Postponing troubles

The new ways of doing things have been established with truly remarkable speed.

People are themselves policing it, with a sort of camaraderie and sense of righteousness.

Very few are remarking on the loss of liberty, and demolition of rights, the new powers given to the police.

Very few are talking about the personal costs of this confinement - the difficulties of being alone, for hours or days or weeks, the mental health issues arising (though one farmer in the north was kicked and punched by a walker, while he was disinfecting his gates after hundreds had walked through...  and when he said to this walker - please go away, do NOT walk here, he was savagely attacked.  The walker was - I assume - someone with mental difficulties. Violence so close to the surface. Maybe these walks are his only resource, but still the anxiety and fear and isolation are very expensive).

Very few are talking about the effect on children being cloistered at home - for who knows how long?

All these problems have been kicked into the long grass - for now.   We have to count the cost later.

The government is slowly producing plans and answers... that freelances (some of them) will be paid. There will be testing kits available. There will be ventilators available.    But at the same time, counter-stories come out: that vast morgues and hospitals are being built in London and elsewhere, that the new kits coming out are untested, that out-of-date kits have been found to be ok, that contracts to make these new kits are going to Tory party chums (Dyson, for instance), while bulk-purchase opportunities for known kits via the EU were missed... ('We didn't see the email....').

And today, it seems, our fat-faced PM has tested positive for coronavirus. Some commentators on Twitter have remarked on how convenient that is for him, generating a sympathy vote.....  But, also, immediately, we saw footage on the news of his unelected advisor Dominic Cummings actually running away from No 10. It was not only to me but others that the phrase 'rats leaving a sinking ship' sprang to mind.    (I am not happy with all these clichés but still feeling so punchdrunk I can only apologise and hope to do better later).

And back on planet Earth, a neighbour rings to ask with help with his new laptop - he has recently been told he has prostate cancer, and in the last few days they've said it spread to his bones. They will not give him chemo as it would reduce his immunity, not good with this virus so rampant.  He sounds steady on the phone but is worried about the fate of his cat. His house is filled with engineering and artistic treasures. What can he do?

My friend Ji Sun, a scrubs nurse in Canterbury, rings. At the moment, her work remains theatre-based, but of course the whole hospital is focussed on preparing for a tsunami of coronavirus cases coming soon. She is angry and - to some extent - frightened that all sorts of new (and old) equipment is being brought in, and no-one has had any training in how to use it. She has personally on a one-to-one basis been asking colleagues to show her.   But she says the public outpouring of gratitude and thanks which the public demonstrated last night with a nationwide clap-in at the doorsteps might not be so enthusiastic if people knew how ill-equipped and ill-trained the health staff are.  A lot of those medical staff don't care, either, she says. Past caring.

We still don't know if this disease confers immunity - whether or not once you have it, you will not get it again. Nor do we really know how long it has been in the community.  People are reporting that they had truly vile doses of flu around Christmas or January, not labelled as coronavirus but possibly the same infection.  We have no idea how long any of these isolation measures will be needed or enforced.  (Police are already fining people who break the guidelines, though some directions are not all that clear.... what is 'essential' for instance?)  

Personally, I am still finding it hard to focus on just being.   I would like to get on to writing and painting, but am still absorbed for a lot of the time on small mundane tasks which just click the household clockwork round a tiny amount. Some laundry. A bit of weeding. Starting to throw away old paperwork - just about one quarter of one box, and there are many.  Making soup from allotment parsnips.  Washing the shower-curtains. I know once I can get some of these little chores out of the way I can start to think about actually expressing something.  There is increased chatter with family - sibs, about Sarah, fun...  Just now, Jo reported her company in Dublin have gone bust - they are all being made redundant (school holiday travel company, 50 years old, and 3 weeks ago they celebrated their best-ever year).   She and David take the little boys out into the countryside to throw stones at the river, or other outdoor pastimes... I hope they will still be allowed to do that in the weeks and months to come. 

My sore throat is a tiny bit worse, and a dry cough.  I tried to take my temperature: the thermometer stuck at 36 degrees so I assumed it was broken, though it worked fine when I had that gastric flu 4 or 5 weeks ago.   The other thermometer - one with a flexible nano-tip, a Superdrug own brand one powered by a battery - just says Err, when used.   Changing the battery makes no difference.  Only when I talk to Ji Sun do I decide that the first thermometer is working fine. My temperature is within a normal range, and is 36 degrees. So I may have a sore throat but I am not ill.   She also says, it's really just the old and infirm, with extra morbidity, who die.    Still our neighbour does not want us, now, to go and help with his computer, in case this sore throat is carried from me, via Andrew, to him.   I don't blame him.

And, in town, a FB thread attacking the owner of our big general store (which used to be Woolworth), has focussed on his price-hikes for essentials.  I did not like the unexpressed racist theme in this patter, and said so to Anni Bales, who rang him to tell him about it. On FB she said he was shocked to hear about it, explained that the wholesale prices in London have rocketed, and he is not making any more profit.  Some have accepted what he says, some are not convinced.  I am glad she made the call. I fear troubles are piling up, unspoken, under all this pressure. Like the farmer attacked by the violent walker in the north, we do not know how or when someone will turn nasty.