Lockdown for Now

This is the time of war. Lockdown is a cruel phase in the battle against Covid-19. But thank goodness, my small nuclear family have no symptoms. I might have one cough when talking on the phone or writing on the bed board and I would get called out by a consultant doctor or a well-meaning friend. “Is that a cough?” they would query. But we all have these crazy paranoia and sometimes fear take over. There is no vaccine. There is no cure for Covid-19. Words such as desaturation and low blood pressure bring such trepidation. It’s a nasty pestilence, fatal to the weak leading to a shortage of body bags. I know I’m being morbid but it’s not like measles nor chicken pox where there is an inherent natural immunity once afflicted. It is oh so cruel to the lungs. It might have hit you already, you recovered and it will hit you again. 

We are terribly exposed at work. The battle for safe Personal Effective Equipment is real. The deaths of front liners; of doctors, nurses, health care assistants, porters, bus drivers particularly hurt not only because they are colleagues but the powers that be ignore the high-viral load associated with any positive and suspected patients. Please, protect people and front liners from death. 

South Korea has these massive and rampant testing and contact tracing that is  keeping the figures down whether infection or death rates. Or so the reports say. Germany as well have the capacity to test more people. Here in London, as I observe so far, you only get tested once you are admitted to a hospital and on the brink. Even if you self-isolate, you don’t get tested unless you are top of the pyramid in the hierarchy of humans. 

Social distancing, as in not seeing people, is bad for business and bad for mental health. Imagine not seeing friends and family and not going to McDonalds or a theme park? Well, there are no McDonald’s, theme parks and restaurants or clothes shops as they are now closed. Entertainment is staying home. The world works at home. School is all a series of computer exercises and homework. My husband is correct, I won’t have the time and energy for home school as we both work on the battlefield. I’m grateful for the key worker incentive. Because unlike those who work at home, us from the lower tier, have to go to work (and take the tube at my end) and face this cruel infection face to face with flimsy protection. So I couldn’t do much in terms of homework and learning from home bits for my seven-year old. No energy on day offs. None at all. I’m so tired. This would be my classic refrain.