Corona Diaries: Got it
15/07/2022
Hello, welcome back to my Corona Diaries! It’s been a while hasn’t it? But let’s be honest, everyone was really just OVER it, right? No one was waiting for me to chime up and start wittering on about lateral flow tests and masks. But I’m afraid that now I’ve finally had a bout of COVID I have returned!
I’m not here, by the by, to smash out the grimy details of exactly how I felt. I think we now have enough graphic descriptions of the COVID experience thanks to social media oversharers, symptom checking apps and constant news coverage to know that everyone responds differently and that results can ran the gamut from zero symptoms to fatalities. I will say that the constant mutations in virus, and thus in symptoms, did mean that it took me a while to notice that I might have COVID. Although I felt unwell, very few of my symptoms matched up with anything we’d been told to look out for and after the fatigue of two years of constantly assuming I had COVID every five minutes I, ironically in this case, totally brushed it off at first. Even when I did take a test for the cough that I now couldn’t shake, I was genuinely surprised to see the lines pop up.
I feel quite stupid admitting this. I actually wrote a version of this post over two weeks ago and didn’t share it because I felt like a shameful idiot. Due to work, personal anxieties and immunocompromised family members I’d been so careful throughout the entire pandemic. We were testing almost daily for a chunk of time and I’d been surprised when I discovered that most people weren’t doing that. In our household every single test was a cause for concern, the possibility that our shows might not go ahead ever present. After we all avoided social contact like mad in the run up to Christmas to keep my Mum and Grandma safe, we were dismayed when Mum came down with it anyway. Then suddenly, with Summer on our doorstep, masking requirements removed and cases dropping, I let my guard down.
I’m not saying this is an entirely bad thing. My husband and I were, for a time, living on quite a high level of alertness which was taking its toll on us. Similarly my Grandma, who is a people person, was also struggling with the anxiety around socialising. Humans being together is essential to our wellbeing, so I don’t blame any of us for grabbing that opportunity with both hands. I tend to bristle at people who say things such as, “Well, we’ve just got to get on with things now” and “let’s get back to normal” because they dismiss both people for whom that is still not an option and also any discussion over whether we are actually in a position to do so. Still though, we do realistically need a dose of normality and the freedom to cast off the fear of the last couple of years. I missed so much during the that time and the opportunity to be close to people, to be tactile and to see each others faces again isn’t something I’m taking for granted.
Despite all of this though, actually having COVID made me realise that all our newfound freedoms mean we have a significant lack of forward planning and infrastructure around what to do when somebody actually gets the illness. With the financial burden of dealing with sick employees now back on individual companies rather than subsidised by the government and no requirement to isolate if testing positive (not to mention the lack of free testing), it’s impossible to have the same level of safety measures within society. In theatre companies, ill actors who might once have been sequestered in hotel rooms are now popped home on public rail services. Employees in a well-known restaurant chains were pressured to come in to work despite testing positive and there I was, tripping about at a festival, unknowingly handing out free viruses. I feel deeply ashamed of this by the way, I can’t help wondering if I came into contact with anyone I might have unknowingly infected, playing back encounters constantly in my head. It occurred to me that most other people at the event were not masked, though I’m not sure if that makes me feel better or worse. Still though, who knows how many people are heading out and about, for various reasons, with the virus?
A few weeks on and cases are rising quickly again, new mutations arriving on our doorstep and I can’t help mulling over whether anything would be different if we’d phased out our rules more slowly. Or created a more comprehensive next stage plan. Keeping masking for example or subsiding methods of travel and accommodation for people testing positive (though I appreciate this cost would be hard to fund) or having some sort of respite help for workers and parents. As someone who works in theatre, a profession hugely impacted by the pandemic, my interest is split between getting things up and running again and avoiding future closures due to new cases. Is there any sort of middle ground we should have walked through before we ended up here? At the beginning of the pandemic this idea of keeping everyone safe was drummed into us. Now it appears to have vanished without trace and all we’re left with is a vague sense of unease overpowered by joy at the things we can once again do.
Listen, if you’re waiting for a neat and tidy ending you are…not in luck I’m afraid. I’m not in a position of power in our government for a reason (or many). Still though, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the mixed messages the public has been receiving for some time in regards to this pandemic, and whether there’s a different way. For us to be able to participate safely and fully in society again, shouldn’t there be some sort of method of ensuring that the only people who are out and about - whether for work, duty or pleasure - are well? Or am I asking for the impossible?