Michael, I find it difficult to muster any pride in being human in this era of global conflict, oppression, and ecological devastation, let alone being British or English – neither of which I’m sure I am anyway as I have little idea who my biological parents were. I don’t hate the UK – I don’t really feel connected enough to any nation states to have emotions about them except that they’re looking increasingly outdated; if human civilisation survives its multiple impending crises, whether we grew up on Earth, Mars or in some space habitat will probably become more significant than our nationalities. I just wish that us humans would put all this silly competition behind us and get on with the jobs in hand, because they are challenges the like of which have never been seen before and our window of opportunity is closing fast. If humans can make Mars a living world my pride in humanity will overflow – Gaia will have reproduced, and we will have built her seed pods. But I’m unlikely to live long enough to see such a wonder, if it ever happens at all.
Beware the daily infection figures because they’re affected by delays in data collation caused by weekends, so always check the seven day averages. And the Zoe symptoms app is warning that UK numbers might be about to start rising again.