Winsham and the Covid-19 Pandemic

Socially distanced Winsham Parish Council meetings were shortly to transfer to using on-line meeting software to comply with lockdown rules

Introduction

At the time of publishing  this account, the end of  December 2021, the Covid -19 pandemic which was first identified in China late in 2019, is still raging in many parts of the world. Partially controlled, in the more developed nations of the world through vaccination, it is  capable of returning if the vaccination programme is not maintained. The appearance of Omicron in late 2021 confirmed there is the on-going certainty that  variants will continue to develop, some resistant to existing vaccines.

Constant vigilance  by governments remains essential. Fortunately, treatments and new drugs are becoming available to sufferers. It is now regarded as having become endemic to the UK, and that it will now be part of range of diseases that the world will have to learn to cope with on a permanent basis, such as influenza and measles; controlled, but always present. It also seems that although the vaccines have reduced the risk of death or serious illness for most, they are not as effective in reducing contagion as was originally hoped.

Much has been written, analysing and speculating on every aspect of the virus, its behaviour and influence on the global community, and this is available on the Internet. Wikipedia is a good place to start. Winsham Web Museum's main objective is to record its effect on our small community.

Winsham Web Museum's purpose is not to provide a catalogue of statistics; contagion rates, deaths by demographic groupings and so on. All of this can be found elsewhere.   It will concentrate on the effect it had and is still having on the day-to day lives of residents. Some  hard data cannot be  avoided, but kept to a minimum,  sometimes to appear separated from the main body of text. Reference is made to the effect on UK communities, but only to place Winsham’s experience into context, as part of a nationwide experience. As the years pass, future visitors to the museum will need to understand the wider picture of the situation that faced Winsham people who experienced the  occurrence of a major pandemic.

INDEX

For link, click on picture

The First Lockdown
False dawn
How Winsham residents reacted-personal views
The Second Lockdown
The Third Lockdown
The Omicron variant-an unwelcome Christmas visitor-
December 2021
2022- A year of uncertainty and paying the price.


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