Corona Diaries - New Normal
02.04.2020
Ah, I’ve had my first blog cock up. Amazing it took so long to happen. I spent an hour drafting a post yesterday only for it to have completely vanished into the ether today. I’ve struggled over the last few days to write anything at all because there’s just so much going on and it’s hard to get a handle on how to feel and what to do. It’s incredible to see how much the world has changed in the last few weeks. It seems unimaginable that so recently we were planning to travel to Manchester for Mother’s Day and deciding what restaurant we might book for my sister’s birthday. We had a holiday planned that would be leaving in six days a wedding taking place this weekend. Despite the news from China and Italy, for one reason or another, it hadn’t dawned on people that we really wouldn’t be doing all these things. Not on most of us anyway.
It’s sometimes possible to actually forget what’s going on. Humans institutionalise quite quickly. We’ve adapted to our new normal. When you’re in the safety of your home - providing you have a safe and comfortable home - and the news isn’t on and you’re not constantly googling what the hell’s going on, you can briefly imagine you’ve just chosen to be at home that day. That you needed to spring clean that wardrobe, and get a food delivery and cook a surprisingly long-winded and complicated dish you wouldn’t normally contemplate. We have books, TV. We Facetime our loved ones and there’s plenty to get done. With the added bonus of neighbours suddenly acting like we’re not in London but in some cosy little village somewhere, all swapping numbers and checking in on each other, it’s easy and tempting to disconnect from reality. It’s only when you look in your diary and realise what you’re supposed to be doing this week and that it now seems laughable that it’s clear how quick things have changed.
When I switch on the Daily Briefing at 5pm I’m brought back to earth with a sickening bump. Watching the death toll go up, seeing Boris Johnson looking rough on his home camera, hearing about the doctors and nurses who are dying while doing their job. It’s frighteningly real. Today I read about someone who is undergoing chemotherapy and doesn’t know if they’ll live to see the end of the lockdown. About a nurse who had to sit with a dying COVID19 patient after her shift was over because the family weren’t able to do so. I remind myself that I’m genuinely not allowed to see my family. It’s not actually just a side effect of being busy. We’re not allowed to be in the same room. I try not to think about that. It’s mad.
And to think that a virus is in charge of creating this chaos. That something invisible (it’s invisible, or tiny right?) has made a mockery of our well-planned and organised lives. Has travelled across the world. I’ve seen all the memes about how climate change is just as big an emergency and there’s nowhere near the same measures being put in the place, the same reaction from the public. And I agree with them. But I also understand it. It seems abstract when it doesn’t affect you immediately. People in more rural communities, in countries, lifestyles and livelihoods that depend on the weather, they understand the reality of climate change. For the rest of us we have to understand it intellectually, without direct experience. The coronavirus is like that in a way. It was easy to discount it as something over in China, something sad and scary but that could be contained, until we saw its power for ourselves. Maybe that’s why it took so many people so long to grasp that they need to stay indoors, need to stop the spread.
It’s important not to terrify yourself. Not to force yourself to read hours and hours of harrowing testimonials from healthcare professionals, from grieving families. But confronting the reality is also important. Understanding what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. And hopefully, to learn lessons for the future.