Shielded': A Diary of the Pandemic 2020-2023

Roger Davidson

Summary

The diary provides a wide-ranging commentary on one of the most life-changing events in modern history. From the first lockdown in March 2020 through to the Covid-19 Inquiries of 2023 it reflects on the social politics shaping the response of government to the pandemic. Throughout, it juxtaposes the everyday lived experience and coping strategies of a 'shielded' member of the community with the competing agendas of Whitehall, Westminster, and Holyrood in their tortuous, sometimes comedic and often egregious efforts to contain the virus.
Part 1 of the diary captures the initial crisis posed by the belated imposition of lock-down, the critical lack of personal protection equipment and of effective testing and contact tracing procedures. It reflects on the shifting role of scientific and medical expertise within the policy-making process and the breakdown in political and public consensus over the timing and content of an 'exit' strategy from lock-down in the autumn of 2020 in the face of a second wave of the pandemic.
In Part 2 the focus in the early months of 2021 is on the development of the first vaccines and the medico-political issues surrounding their production and distribution. Thereafter, the diary reflects the continuing efforts of the NHS to cope with new variants of Covid-19 and the re-emergence in government discourse of a 'herd immunity' approach to managing the pandemic. The politics of Brexit and IndyRef2 are seen increasingly to marginalise the pandemic in the media.
Parts 3 and 4 record the growing acceptance in 2022 that society would in the future have to live with the virus and that legal restrictions on movement would be replaced by individual risk assessment. The diary focuses on the gradual phasing out of 'test and trace' and 'shielded' status. It also charts the further normalization of the presence of Covid-19 and its variants. The process of investigating the conduct of the Government during the pandemic and especially Partygate and the cronyism in the awarding of contracts, increasingly occupies the entries as does the failure to clearly identify the processes and procedures that are needed when the existential threat of the next pandemic confronts us.

Available since: 09/19/2024.

Print length: 274 pages.

Other books that might interest you

Avoid Grieving the Holy Spirit

Pastor Philip

What an amazing person He is. We often fail to give the Holy Spirit the credit He deserves. After helping to create the universe with God the Father, and God the Son, He was involved in the creation of mankind. The song "Caring and Sharing" sung by Chey, at the end of the message, gives the listener time to reflect on what has been said.

Show book

America’s Most Influential...

Editors Charles River

By the golden age of the mountain man in the mid-19th-century, there were perhaps only 3,000 living in the West. Their origins were disparate, although they included many Anglo-Americans. A good number hailed from wilderness regions of Kentucky and Virginia and throughout the newly purchased Louisiana Territory, which occupied the entire central section of the continent. French Canadians traveled from the north to work in the fur trade, while Creole-Europeans represented approximately 15% of the men known to be living the isolated mountain life. Others were of Métis, Spanish, American, Black, Indian, and mixed-blood origin, most often Iroquois or Delaware. Most came to the West in their late adolescent years, the oldest learning the trade in their 30s. Many roamed the west for as long as their constitutions would hold up under constant attacks on their health and personal safety. Some stayed too long and failed to survive the experience. Among the most famous, Jim Bridger arrived at the age of 16, while Edward Robinson was eventually killed in his 60s by what were known as “bad snakes,” a reference to the Snake tribe in Idaho country. Jim Beckwourth left the mountains at 68 and Old Bill Williams died at the age of 62 when a band of Utes “made him to come.”
Most of the most notable frontiersmen traveled immense distances during their careers, and for many, only distant memories could recreate the routes taken. Few of the significant wilderness figures were experienced as cartographers to create accurate maps for industry, settlement, and the military. These American frontiersmen made first contact with numerous indigenous tribes in virtually every area of the west, but viable maps were few, and between such disparate cultures, relations could prove profitable or deadly at a moment’s notice.

Show book

Migration

Steph Matuku

Farah of Untwa joins a school for training fighters, strategic thinkers and military personnel. It means she escapes her domineering mother and the tedious duties that come with being from a Ngāti in the upper echelons of society. But at the school, Farah, an intuitive, is teamed up with fighter Lase, a boy from a lower Ngāti. Farah's condescension and disturbing hallucinations and Lase's resentment test their partnership. But just when they finally seem to be working well together, the school is attacked by other-worldly forces. Farah and Lase must use their skills to fight the alien invaders and save their people from obliteration.

Show book

Escaping the Gulags: The History...

Editors Charles River

One of the most idiosyncratic horrors of Soviet Russia was the Gulag system, an extensive network of forced labor and concentration camps. Part of the rationale behind this system was that it could serve as slave labor in the drive for industrialization, while also serving as a form of punishment. The name Gulag is in fact an acronym, approximating to “Main Administration of Camps” (in Russian: Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei) and operated by the Soviet Union’s Ministry of the Interior.[1] The Gulag consisted of internment camps, forced labor camps, psychiatric hospital facilities, and special laboratories, and its prisoners were known as zeks. Such was the closed and secretive nature of the Soviet state that to this day, knowledge of the Gulag system comes mainly from Western studies, firsthand accounts by prisoners such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and some local studies after the fall of communism. 
	The most recognisable version of the Gulag, a term that was never pluralized in Russia itself, existed from the 1930s-1950s, a period in which a huge network of camps and prisons was established across the vast Soviet federation. Prisoners were often used as forced labor, made to do physically arduous and soul-destroying tasks. Some workers helped to build large infrastructure projects, and indeed the system was partly rationalized in terms of economics.  
	By the early 1960s, Gulags were synonymous with various forms of punishments, including house arrest, imprisonment in isolated places, or confinement to a mental hospital where a prisoner would be declared insane or diagnosed with a “political” form of psychosis. In its later years, the Gulags held a particular place in the public’s imagination, both within the USSR and in the outside world. They could mean exile, brutal punishment, or simply being banished to Siberia.

Show book

The Cambodian Genocide - How The...

Davis Truman

A gripping and unflinching examination of one of the darkest chapters in modern history and the global forces that allowed it to unfold. 
Between 1975 and 1979, Cambodia endured unimaginable horror under the Khmer Rouge regime, where nearly two million lives were lost to systematic brutality, starvation, and mass executions. But this is not just the story of a ruthless dictatorship; it is the story of how international powers, driven by Cold War rivalries and geopolitical interests, turned a blind eye and sometimes actively enabled the rise and reign of terror. 
Drawing on newly uncovered documents, survivor testimonies, and incisive analysis, this book reveals the tangled web of political alliances, foreign interventions, and diplomatic failures that contributed to the genocide. From secret bombings and covert support to the paralysis of the United Nations, it exposes how global dynamics shaped Cambodia’s fate, allowing one of history’s greatest atrocities to remain hidden for decades. 
The Cambodian Genocide challenges readers to confront uncomfortable truths about international responsibility, the cost of political indifference, and the enduring scars left on a nation. It is a vital, haunting reminder of how the world’s silence can become complicit in the darkest of crimes — and a call never to forget the lessons of history.

Show book

Sex - Naughty Erotic Stories Box...

Eva Harmon

🔥 The Ultimate Naughty Erotic Stories Box Set – Forbidden Lust, Extreme Pleasure, and Wild, Uninhibited Desire Await You! 🔥 
Are you ready to dive into a world of pure, raw, and uncontrollable pleasure? This collection isn’t just a book—it’s a naughty invitation to surrender to your darkest, most thrilling desires. Every page drips with forbidden temptation, every story pulses with erotic tension, and every scene is crafted to make your body ache for more. 
Inside this intensely arousing box set, you’ll experience: 
💋 Taboo Fantasies & Forbidden Encounters – The kind of dirty secrets you’ve only dared to imagine. 
 🔥 First-Time Virgins & Innocence Lost – Feel the nervous excitement of a first touch, a first kiss, and the ultimate moment of surrender. 
 👩‍❤️‍👩 Lesbian Seduction & Passionate Encounters – Sultry, teasing, and irresistibly hot, these women know exactly how to please. 
 💥 BDSM, Submission & Domination – Let go of control and experience the rush of being taken, commanded, and pleasured beyond limits. 
 🍑 Anal, Gangbangs & Role Play – No shame. No limits. Just mind-blowing, pulse-racing pleasure. 
 🖤 Cuckold, Voyeurism & Dirty Confessions – Wicked, secret fantasies played out in the most sinful ways. 
 😈 Extreme, Hardcore, and Kinky Sex Stories – The kind of raw, unfiltered pleasure that leaves you trembling. 
🔞 Warning: This collection is explicit, wickedly seductive, and dangerously addictive.

Show book