Global Cases 1,356,380
Global Deaths 75,762
UK Cases 51,608
UK Deaths 439
So, we’re into week 4 now.
We really seem to have slowed down. We only complete one or two significant tasks a day. It’s as if we’ve gone into partial hibernation. We talk about things we could and should do but we just never seem to get around to them. The days drift away and into each other. Even though there is a terrifying global catastrophe occurring in the world outside our isolation bubble, we are both more relaxed than we have ever been. I’m a bit worried about how we will cope when this is all over and we have to start being productive again!
Typical day for M:
- wake up late
- coffee in bed watching the news
- phone or Facetime friends and family
- mid-morning exercise session
- lunch
- watch some TV after lunch
- phone or Facetime friends and family
- bike ride
- watch daily news briefing
- dinner
- TV
- bed
Typical day for me:
- wake up late
- coffee in bed watching the news
- phone or Facetime friends and family
- reading and writing
- lunch
- watch some TV after lunch
- phone or Facetime friends and family
- bike ride
- watch daily news briefing
- dinner
- TV
- bed
There’s not much point in repeating day after day what I’ve done (or haven’t done) so, from now on, I’ll only report things that are out of the ordinary to spare you the sad monotony of what our lives have become.
I can’t remember if I mentioned that I am in a small local writers group. We meet every month or so and always prepare a piece of homework, which is a short story or flash fiction based on a randomly selected brief. Today, I critiqued my fellow writers short stories from our last meeting. We read them aloud on the night, but also critique them more formally using a structured format, on a one-to-one basis after the meeting. It allows us to be a little bit more honest, and offer some genuine constructive criticism that will help us all to improve out writing skills. At the meetings, which are very sociable, we tend to be very supportive and encouraging of each other, as well as enjoying reading each others work and our different interpretations of the brief.
The daily government news briefings are becoming very uninformative and uninteresting. I might stop watching them. They are sounding a bit too much like propaganda now, for my liking. Telling us what a marvellous job they are doing, telling us what the latest statistics are and speculating about what they might, or might not. mean. Taking lots of pre-planned questions, that they never really answer, from chosen journalists who all ask the same thing.
Had a doorstep 2m apart chat to a friend as he passed by on his walk.
Spoke to my sister, my daughter and my mum. No one had very much to say to each other anymore as nobody is doing anything.
Watched some MasterChef, Great British Menu and the War of the Worlds. We watched TV in separate room for a while this evening. M watched a “shoot ’em up” downstairs (which I hate), while I watched Contagion upstairs (which is the type of thing that he hates). Interesting film. Very similar scenario to what we are experiencing now; a respiratory virus that originates in China when a bat virus jumps to a pig and then to a human. However, it is a very overdramatised version of the current pandemic. Case fatality rates are 25%! Lock down and social distancing doesn’t seem to kick in until there are much higher numbers of cases worldwide. Civil unrest is a big problem with looting and rioting. It all ends when they develop and vaccine and people can only come our of isolation when they have been vaccinated and have to wear a wristband to prove it.
I wonder how we are going to get out of all of this? There is talk of an antibody test being developed and then people who have had it and are immune can be identified, and allowed to carry on with their lives. It’s a problematic solution for many reasons. Morally, it might appear that people who have not been social distancing and have caught the infection are being rewarded, and people who have followed all the rules and avoided infection are being punished. People might deliberately try and catch the disease so that they can resume their lives. People like M, and others who don’t seem to be able to catch it will be unfairly penalised. People who are immune could potentially profit at the expense of those who are not.
Anyway, The Scottish Chief Medical Officer eventually resigned.
The big news of the day is that our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had been moved into Intensive Care. I found this news very shocking. I actually felt a shiver pass through my body. Even M reacted, and he normally plays down these type of dramatic Breaking News announcements. It prompted a flurry of messages between friends and family. I think it was a kind of “this shit gets real” moment for everyone. We see the numbers every day, and read and see stories on TV, about people who have died, but we are all still so detached from it all. To have prominent figure like this (who we all feel that we know a little bit, and all have an opinion of, one way another) become so seriously ill, it really makes the whole thing suddenly seem very real indeed!
If the worst happens to poor Boris, it will send shock waves throughout the country.
I sincerely hope it doesn’t.
jswritingservices.com 