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