V is for Virtue

I suppose to even connect with an intellectual iconoclast, might support a sense of egotism at the centre of their efforts, but what does it say about the reasons to which we find resurgence of coalescing thought; which is there for the pleasure of virtue?

I am in thought of Albert Camus, and one of his works - The Plague - which Pre-European-Outbreak I had conjured would be a riveting read whilst somewhere in the Italian Mountains (Bardonecchia), and to say that I have read most all of his other works, even one in French too for L'etranger. I suppose now looking back, it was an insightful enlightenment into the unambiguous terror and fear as a NORMAL ABNORMALITY.

"Nobody is capable of really thinking about anyone, even in the worst calamity."

- Albert Camus, The Plague

The sense that this was both an existent and non-existent war on the ghostly mirage of the infections true cause, as if you could sense the people about to break like sheep into a frenzy, panic. But had nothing but irregular symptoms to work with, and no target to hold the blame. Ultimately, it highlights the imperative necessity, as to the responsibilities of organisation, to ensure the publics HEALTH & WELLBEING. Especially, during times of true unapologetic epidemia.

"We can't stir a finger in this world without the risk of bringing death to somebody. Yes, I've been ashamed ever since; I have realized that we all have plague, and I have lost my peace."

- Albert Camus, The Plague

Today I saw an imitation licence plate on the front of an elderly woman's mobility-scooter that read "Theres only one life to believe in GOD." And I suppose the only way to stay positive at a time like this is to believe that the world will truly develop the sense of appreciation, post-outbreak, that most religious types are already thankful for. But then I wasn't (before reading The plague) appreciative after the previous epidemic, and neither will people be for long after this one.

"Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves"

- Albert Camus, The Plague

For even Neitzsche believed man is both evil and good, (and whilst these two antonymic, but in this way most similar) conditions are in constant volition, quasi-partite-quasi-partites and so on. We see the recycling motion of gratitude and ingratitude - as the answers and responses to Wartime and then Peacetime.

“One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. "Good" is no longer good when one's neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a "common good"! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

The UK embellished in the rhetoric, are everyday in discussions of progresses and conceits, all the same, and so I think it is time the responsibility was assertively the governments. For is it not their role to lead? Or, is it their job to read? And then react to the peoples fractious and immeasurable moods. And in this way does OUR GOVERNMENT represent no mood at all, as to endanger lives, and spread the pious mask of SENSE PROHIBITION. As to lie to the self, and to the millions that depend on THEM for their voice to be heard. That much like most of modern British political and economic infrastructure, their effectivity in operation is too outdated and outmode to understand the seriousness of modern consequence. For to even measure in the hundred of lives that could be saved, (from absolute isolation) would be an achievement higher than the gauchely arrogant reluctance to accept a 4 in 5 person infection rate. The plonker is underhandedly suggesting it is better for UK business to stay sort of OPEN, than to quarantine the entire country on lockdown. Do you want to know what number a 4 in 5 people infection rate is?

Fifty-two million eight hundred thousand UK citizens (80% of 100%) (52,800,000)

It is important to bare in mind that only 15% are at risk of possibly being HOSPITALIZED in this very much best-case-scenario British tactic. Would you too like to know what 15% of fifty-two million eight hundred thousand UK citizens is?

Seven Million nine hundred and twenty thousand UK citizens (15% of 80% of 100%) (7,920,000)

KingsFund reported on the 2017/2018 statistics for UK Hospital capacities, that the average bed capacity for a hospital is around 140,940. As well was it said that there were 1,257 hospitals in the UK, that were annually operating at a 90 - 95% full capacity level.

140,960 Av beds * 1,257 Hospitals = 177,186,720 approx hospital beds in the UK (159,468,048 of these being typically occupied, beyond an epidemic)

What you need to know from this is that there are approximately 10 Million beds still available beyond the predicted amount of hospitalisations expected, so there is a big buffer. The question remains: Will this be enough in a worst-case-scenario? And, is it not too much to expect the extra pressure on an already struggling NHS service? I suppose there are no answers to a plague, no goodbyes or apologies or sanctity, there are no rules and there are only casualties, of circumstance, or position.

One thing that we can all do is find calm gratefulness in these forthcoming moments where life is not as bleak as it might be, so very soon. It seems odd too as an atheist, that I would be to condone belief, that this is the most appropriate time for Prayers. For there is gratuitous strength in faithful determinations of comprehension and compassion.

Thus each of us had to be content to live only for the day, alone under the vast indifference of the sky

- Albert Camus, The Plague

S. R. Gurney