What are we to make of the public’s response to what looks as though it may turn out to be a social and economic catastrophe?
Some say that hoarding and the stripping of supermarkets illustrate what a deeply selfish society we have become. They say our self-denying grandparents in World War II would never have behaved like this.
Others insist that, no, there are many examples of kindness and sacrifice which show there is still a strong sense of community and of caring among the people of our country.
Shoppers queue at an Asda supermarket in London as consumers worry about product shortages amid the coronavirus crisis, leading to stockpiling of household items (file photo)
Which is it? I have been struggling over recent days to make up my mind as to whether the greedy hoarders or the burgeoning volunteers more truly represent the character of modern Britain.
Everyone will have their stories of gross behaviour. A couple of mornings ago, I drove through the deserted streets of Oxford to our usual supermarket. As there were so few people around, I assumed it would be virtually empty.
How naïve I was. The aisles were crammed with shoppers, many of whom wore a desperate and hunted look. There was no sense of camaraderie. No trace of human feeling that we are all in this together.
Some pushed trolleys piled high with food. Many shelves had been ransacked. No loo paper or kitchen towel. No eggs. Household cleaning materials sold out. As for hand-cleansing gel, forget it.
Seeing so many normally respectable people pursuing their interests so remorselessly (and so humourlessly) was a depressing experience, which didn’t make one love one’s fellow citizens any more. Their behaviour seemed un-British.
Then I reflected that what many were doing was perhaps not obviously distinguishable from my own actions. Being no longer in the first flush of youth, and therefore theoretically more at risk than many, I was in the supermarket to stock up for the next week or two.
Others may have been there to stockpile. Is there really so much difference? Those who had crammed their trolleys with enough loo paper to meet the needs of a small army with rampant diarrhoea were guilty of a lack of consideration for others. But they weren’t bad people.
I felt the same when I saw photographs in yesterday’s Mail of young hedonists partying in Newcastle and Birmingham, utterly oblivious to the Government’s advice about social distancing.
Shoppers wearing face masks are faced with shelves stripped mostly bare at a supermarket in London amid hoarding during the coronavirus outbreak (file photo)
Seemingly they weren’t worried about catching the coronavirus themselves, perhaps because they know the mortality rate amongst 20 to 30-year-olds is negligible. But their thoughtless actions could lead to the virus spreading to those who are far more vulnerable.
And then there was that picture of a foolish young British woman in a bikini who ignored the lockdown in her hotel in Tenerife to take a lone swim in the pool. This representative of the I-can-do-whatever-I-want cohort of the younger generation was (hurrah!) led away in handcuffs by police.
A businessman in his 30s tells me that some young people who work for him appear utterly unconcerned by the contagion, apparently having convinced themselves that they will scarcely notice if they catch it. Don’t they have parents and grandparents? He adds that the same souls who fret endlessly about climate change — which, although a threat, doesn’t presage impending widespread fatalities — seem incapable of getting their heads around the imminent calamity of coronavirus.
If true, that is depressing. But, again, I don’t suppose such people are wicked. Like middle-aged or elderly hoarders, young people who insist on partying, and continuing to live their lives as though nothing has changed, are chiefly guilty of a lack of moral imagination.
Let’s look at the other side of the ledger. Only this morning, a woman in her 60s told my wife that she and others in her village are organising a network of people to help those who have self-isolated with deliveries of food and other necessities.
In my part of Oxford, the local residents’ association is setting up a group of volunteers to distribute food and medicine to people who can’t leave their homes. They will also walk dogs (so long as they are well-behaved!) and check-up on the sick and elderly.
An elderly man leaves an Iceland supermarket store following an ‘elderly only’ shopping hour in London. The supermarket has also rationed on certain essential items (file photo)
A volunteer hands over bags of food and drinks to an elderly woman amid coronavirus outbreak in Tbilisi, Georgia (file photo)
Almost everyone will have similar inspiring stories. Hundreds of community groups have sprung up over recent days, and I’ve no doubt many more will do so.
On a personal level, too, there are countless acts of kindness. A colleague who has just been required to self-isolate because of a suspected case of the contagion in his household tells me he has received innumerable messages of goodwill and concern. Meanwhile, some supermarket chains are showing they have a human heart after all, and that profit is not their only concern. For example, Sainsbury’s has announced it will open only to the elderly and vulnerable for the first hour of trading, and will prioritise such people for home deliveries.
So despite appalling stories of hoarding and mindless partying and other examples of self-indulgence, we should remember that tens of thousands of selfless volunteers are already giving up their time.
Nor should we fall into the error of believing that our forefathers in the war, magnificent as most of them were, were all self-denying and universally perfect. As we look back somewhat mistily to that last great challenge our nation faced (though surely one incomparably greater than this one), we tend to forget those crooks who made money out of the black market.
Later generations laughed fondly at Dad’s Army’s Private Walker, the black market spiv always offering fellow members of the Home Guard attractive deals. At the time, though, such people were widely regarded with horror, and not as a subject for humour.
I remember my first newspaper editor, Bill Deedes, telling me years ago how, as a young soldier, he was sent down to the London docks to persuade dockers who were effectively refusing (though strikes were officially illegal) to load and unload important supplies.
No generation is perfect. I certainly don’t want to pretend we are the equal of the one which endured the long privations and depredations of the last war, but I believe we’re a lot better than some recent events have suggested.
My bet is that, as things get worse over the coming weeks — as I fear they must, though, God willing, not too much — we will be less aware of the blind pursuit of selfishness, and more conscious of many acts of human kindness.
Only this afternoon, a young Anglican priest whom we know only a little called at our house to ask how my wife and I were. Wasn’t that a generous-hearted thing to have done?
By the way, I regret that the Church of England has suspended services even while some offices and factories are still functioning. At moments like these, many of us have a greater need of our national Church than we do in more settled times, and yet, unfortunately, it is receding.
The fact is that there are always selfish types, and over the past week or two we have seen too much of them. But many thousands of good people are now stepping forward.
When this terrible scourge is over, they may have helped to make us a kinder nation.