It's statistics, more statistics and yet more statistics and the children of the world.

It's statistics, more statistics and yet more statsitics and the children of the world.

We do seem to be getting bogged down by a multitude of statistics, percentages, columns of numbers and every conceivable set of graphs known to mankind. Covid 19 is so heavily reliant on the latest stats and figures that we're in danger of being drawn into some weird mathematical hinterland where the calculations of the obvious become even more complicated to understand than ever before.

We are now witnessing one of those immensely overwhelming moments where it all seems as if everything is spiralling out of our control. Every day the harrowing loss of life may seem too much to bear for some of us since this just seems barely believable. At the beginning Covid 19 seemed to be confined to a minor incident aboard a cruiser ship where it then proceeded to head towards China and then we looked to the heavens in horror.

Now of course the whole world has been caught up in an even more horrendous death spin that simply can't be controlled however hard we try. Or can it? Have we turned the corner? Has this despicable disease finally blown itself out. We can only hope that it has because the weeks and months are flying at a much quicker rate than we thought they would and there are only so many crossword puzzles we can do, yoga and pilates sessions we can successfully negotiate. The lockdown is gripping us but not in the favourable way that such a phrase would suggest.

The latest news is that Britain is thinking about opening up its primary schools, its groves of academia and places of very youthful learning so that has to be welcomed. But the projected date of June 1 is no more than a hope wrapped up as a definite. We are still wading through a treacly quagmire of muddy water, a thick layer of red coloured bureaucracy that just feels like quicksand. Will the kids be safe once they enter those hallowed gates of education or will they feel very susceptible to infection? Oh please not.

Yesterday we were given a revealing insight into the world of the school classroom when classes possibly resume at the beginning of June. There were rows of desks strategically spread out so far from each other that they may just as well have been on the other side of the world. We have now been told that books, pencils, pens, chalk rubbers, boards and windows will have to be thoroughly cleaned and steamed just in case because all of the necessary precautions have to be taken and under no circumstances must those books be marked. Have you heard anything like it?

The thought occurs to you that if children are allowed back into school the scheduled term would normally end in the last week or so of July. We now accept that sooner or later the kids will have to go back to school because they need to have that important structure and routine in place. They need to see the friends they used to see every day because kids need to be among their peers learning, studying and playing to their hearts content. Kids need to let off steam, be energetic, run off pent up tensions and frustrations so that's obvious. Or is it?

But the truth is that even if children are allowed back at school this leaves them with only a month or so to become truly re-acquainted and re-integrated with each other. It hardly seems worth the effort and there remains the underlying fear among parents of what might happen next? We have now been through so many cycles of suffering and uncertainty that to expose our next generation to a lifetime of panic, worry and trembling trepidation is not the kind of scenario that any of us would wish them to undergo.

Meanwhile in the wide open spaces of parks and gardens around the world the air that we breathe would seem to be that much cleaner and purer. We can now walk around these blissful idylls in slightly bigger groups than before. We can now sit down grassy spots and know that our picnics and discussion groups will not be disturbed by trucks with loud tannoys imploring us menacingly to go home if our intention was not to exercise properly.

And yet still the pubs, bars, restaurants and cinemas remind you of bomb sites. Nobody quite knows when we'll be allowed to eat and drink together and whether we can actually be bothered anymore even if the green light is shown. There remains a gracious acceptance that nothing can possibly change at the moment because if it does we may never forgive ourselves should this happen again which, or so we're led to believe, it might.

Regrettably we are no further forward than we'd like to be. We can't see our family or friends, TV news reporters have to stand a country mile from the people they're interrogating and you'd have to laugh if you couldn't cry. Extremely young children are still painting lovely NHS rainbows on their windows and there is still life out there but much of it tends to be concentrated inside. The playgrounds are deserts, the swings and roundabouts now ghosts and apparitions, pale shadows of their former lively selves.

Our hearts may be weeping but our hearts are much stronger than perhaps we give them credit for. There is a sense that we've got to this point and we're still here, models of resilience, heroes of our age, conquerors of evil demons, brave and spirited, dogged and impregnable. This may not be the story we'd have liked to send down to  future generations but at least we can tell the children that we did experience it and we survived admirably.

Meanwhile the inimitable President of the United States- for there can surely be none other like him in any walk of life- Donald Trump is taking anti- malarial drugs because he believes that they can actually work if you suspect that you have the symptoms of Covid 19. Now it can't be denied that we're all familiar with the Trump persona. The oddball idiosyncrasies have always been present and the everday White House announcements just lend themselves to satire and the comedy club. Of course Trump means well but for the time being at least he may have to keep the slapstick humour to himself before we all dissolve in helpless laughter.

So there you are ladies and gentlemen. We're approaching the last couple of weeks of May and where has that year gone? In years to come we may acknowledge that 2020 was just one of those years where everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Historians are busily sharpening their fingers on their laptops and you can almost sense a thousand weighty books on the year of Covid 19. You can anticipate the barrage of facts, figures and an abundance of stats on the subject. We'll be given chapter and verse on how, why, where and who, considered analyses, learned dissertations, frantic forecasts, wild hypothesis about whether it could come back again for another spike. Oh no oh please no. However, we'll keep battling on, we'll never give up and we do like a challenge.

Still, here we are in lockdown and that's final whether we like it or not? There are no alternatives and no options, no way of telling when we'll finally be re-assured that it has finally gone, vanished into the dust and consigned to permanent history. But for those who remain optimistic we think we're almost there even if doesn't seem as though we're not quite there. One day, you suspect the keys will be found to open up that lockdown and it'll be business as usual. We have to believe.