In a few minutes I will be going to work with a very heavy heart ...

In a few minutes I will be going to work with a very heavy heart. The outstanding team of carers that I am currently working with are caring for some of the most vulnerable people in our community. They are doing the direct, hands-on care, of course they still are; but we all have a moral, societal level responsibility for their care and future well-being. 

All of us share in this responsibility, no matter what level of privileged or political power we hold - we must all follow the vital Covid-19 infection control rules (the letter and spirit) as they were presented to us by the Prime Minister if we are to fully protect the lives of our fellow citizens. But I worry that what has happened this weekend will now make this less likely. I worry that those that can and want to have now being given an official license to interpret the rules to their own best advantage.

Fully exercising this moral responsibility should not be a matter for personal instinct or family convenience. Even if some people in positions of power choose to flexibly interpret the rules they themselves instructed the rest of us to follow, we must all still stand together during the ongoing crisis for the sake of our fellow citizens. 

P.S. as a quick follow up to a couple of comments I received on on the 'Intensive Interaction Users' Facebook page (and all serious comments are always absolutely welcome!), I would just like to add to this Blog that I wasn't trying to be overtly political in what I was saying (and apologies to those if it came across like that; which it probably does now that I have re-read it). No, my worries were, and still are, based on my understanding of Albert Bandura's 'Social Learning Theory', which focuses on how human behaviour is related to situated learning, and how that learning is developed and expressed within a broader social context. 

Our behaviours are learned from, and their expression influenced by, the behaviours of others - especially from the behaviours of those we see as having high social capital i.e. those in positions of influence (hence the term). This is how societal or social norms are generated, defined and propagated across a society. 

That was, and (unless some corrective or compensatory action is quickly taken) still is my concern i.e that social distancing (and 'isolation' when contagious) rules will now generally become more permissively interpreted and applied by more and more people - putting still more vulnerable people's lives at risk if the virus continues to spread more than it would if the rules were still being applied equally amongst us all. 

As  Albert Schweitzer (Nobel Peace Prize winner) said; 

"Example is not the most important thing in influencing people: it is the only thing".