The Mayor of London’s surprise drone and firework display on New Year’s Eve featured the image of a muted microphone, familiar to users of video conferencing services as a tiny icon at the bottom of a computer screen. It appeared in gigantic form above the deserted O2 Arena, along with words many Londoners will have recognized: You’re on mute! – the shout out to someone starting to speak on a call without un-muting their microphone.
If it was intended to be a shared joke about life under lockdown, it wasn’t one designed for key workers who have not been working remotely – nor it seems for anyone watching south of the river Thames. In the context of the more far-reaching effects of the pandemic, it was actually a perturbing reminder of the ways in which we have all been silenced.
The display hovered and sparkled over hospitals experiencing the beginning of the terrible second wave of the pandemic, hospitals staffed by doctors and nurses under injunction not to speak to reporters or on social media about what was unfolding in the wards.
