Excuse Me, Are We Really In Lockdown?

Amid the second national lockdown, many British people are not taking the rules seriously. Why is that happening? And what is this telling us?

I couldn’t believe what I’d seen, almost thinking it was a mirage when jogging in London on a Sunday morning, the first weekend after the second lockdown came into effect in England.

Before I ventured out, I’d expected the streets to be nearly empty with just a few people going out to purchase groceries or do exercise, two of the main outdoor activities that are still allowed under the restrictions. At least that was what I experienced during the first lockdown in March.

However, this time was quite the opposite. Not only were the roads packed with people buying takeaways, but there were also rows of vendors on either side of the paths in the park selling international foods.

In front of each stall, crowds of customers stood close to one another in long queues with no face covering and social distancing whatsoever. And the playground nearby saw dozens of kids enjoying each other’s company, unlikely to avoid any physical contact.

Out of shock, I stopped running, aghast at the surreal scene rolling out right before my eyes. “Is there really a lockdown?” I even started to doubt the truth as each group of passers-by walking past me looked unaware of the risk of infection. They acted as if there was no rule, or to be more precise, COVID-19 did not even exist.

According to the current regulation, social activities among different households can only happen outdoors with a maximum of two people; shops and restaurants should shut down except for takeaways and supermarkets with essential goods. Apparently, not many Londoners tend to follow the instruction while vendors are circumventing it.

“Am I making a fuss or being too paranoid?” the question arose in my head. “But isn’t the number of cases still skyrocketing rapidly?” an enormous gap between what I see in reality and what I know on the media confused me profoundly.

As of this writing, the UK sees around 22,000 new daily cases and has become the first country in Europe, fifth in the world, to pass 50,000 deaths from Coronavirus.

The lockdown 2.0, according to the government’s announcement and scientists’ advice, is meant to reduce the likeliness of hospitals getting overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients at the end of the year.

But why do Britons seem to throw their caveats to the winds completely?

Intrigued to figure out the answer, I searched for people’s voices on Twitter. Then the result stunned me even more: most people are just being reckless and unaware of the danger. Instead, they intend to break the rules to rebel against the government’s policy.

A campaign account has been created in response to the second lockdown; its hashtag slogan, “#WeWillNotComply” went viral on social media. Videos of anti-lockdown protesters without masks marching on the roads in different cities have been widely shared and spread across the Internet. The hustle and bustle I witnessed at the food market in Victoria Park was part of the planned move to show disobedience.

Most of them believe implementing another lockdown will not effectively alleviate the pandemic in the long run but only exacerbate the financial crisis many businesses and retailers have already struggled to tackle. Some of them are reported to be facing permanent closure after four weeks of lockdown in despair.

With over eight hundred likes, a campaigner of Lockdown Sceptics wrote on Twitter, “This isn’t a lockdown at all. It’s an attack on small businesses, on hospitality, on gyms and the retail sector.”

However, there are still people who obey the rules and criticize those in defiance for being selfish and reckless. “It’s exactly why we are in a second lockdown,” one person replied. Meanwhile, a nurse also posted a statement to call for public obedience to protect the National Health Service (NHS).

“What a mess,” I sighed following numerous pandemic dramas I have spectated so far as an outsider in the UK.

Firstly, it’s a lack of consensus between central and local governments whose policies are in no way simultaneous and consistent; then came this, the clash among citizens over whether they should “stay at home during lockdown”.

It’s no wonder that the catastrophic impacts of Coronavirus have shown no signs of improvement.

In contrast, Taiwan, my home country, has constantly impressed the world with its impeccable handling of COVID-19. Never has it launched a lockdown, the nation contained the virus so well that no local cases had been found in 200 days.

Yet, its commendable performance cannot simply be attributed to the government but also the people; the Taiwanese as a whole.

It is, of course, reasonable to say that the key factor is how fast the government responded to the outbreak since Taiwan imposed a travel ban from China straight away while at the same time, most western countries remained inactive.

But another crucial reason is the citizens’ cooperativeness.

From wearing masks to self-isolation, all the measures are strictly introduced, and more importantly, prioritized by society.

When Britons were still suspicious of the effectiveness of masks, refusing to wear one due to the possible deprivation of their freedom, face-covering was already part of the Taiwanese’ everyday lives.

Also, when some westerners tried to find a way around quarantine regulation and escape home during the initial lockdown, those in Taiwan who needed self-isolation for two weeks were compliant with the robust tracking system, and some returning from foreign countries even voluntarily extended the length to three weeks.

“I wanted to study abroad because there’s more freedom in the west. But since the pandemic, I’ve started to think, perhaps having too much of it is not necessarily a good thing,” a Taiwanese international student currently studying in Cardiff, UK, told me.

Ruminating over our conversation, I believe that instead of blaming the amount of freedom one has, individualism is probably a more precise word to explain the phenomenon. That is, Asians tend to regard themselves as a tiny fraction of the entire community, where each person has the responsibility to make society function properly, a kind of thinking more inclined to socialism.

In comparison, westerners preferred to be considered separately and individually. They value personal success more than communal achievement. It is particularly evident in Britain and America, whose ancestors were conquerors from imperial empires historically. An urge to compete and revolt is perhaps deeply ingrained in their blood.

“When I initially had to wear a mask around Taipei, I complained incessantly, feeling inconvenienced, even violated,” Russ Josephs, a US writer said in his article, “there was a part of me — which I can only attribute to my ‘Americanness’ — that wanted to rebel against it with every fiber of my being.”

Then he said the disaster going on in America was not all the government’s fault and of those anti masks but “there is something deep in the American psyche that pushes us to go against the grain, even if it can potentially hurt or kill us”.

Likewise, the UK is certainly another example of citizens’ overall reluctance and obstruction. What added to that is, with all the swift decisions and policies, people’s trust in the government has constantly dwindled. In the meantime, the impact of a no-deal Brexit is looming large.

In a word, a strong sense of uncertainty is seemingly stoking the rebellion among Britons against authority to another level.

“People are not afraid of the virus. They are just fed up with the government being incompetent,” one of my British classmates explained to me why people continued to flood out during lockdown.

Regardless of the government’s manifestos, from an Asian perspective, it is obvious that this highly contagious virus is turning the world upside down, disclosing the weakness of western culture that has long stood at the top of the game.

Possibly originating from the early colonialism and the modern media, a belief of the west being superior to the east has, to some extent, been instilled into Asians’ minds over the years. Invariably, people believe the western part of the world symbolises freedom, power, ambition, and success.

It’s an internalized mentality hidden inside sometimes even without people’s noticing. However, given the situation where these supposedly strong western states are being beaten up by an invisible adversary, “the envy of the world” is probably no longer a title that belongs to them.

It is, in my opinion, high time for us — in particular, Taiwan — to ditch that covert inferiority complex, uproot the myth of white supremacy, and see our strengths instead of shortcomings to shine on a global stage.

The concept is not about making efforts to gain the upper hand around the world but identifying the global tendency.

That is, the goodness of the western wonderland full of liberty should be reconsidered and re-evaluated.

This time there is absolutely no need for those well-developed Asian countries to envy their western counterparts. And the Taiwanese, whose country now can’t be more qualified to join WHO than ever, should be proud of having worked all together to make a COVID-free life possible.

Pay attention. And stay tuned.
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