Personal Responsibility

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Please Read it here – 

Neil 

So my first show report of 2020 was going to be the March 28th Kantata Audio – Spring Event but in light of world events, John of Kantata Audio has cancelled that show to later in the year, assuming things improve by then. John’s audio show is not the only HiFi event, show to be cancelled, as the arrival of SARS COVID 19 virus in Europe and the UK, indeed farther afield has forced responsible organisers to postpone their upcoming audio shows all over the world.

As I write this its not clear if there will actually be any audio shows (1) this year, 2020 could be the year where the only UK show held was February’s Bristol show, and with no solution to COVID19 yet found and not likely for maybe at least a year the world is now a very different place to what it was a few months ago. As of now all over the world the things that humans like to do, the day today activities we all took for granted we no longer can do. The new buzz words are ‘Social Distancing’ (2) where medical and government experts tell us we must keep are distance from each other and that distance should be 2 m. This advice, and in some parts of the world its not advice, but a mandatory requirement, means pretty much everything is effected. There simply is no part of human existence on this planet that is not effected, or at least should be by this new way of living.

The common visible divider between the old life, and the new is yellow and black hazard tape, either laid out on the floor or between shelving units to steer customers a particular way or even prevent them from serving themselves. Now days a counter isn’t the only barrier between server and customer but a line of hazard tape, please don’t cross, keeping a distance of about 1m.

I know many think this is all over the top and really not needed. Well it is. As I write this now Italy has 5546 dead with 625 people having died in the last 24 hours alone, and this isn’t an Italian problem, but a global one. Italian hospitals are as good as any other country, this isn’t a third world situation. Pretty much every country in the world has this now, a brand new to humans virus that has come from the animal kingdom, and that is why this is a serious problem, and all our lives must change.

‘Social Distancing’ is important and should not be optional, do it if you can be bothered. Everyone must be bothered. By helping to slow the virus progress we buy the health service time, and space to cope. If the health service is overwhelmed then many will die, Italy could happen in those countries were citizens think this doesn’t apply.

My place of regular work closed, and I am now in a position of being out of work, but for now still paid, and I have had time to do some jobs round the house and I have been in my front garden, and I have seen people ‘who can not be bothered, who think this does not apply’ and I am truly shocked. I have seen four in a car, friends walking close, families walking together, people bunching up in stores and so on. However nothing is so shocking as seeing people out by the sea side because the weather was nice. What is wrong with these people?

It is everyones personal responsibility to do their best to not make this situation worse, so please, please treat ‘social distancing’ seriously, please do it. If you don’t, and enough people can’t be bothered then many people will die because of your not being bothered. That’s not hysteria but a cold, as in the grave fact.

For myself, I will go out for food, but thats it, what social life I had is on hold, till this is over.

To my friends in the audio world please stay safe, and I hope we all make it through to the other side of this crisis.

Neil

(1) Will there even be any audio companies still trading after COVID 19 has had its way with the world, as pretty much all non essential businesses close?

(2) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults