Things are strange at the moment, stranger even than they normally are. And not just for me either. My country, along with many others across the globe has downed tools and closed for business – to a greater or lesser degree – as the powers that be decide the best way to approach Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) and the virus which causes it, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS – CoV-2). For simplicities sake I’ll refer to both the virus and disease as simply Corona for the rest of this piece because let’s face it no one needs added complications at this time.
When there was initially talk about self-isolation and social-distancing measures I wasn’t concerned. After all I practically live in self-isolation anyway and rarely see other people except for my husband and parents. I was ready for this and it really didn’t think it would be much of a change for me at all.
And at first it wasn’t. My husband was still going to work and everyone was still going about their day to day business, all be it with a bit more distance between them. Then the panic buying started. People stockpiling loo roll, hand wash, anti-bacterial gel and any tinned/canned/dried food they could lay their greedy hands on. Supermarket shelves were bare, essential healthcare workers, fresh off a 14 hour shift found shops with nothing left to sell. The selfish grabbed whatever they could with no thought to anyone else. Supermarkets pleaded with customers to only buy what they needed and started limiting the number of loo rolls and hand sanitisers that any one person could buy at one time.
Some people didn’t think that the social-distancing rules applied to them. They still flocked for boozy lunches with bottles of wine or met mates for a few pints after work at the local pub. Groups of teenagers hanging around on the same parks that they always had took no heed of the warnings to maintain distance, if not for their own sake then for that of the poor bugger they would infect who could go on to become critically ill.
The Government decided that us humans were obviously too stupid to follow guidelines that were set for our own good and closed all pubs, bars and restaurants. Still people went out for a day at the shops, wandering along the local High Street without a care in the world and gathered in numbers previously unseen at nature reserves and national parks.
So now we are here. All but essential shops are closed. Everyone has to stay at home unless they absolutely cannot work from home. We are permitted to exercise outside of the home once a day, with walking, running or cycling being the authorised activities. Infrequent visits to buy food or essential medical supplies are permitted and there are queues outside supermarkets. Long snakes of humans standing two meters apart wait to be admitted to the store via a ‘one in – one out’ system. It has become necessary to implement special hours when the elderly and vulnerable can shop without finding empty shelves or having to fight crazed hoarders for the last pack of pasta.
In what hasn’t officially been called a lockdown we are, for all intents and purposes, locked-down. And still I thought I was ok. Husband is working from home so I’m not alone all day which I thought would be nice but in reality it’s just annoying and I feel like I can’t even speak to him as I don’t want to disturb him. I can’t see my parents and had to drop a Mother’s day gift off at the weekend from across the garden. Not being able to hug the ones you love and who you turn to in times of crisis is heartbreaking. What is worse is that anyone who is hospitalised with suspected Corona can’t have any visitors. None. Not even if the worse happens and they end up fatally ill. In their last moments on this earth they will be alone, their loved ones not even allowed to say goodbye. I can’t imagine how awful that must be. Well I can, but I am trying my hardest not to or I’ll cry again. There are frontline NHS staff working around the clock, unable to see their own families and in some cases even having to move out of the family home so they can continue to keep working in such a high risk environment. Home carers and those working in residential homes are not only at risk of contracting Corona themselves but of passing it to their elderly, unwell charges. There is no disputing that in this particular group of adults that infection is likely to be a death-sentence. Supermarket workers, after facing weeks of abuse are still there, scanning the nation’s shopping, being exposed to hundreds of people daily and still smiling while they go about their dangerous duties.
So, isolation is not what I thought it would be. I thought everything would stay the same for me but it really hasn’t. The thought of what is going on around the country, and around the world is filling my head and I can’t get it out. I am trying to distract myself with computer games and learning new things but my mind feels like a kaleidoscope, twirling and tumbling with images and ideas and I can’t get it to stop. Part of me feels like this is natures way of redressing the balance, or trying to restore the environment to a state where it can actually flourish once again. Humans have been gassing our planet for decades, choking the atmosphere with poisons that our endless thirst for industry have produced. Maybe our planet is fighting back, and choking us in return? Maybe it is just one of the natural cycles that the Earth goes through? I don’t have the answer but I do know that when all of this is over humanity needs to redress how we treat our world and each other because we simply cannot carry on as we had been doing.
Brain Wanderings 