit to the economy from Covid-19 is many fold greater than anything predicted for Brexit. In any event, the EU is in as much Covid-19 turmoil as we are.
With international travel at its highest ever level pre-pandemic, this horrible virus spread around the world quickly and although we had some time to react, the ponderous response by Western Governments was fuelled by liberal economists and a series of experts (herd community?) relying on the precedents of other viruses.
Always look outside the box my friends, always.
The shutdown was late (but did come) and the economy has crashed by a record magnitude. The havoc wreaked on our communities by this evil virus was bad enough; it could have been a lot worse.
It is quite clear that any recovery from Covid-19 will next year likely engulf the effect of Brexit.
Flood defences have been strengthened by the Environment Agency (we hope) and will go some way to alleviating the effects of climate change, though the long term effects of global warming are still with us.
The most interesting point is that with the world shut down for a large part of 2020, the earth has mounted a recovery.
Across the globe pollution dropped in cities (less traffic), in the air (less flights) and in industrialised areas (particularly in China).
Wildlife in the UK (at least) has had a good year.
Recovery of the earth (climate, biodiversity etc) is thus clearly possible, but if we genuinely want to the world to improve, we cannot go back to the way things were and really, we all need to just slow down a little (well, a lot) and each reduce our expectations.
Maybe the relentless chase of higher and higher GDP, driven by human greed, is the real culprit in all of this…
Dr Neil Sullivan, 27th July 2020