Another great cycling article

Or indeed, if they commute at all. A car in a big urban centre must be such a pain - occasionally I have to drive the width of Bournemouth and Poole - it's a joyless, tiring experience.  

It's great that Toby from the Guardian was got the bug, let's hope the Daily Mail now runs a similar article and then a Damascan editorial saying "over the years we may have given the impression that cyclists were a law-breaking, self-righteous, Lycra clad, red light jumping, social distance ignoring scourge on the law abiding, hard-pressed motorist, with millions of pounds squandered on cycle lanes... we now realise that there was not a jot or scintilla or truth in these claims..."

While lots of us are enlisting the current crisis as a platform for our beliefs, what we are all finding out currently is what in life is necessary and what is an extra.  I'm pretty sure we will bungee right back to how things were before when it's all over, but it would be nice if on the cycling/transport front that we didn't. I've seen families out on bikes like never before, including even on my local A road - now we've all had a taste of that, let's see how we can hold on to it. People might get to realise how nice their local area can be without excessive cars. 

We've done well at re-purposing people and services to better resource the necessary.  However I still can't book a supermarket delivery for my in laws.
the brilliant all-out effort being made in hospitals can't continue like this forever, so it remains vital to continue do other things to curb the spread.  We're not really out of this until an effective vaccine is rolled out.

As I write, the worst in terms of deaths, for the UK is about to hit. I think some people are still having trouble believing it, that it could happen here. 

ignoring health just for a moment, going purely on the economics, which is worse - risking another episode like the current one (economic cost nowhere near quantified), or a system of 10 day quarantine at all our ports?  Honestly, I don't normally go in for the close the borders stuff - I know how reliant we are just in health and social care on overseas recruitment.

It all gets a bit dystopian novel if the  "immune and can prove it" idea takes hold. 

The lockdown itself feels like some of my childhood winter Sundays - drab, very little to do, nowhere to go. Life, for many people was often like that - beyond work there weren't the "cram every minute, fulfil every desire" days out, shopping centres, restaurants, flights, attractions, resorts. I don't want to bring back that drab past.  At the same time, all of the preceding and many more businesses have had no work or income and are struggling to contain overheads. It would be daft to apply traditional insolvency rules to this situation - a pointless merry go round of bankrupt sales. 

the drop-off in hospital emergency attendances is a curious one; I've seen a "we're still here" news item reflecting that very point for my hospital.  Does that mean a  tidal wave of delayed presentations, or has in some cases,  the problem gone away without medical assistance? it needs study. 
None of us wants to end up as the "but I thought it was just a mole/something I ate/ a migraine" camp. I've been through every psychosomatic symptom I can think up over the past 3 weeks - every twinge, my throat telling me I need a drink, my skin glowing after a bit of sun triggers the "I've got it" set of thoughts.  I'm over it now.

It's a glorious time to be cycling at the moment. The weather is perfect, particularly if you get out early and there's almost no traffic. I'm genuinely enjoying road cycling for the first time in a couple of years. Rode for an hour this morning, saw more cyclists than cars. Zero close passes, smiles and thumbs ups from drivers, most odd.

I'm hoping for a big shift in public opinion now that people can see how much nicer, quieter and safer it is without so many motors on the roads.

The air is cleaner, clearer and now even the sun has come back out (though that might be a seasonal difference).