Covid#10 - Dedicated to the staff of the NHS

The first death from Covid19 in Bournemouth was recorded yesterday, with two in Poole also.  It’s a tragic milestone that brings this emergency much closer to home.  When people die in your hometown, it takes much less than six degrees of separation before you know someone who’s lost a loved-one.

Beyond television drama, I have few points of reference for what it must be like to work as a doctor or nurse in a hospital.  I was seriously unwell about a year ago and had a day in hospital as an emergency patient.  I was enormously impressed by the care I received from doctors and nurses in several departments and by their professionalism.  They were all incredibly thorough and efficient and wonderfully sensitive and kind.  As I got better, I was in no doubt that without their excellent expertise, care and reassurance, my recovery would not have been so speedy.  My experience inspired confidence and admiration.  I wasn’t exactly surprised by the amazing hard work of the NHS, but it reminded me of how much we take them for granted for most of the time, when thankfully we don’t need them.

My cousin is a nurse in Perth, Australia and a friend is an F1 doctor, currently working in Bournemouth hospital.  I'm embarrassed that even after years of watching Casualty and Holby City, I only recently understood what ‘F1’ means!  Along with their colleagues, they are both very much on my mind today and I find myself regretting not talking to them more about their work, how a typical shift unfolds for them or how it affects them.  Not that much of what they are doing today is typical.

I’m not sure their hard work and compassion today is especially remarkable – it’s what they do every day.  What makes it extraordinary in these circumstances is how they so willingly and so selflessly set aside their own fears and anxieties about what must be the most dangerous virus they have ever encountered, shoulder the burden of caring for desperately sick, dying and infectious patients along with the inevitable concern they must have for their own health and the safety of their families and loved ones and manage the pressures of hospitals at the busiest they have ever been together with the apprehension of worse to come. 

My gratitude to the incredible staff of the NHS knew no bounds a year ago when I needed them myself but it and my admiration for them then is far surpassed now.  They are the heroes of this emergency.

Covid#9 - How this virus will define us

The ‘Church Closed’ sign on the local parish church was one of the most striking and sobering things I’ve seen so far.

It’s not because you would find me at church tomorrow or on any Sunday; I’m not religious and only go to church for a special occasion.  It got me wondering if there has ever been a time in British history when churches have been closed in this way.  I’ve done some Googling, and it seems there hasn’t.  As far as I can tell, even during previous great calamities – the Black Death, the English Civil War, the Great Plague, and the two World Wars, for example – churches stayed open.  The ‘Church Closed’ sign therefore emphasised the magnitude of our emergency.

There was a time when a pandemic like ours would have been seen as punishment by the Almighty.  During the Black Death of the 1340s, people turned to the Church for forgiveness of their sins, solace, reassurance and answers.  Ironically, the faith of many was rocked when the church seemed impotent and the very priests they turned to succumbed to the plague in large numbers.  During the Civil War, both Roundhead and Cavalier prayed in church for victory.  Churches remained open in 1665 when plague was once again attributed to divine retribution and the faithful sought God’s protection and mercy.  The start of the First World War saw a surge in church attendance as people identified with the justness of Britain’s cause and sought guidance from the Church, and the immediate inter-war years saw it rise again.

Historically, in times of emergency, we went to church and prayed for deliverance.  The closure of churches was unthinkable.  Today, relatively few will turn to God for solace, answers, protection or mercy and the closure of churches goes largely unnoticed.  

Instead of turning to priests for salvation, we turn to science.  Coronavirus is an invisible enemy just as Yersinia pestis was in the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, yet we all know what it looks like.  It’s our doctors and nurses that we believe will save us and whom we’re urged to protect.  Virologists and epidemiologists explain the spread of the virus to us.  Science labs around the world are racing to produce a vaccine – today’s holy grail. 

For consolation, we turn to our smartphones and tablets and to the Internet.  We’re connected to each through myriad apps and more become available every day.  With a swipe of our thumb, we can message and call each other, video-conference and Facetime; we post memes, jokes, film-clips and photos to keep each other smiling; we stay up-to-date with the news and keep informed;  we continue to work; and when we feel anxious or upset, we find support.  Some of us even blog – like modern-day Samuel Pepys’!

Undoubtedly, this pandemic will define the generations that lived through it in the same way wars of the past defined our grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generations.  More than that though, while the already diminished church submits to the microbe, Covid19 will help define our age as one of great scientific and technological discovery and endeavour.  

Covid#8 - This is just the beginning

When I started writing this Covid19 diary just over a week ago, we had just been told that schools would be closing at the end of the week, panic buying was still a relatively new phenomena, the over-70s and the vulnerable were still walking the streets and there had been 3,300 confirmed cases in the UK and 144 deaths. 

We were all grappling to come to terms with being in the grips of a global pandemic and I was reminding myself as much as anyone else that it was just the beginning.

A week on and we’re reeling from the impact of the virus and the change it has brought to everything.

Schools are closed.  Panic buying has been replaced by strict controls on our shopping – one-in, one-out at the supermarket and limits on what we can buy.  No-one is walking the streets; we’re staying at home and the Police keep an eye on our movements.  We’ve quickly become used to staying two metres apart from anyone we meet.  The friends and family we saw so regularly and hugged so freely are now just voices on the phone and faces on a screen and we don’t know when we’ll see each other properly again.  Pubs, restaurants, cafes and shopping centres are all shut.  Sport is off.  Many of us are working from home and accepting the limits on what we can achieve.  Many others find themselves suddenly with no work and no money.  Planes are grounded and the skies are empty.  Billions upon billions of pounds have been borrowed to keep us all afloat; after all those years of austerity, the national debt has abruptly rocketed.  The NHS is frantically readying itself for a ‘tsunami’ of cases.  We’ve been on lockdown for three days, with eighteen still to go – probably more.  The Prime Minister, the Prince of Wales, the Health Secretary and the Chief Medical Officer have all tested positive.

As of today, there have been 14,500 confirmed cases in the UK and 759 deaths.  Worldwide, there have been nearly 600,000 cases and 27,247 deaths. 

The picture is bleak but there’s cause for hope too.  Rainbows have appeared in windows across the country for children to spot.  We’ve found a deep new regard for our public services, especially the NHS.  We’ve remembered who the vulnerable are in our communities and shown how much we care.  An army of volunteers has mobilised.  Everywhere, people are supporting each other in wonderful acts of kindness.  Social media is alive with positivity and optimism.

We are still reeling.  We’re in shock and adapting to a new reality for which we weren’t prepared.  We’re fearful and uncertain of what the future holds, but we’re staying positive.  We don’t know how long it will all last.

There’s one thing I’m sure of though: this is still just the beginning.

Covid#7 - The benefits of Cornish isolation

Britain came out onto its doorsteps, driveways and balconies to applaud the staff of the NHS at 8pm this evening.  We watched it on the BBC and it was really very moving and uplifting; a reminder of the hard work of our doctors and nurses at this most desperate of times; a well-deserved show of admiration, confidence and gratitude; and a wonderful display of national solidarity.  Here in Cornwall, we didn’t stand on the doorstep and clap; aside from the badgers and horses, there’s no-one to hear it.  We were there in spirit though.

This is one of those remote corners of the land that feels a world away from an emergency.  It still felt unreal last week when I was at home in Bournemouth, which was then still relatively untouched by the virus – people said it was like watching a film – but here, at the southern-most point of Britain, you could turn off the news and be almost oblivious to anything untoward happening – until you try to go anywhere else or visit the supermarket, of course. 

Living in a small village surrounded by open space and looking out to sea, there is an understandable hope that the virus won’t spread as wildly here as in towns and cities with their greater concentrations of population, but no-one is complacent.  People aren’t visiting each other and when you see someone, they’re sociable but strict about keeping two metres distance.  There is the same fear here of that first case in the village as there is everywhere.  The locals are all worried for their families and for the elderly and vulnerable residents.  The giftshops wouldn’t yet be open for the tourist season, but this year they won’t open at Easter as they should.  Obviously, the few pubs, cafes and restaurants in the village all have their curtains drawn and remain in darkness.  There’s concern about the impact there will be on the local economy.

People have commented though that living here, enforced isolation isn’t very different from everyday life.  They walk to the village butcher, waving to neighbours through their windows or greeting them in their gardens as they normally do, and when they get there, the butcher’s is well stocked.  You walk the dog through the village to the clifftop and then for miles in whichever direction you please, only passing fewer people than usual.  Many villagers don’t travel far, nor often but it’s rare to see the Police in the village anyway so no-one expects to see officers here checking where anyone is going.  They’re content occupying themselves in their homes, with their gardens, with a good book, a game of cards or a jigsaw puzzle.  For many, it’s why they choose to live here.

My exercise today was with my parents’ dog across heathland, alongside babbling brooks, through sharp ravines, over the cliffs and beside the sea.  We accidentally flushed snipe, were followed by buzzards and ravens and spied upon by a peregrine; we scattered the meadow pipits and rabbits and seals ducked under the waves as we passed.  There was a chilly breeze but all the while, the sun shone gloriously.  We walked for ten happy miles and saw only four other people.

With the rest of the world in meltdown, this place ticks along at a barely changed pace.  I’ve wondered what villages like this were like at other times of crisis – during the war, for example.  Did the war seem a world away?  It’s easier here, not exactly to forget about the virus, the catastrophe it’s causing, the pressures it’s bringing and the deaths, but to find peace in isolation in an already-isolated and beautiful corner of the country.  I’m lucky to find myself here.

Covid#6 - Lockdown

Last night, Boris announced new measures to tackle the virus, all designed to keep us in our homes.  Do not go out unless it’s to do occasional groceries shopping, for medical reasons or for one spell of exercise per day, he told us.  Travel for work only if it is essential.  Gatherings of more than two people are prohibited.  Baptisms, weddings and other ceremonies are off.  It will all be reviewed in three weeks but could well be extended as it has been in Italy, Spain and other countries.  We knew it was coming, but it was dramatic and shocking nonetheless.

The necessity of it is obvious.  Unless we act now to slow the spread of the virus, the NHS will be overwhelmed in the coming weeks, we’ll see the appalling scenes from hospitals in the north of Italy repeated here and more people will die.  I have friends working in the NHS in Bournemouth.  It’s quiet at the moment, they tell me, but they’re dreading the coming onslaught of Covid19 cases and it’s critical we do everything we can to ease the eventual burden on them.

Knowing the sense to this lockdown doesn’t make it easy – and it’s only day one!  I have what I know is the good fortune to be in Cornwall, staying at my parents’ house in Lizard, having come to visit them for a few days at the end of last week.  Yesterday’s announcement meant I had to make a choice: go home to Bournemouth or stay in Cornwall.  I’ve since joked about my first-world problems!  Which of my two lovely homes do I stay in?!

It was a difficult choice though.  In Bournemouth, I’d be surrounded by all my things – the stuff that would help to keep me occupied over the coming weeks and months – and I’d maintain at least some of my routine and independence but I would be alone with very limited options of places to go for exercise.  Being in Cornwall means I have numerous cliff-paths I can walk with the dog – so long as it’s dry – and I have company, but I have to compromise on my independence and I think my parents and I already share some anxiety about how we will get on, living with each other indefinitely.  My sacrifices are small and I’m much better off than many, but the impact of Covid19 on all of us is already enormous.

This morning, I re-read my New Year’s Day post from just a few months ago when I was full of positivity, optimism and hope.  It’s startling how then, none of us could foresee how the freedoms and rights we take for granted would so soon be curtailed.  Now, none of us know how long this new way of life will last or how we will endure it.

It’s been announced in China today that restrictions in Wuhan will be eased in a couple of weeks – nearly three months after they were introduced. 

Covid#5 - Be kind to each other

The news today has been full of people’s shock at others who apparently aren’t following the social distancing rules.  For many, the past weekend was sunny – that one that feels like the start of spring when ordinarily, everyone wants to get out in the sunshine to mark the end of the long, grey, cold, wet winter.  It coincided with Mother’s Day too.  Accordingly, news reports have aired footage of families walking together through parks, across the moors and along seafronts.  Alongside this, they’ve shown slow-moving rush-hour traffic moving through city centres and commuters pressed together in Underground trains, all implying that for many people, little has changed.  This has provoked an indignant, appalled reaction from many.  The Health Secretary called these people ‘selfish’ and in his latest tv rant, self-appointed spokesman for the nation, Piers Morgan questioned what is wrong with these people.

It's right to be concerned.  If we don’t distance ourselves from each other, we’re putting ourselves at risk, we’re putting the people we love and live with at risk, we’re putting people we don’t know at risk and we’re potentially adding unnecessary strain to the hardworking NHS at its most challenging time.

I don’t think we should be too hard on each other, however.

Some people have adapted incredibly well to these new circumstances and restrictions but it shouldn’t surprise us that it’s been harder for others.  Coronavirus has arrived and spread so quickly; on one hand, this should be a warning to everyone but on the other, it’s meant that we’ve had limited time to process the dangers and the warnings and to utterly change our ways of life as we’re expected.  If your community’s not yet been directly affected, it can all still seem very unreal too.  It’s not that you think you’ll escape it or that you don’t care; it’s just that you think you may have another day or two and you want to make the most of it.  Neither is it in the British mindset to react so dramatically to a crisis.  Traditionally, we’re expected to adopt the ‘blitz-spirit’ and to keep calm and carry on with a stiff upper lip.  Retreating to our homes by ourselves and stopping everything is not the British way.  In other times, we’d frown at people who did that.

Let’s generously give people the benefit of the doubt.  Those people who were shown on the news walking in the sunshine yesterday may never have intended to mingle with crowds and never thought they were going to be televised.  Many of them were probably out only with the people they live with and they probably did their best to keep a distance from others, in spite of how they were portrayed on television.  It may have been naïve of them but they may have regretted it too.  This morning’s commuters may feel they have no choice but to continue going to work and whilst trains are still running, they may think that it’s fine to travel on them.

This is just one example of the muddled messages we’re getting: it’s not safe to travel by train but we’ll keep them running anyway.  Last week, the same politicians who today call people selfish were emphasising the importance of building herd immunity.  Some people – especially the young and healthy – could be forgiven for concluding a week ago that the best thing they could do for themselves and wider society was to catch Covid19 sooner rather than later and become one of an immune army.  Now, they’re told to avoid the virus at all cost.  

This diagram's everywhere today:

It's serious advice and I know this is cynical, but I wonder how we'd feel about this diagram if Boris put it on the side of a bus.  People's attitudes in this crisis might also reflect their trust in politicians.  Personally, I wouldn’t choose to have Boris lead me to shelter in a rainstorm, let alone have him lead the nation through an emergency of this magnitude.  I don’t think it should surprise us that people are dubious about advice from him and other politicians, no matter how many experts they surround themselves with. 

As this virus takes hold, we shouldn’t forget that viral message that followed Caroline Flack’s untimely death: Be kind to each other.

Covid#4 - In which Santa and the First Horseman of the Apocalypse meet in Wuhan, China on Christmas Eve..

Santa took off his hat, unbuttoned his coat and mopped his brow.  Even in the dead of night, these big cities were too warm for his Arctic wardrobe and it was a busy night, his busiest – obviously. 

Wuhan, China.  The night was young but Australasia, Japan and the Korean peninsula were done and all had gone smoothly, much like every year.  The only strange thing was some of this year’s present requests: toilet rolls, hand sanitizer and face masks were an odd choice.  An in-joke, he supposed.  Something circulating on the Internet probably. 

Behind him the reindeer pawed restlessly at the ground.  They had pulled up in a small park surrounded by low-rise tower blocks and their stop had to be brief before they took once again to the skies for the next vast Chinese city.  Santa leaned on the sledge having a moment’s break before unloading the next sack of presents and he sniffed.  Something was off.  There was a rotten smell on the air.  He’d smelt it before, not for a long time but still, it made him anxious.  He shuddered.

He turned to sort through the enormous sacks loaded into the sledge, then he hesitated.  The air temperature had dropped dramatically and he pulled his coat around him.  He closed his eyes and sighed in resigned expectation.  The reindeer had fallen still, the night seemed darker.  Much darker.  Behind him, a horse snorted loudly as it trod purposefully toward him across the grass.  The putrid smell on the air was stronger.  Reluctantly, Santa turned.

The horse was enormous and ghostly pale with a rusting iron mask and a dark, ragged coat slung across its back.  Astride it, a cloaked horseman sat with a black hood pulled low over his face and a bow slung across his back.  He pulled on the reigns and the horse halted, its matted tail flicked impatiently.  ‘My old friend,’ the figure called, his voice high-pitched, scratching and wheezy.  Santa detected a sneer.  The figure reached behind himself to a tarnished brass quiver, hanging from the horse’s leather saddle and withdrew a long arrow.

‘Pestilence,’ sighed Santa, ignoring the figure’s over-familiar greeting.  ‘We meet again.’

Pestilence ran the arrow’s fletching through his bony fingers.  ‘It’s been too long, don’t you think?’ he replied.

‘Not long enough,’ answered Santa.  ‘Your business here?’ he enquired, eyeing the arrow, but he didn’t really need to ask.

‘The usual,’ came the answer.  ‘This one’s a good one.’

‘Has it begun?’ Santa asked.  ‘Do they know?’

The figure nodded, his very bones seemed to creak.  ‘Some know, but not many, not yet.’  Santa thought back to those strange present requests. 

‘How bad will it be?’

Even beneath the dark shadow of Pestilence’s hood, Santa saw his sallow face crease in a dreadful smile that answered his question.  His heart sank.  Over the centuries, the two of them had met several times in different continents; the last time had been just over a hundred years ago, but Santa was sure Pestilence had fired a few of his awful arrows since then.  Back in 1920, fifty million had died.

Briefly, as before, it crossed Santa’s mind to stop Pestilence.  Somehow.  They each had their own strange, ancient powers though, and they were perfectly, evenly matched.  Santa knew that nothing he could do could prevent the disaster that Pestilence wrought, just as none of his arrows could dent the joy Santa brought or harm any of his magical reindeer.  Here of all places, he thought, there was a certain irony to their yin-yang relationship.  They each had a grim regard for the other.

Pestilence knew the thought that had crossed Santa’s mind and he shook his head.  ‘You know better,’ he uttered.  ‘Take some consolation though,’ he suggested.  ‘They’ve learnt.  This one’s good,’ he fingered the arrow head which Santa knew bore some hideous poison, a vicious virus, ‘and it will be bad, but not as bad as before.  They know better how to fight it.  They’re making it harder for me.’  It was Pestilence’s turn to sigh.  His breath rattled.  He took his bow from behind him and nocked the arrow.

Santa couldn’t watch and turned away.  ‘Be gentle with them,’ he beseeched, futile as he knew it was.

Unseen by Santa, Pestilence pointed the arrow skyward, pulled back hard on the drawstring, belying his own sickliness, then loosed the arrow.  It flew high, high toward the stars and disappeared into the darkness.

Sorrowful, Santa held his head in his hands.  Though he could no longer look up, he could still picture the large number of arrows still held in the horseman’s quiver.  He knew that neither of their work was done.  Again, Pestilence seemed to know Santa’s thoughts.  ‘We both have much work to do,’ he said to Santa’s back.  ‘I shall bid you goodnight, until the next time we meet.’  Santa couldn’t turn to answer; he slumped against his sledge as he heard the horseman’s spurs kick his steed’s side, turning the horse before beginning to walk away into the night.

After a moment, Santa sensed movement in the reindeer once more and it seemed to him that the stars had come back out.  He was alone again and the air was clearing.  As the horseman had said, he had work to do, although he suspected it would be harder now to cheerily issue his booming ‘Ho! Ho! Ho!’ greeting.

He swung one of the huge sacks over his shoulder, turned and in the next instant, he was standing in the comfortable living room of a doctor’s small flat.  Smiling at the customary gaudy decorations, he recognised a child’s hand in their making.  He rifled in the sack, withdrew half a dozen gifts and arranged them around the decorations.  Before leaving, he glanced around the room; it would be rude not to take anything the family had left for him.  On a small plate atop a side-table was a fortune cookie, a hand-drawn card and unusually, a wrapped present for him.  He crunched on the cookie as he read the card.  This might seem weird, it read, but you should wear it and stay safe.

Santa unwrapped the gift and revealed a face-mask, the same as he imagined the doctor wearing.  He himself didn’t need the mask but he chuckled.  ‘They’re ready to fight,’ he thought.  ‘There’s hope.’ 

Then Santa turned again and vanished.

Covid#3

I’m taken aback by how quickly I’ve become quite miserable and depressed this week.  It’s not been just moments or spells that have passed; a solid gloominess has set in.  It’s not like me.  I think I’m usually upbeat and I handle trying times and challenges optimistically and positively, so how have I become so very glum so suddenly?

This past week’s been tough on teachers and school staff.  Personally, I’ve watched the anxiety rise in the boys I teach to the point where one hid under his desk, afraid to touch anything.  We’ve watched as pupils have tried and often failed to understand why their friends have stayed at home and won’t come back.  Children in the last year at their school who were looking forward to the important milestone that is leaving and all the celebration that goes with it are devastated that it’s been snatched from them.  One five year old I know was having nightmares and thought his school was closing because all his teachers were dying.  Now, we’ve said goodbye to our classes without knowing when we’ll all be together again.  My own class had effectively shut itself down by Wednesday, and I miss them already.  Teachers and school staff have stood by these children throughout this whirlwind.  We’ve also endured the uncertainty that closing so suddenly has brought.  It’s all strained emotions and has been exhausting.

It also doesn’t help that coronavirus is all anyone is talking about, the news comes thick and fast, and it is all so bleak.  The death toll in the UK rose to 220 today and the trend is scarily like Italy’s, where 800 died today.  It could be a couple of weeks before the calamitous scenes we see from there are repeated here.  That sense of what could well be coming adds to the gloom.  That and the fear.  I really admire the stoicism of everyone on social media who is posting uplifting messages, jokes and pictures, but the constant bombardment of all these posts seems to emphasise the dread of the virus – a sort of grin and bear it denial that it’s coming for you.  I want to tell everyone to pace themselves with all this positivity.  It needs to last a long, long time.

There’s a sort of desolation I’m feeling that’s like getting a coldsore when you’re supposed to be going on a hot date or catching the flu on Christmas Eve.  It’s a disappointment that seems desperate and hopeless.  Obviously, it’s not that bad; it just feels that way at the time.  It’s being deprived of something you were really looking forward to.  That’s certainly true now – we’ve all had to cancel things – but it’s more than that because we’ve been deprived of so much that we usually take for granted: visiting the gym, having a swim, indulging in hot chocolate and a slab of cake in a café, dinner out, mooching around the shops; sharing a bottle of wine with friends.  Boris optimistically reckons we’ll ‘turn the tide’ in twelve weeks, but if it takes twelve weeks to just turn the tide, will it take another twelve weeks to get back to some sort of ‘normal’?  The seeming endlessness of all this makes it hard to keep things in perspective.

I suppose death and disease are bound to have this effect on me.  To take my mind off it, I’ve been reading about the horsemen of the apocalypse!  “The horseman on the white horse was clad in a showy and barbarous attire … While his horse continued galloping, he was bending his bow in order to spread pestilence abroad.  At his back swung the brass quiver filled with poisoned arrows, containing the germs of all diseases.”  In these circumstances it doesn’t take the personification of pestilence to get you down and I admit that reading about him hasn’t done much to improve my mood, although I did manage a wry smile as I imagined him crossing paths with Santa somewhere over China back in December.

I’m usually good at taking a challenge in my stride but I’m finding that it’s much harder when it comes so suddenly without any time to prepare and builds so rapidly; when there’s no way of knowing how big it will get, how long it will last or how great the impact will be and when there’s no end in sight. 

Covid#2

I made it to Cornwall, via a minor triumph at a Bournemouth supermarket.  I found chicken!  Mum had asked me to keep my eyes open for some since it’s become so scarce.  Mother’s Day wouldn’t be Mother’s Day without a nice roast chicken!  In these strange, scary times, even that otherwise innocuous thought ends up making me feel sad, as I think of other people who won’t be spending Mother’s Day with their mums this year. 

The empty shelves in the supermarket have mystified me.  Living on my own, I never need much in the way of groceries; a bag of pasta, a four-pack of toilet rolls, a couple pints of milk, 500g of mince – it all lasts me ages compared to most households.  When you’re only cooking for one, a little goes a long way and it’s easier to improvise with whatever you can lay your hands on.  I’ve walked the barren aisles of the supermarket more in astonishment than despair.  Where do people put all the mountains of toilet rolls, pasta, meat and tinned things they’re buying?!

I’m pretty sure this panic-buying will pass before long, the shelves will refill and we’ll be able to get most of what we need once again.  Personally, I don’t doubt the supermarkets and the politicians when they tell us there’s plenty in the supply chain for all of us.  I wonder what it says about other people’s trust in our politicians and our retailers that they seem to not believe them.  Am I being naïve (again)?  I only hope that the very real despair and the tears of older people and emergency services staff who can’t get the groceries they need has more of an impact on the panic-buyers.  Their anguish really is heart-breaking.

The drive to Cornwall felt strange.  I thought the roads would be quiet but they seemed much the same as every other time I’ve driven down.  It made me feel less guilty about embarking on unessential travel.  I listened to podcasts – not a word about coronavirus for a whole four hours!  The local pub here is open and through the window I saw people playing pool, laughing and drinking with their mates.  It all reinforces the strange sense that nothing’s changed and everything is carrying on as normal, even while knowing that not far away this virus is killing people.  167 people have died in England now.  This is the lull before the storm.

It’s the last night for a long time that those mates will gather in the local pub.  They’re all closing from tonight, along with bars, restaurants and cafes, and cinemas, theatres, nightclubs and gyms will follow in the next day or so, all by order of the PM.  

Just as I was beginning to see results from my renewed enthusiasm for the gym too.

Covid#1

Today, my brain became too addled by Covid19.  Today it became too much.  Yet I think it’s barely started. 

School’s closed.  Or so the Prime Minister said. 

We saw this coming for most of the past fortnight; everyone thought schools would close at the end this week – two weeks before the Easter holiday.  I expect that sort of speculation is exactly what the Government wanted – just enough for schools to get prepared.  And we did what we could.  We readied the children we teach and we readied extensive packs of learning activities for them to do at home.  Naively, we thought Government might also be preparing.

It was announced yesterday: schools will close on Friday.  Except.  Except.  Except.  The children of key workers will still need somewhere to go.  Vulnerable children will still need looking after.  We still need to provide for children with an EHCP.  But who qualifies as a key worker?  Do both parents need to be key workers?  Which children qualify as vulnerable?  Do all children with an EHCP continue to need provision?  And what about school staff?  Are they now key workers?  What happens to their children?  Will they be paid if they stay at home to care for their children? 

All day, the BBC News website has read ‘Answers promised after school shutdown confusion’, yet the answers haven’t come.  You’d think someone in Government might have seen that and thought it doesn’t read well.  All day, confusion, questions and concern have reigned.  All day, Headteachers have fumbled in the dark, jumping to conclusions and adding to the worries of their staff.  (I don’t blame them; they needed leadership too.)  Some parents received text messages or e-mails telling them their children’s schools are closed from Friday.  No ifs, no buts.  Others’ schools told them they would be open on Monday.  Some key workers and parents of vulnerable or SEND children have nowhere to send their children on Monday; others do.  Some school staff have been told to turn up for work as normal on Monday and that they will be working through the Easter holiday; others have been told they might be staying at home until September. 

Never have I felt so undervalued as a teacher.

Weighty pennies have dropped for me personally too.

Usually, I hate it when people say something is surreal, but the experience of many teachers has been surreal in the last week.  Whilst we read about the world around us shutting down and watch it on the news, we drive to work every morning as normal, through regularly busy streets; we cocoon ourselves in our classrooms, oblivious to the outside world; then we drive back home to our regularly comfortable homes.  This won’t last though.

My own class effectively shut itself down on Wednesday – all the children stayed at home – and I miss them already.  We might not see each other again for months. 

I’m going to visit my parents this weekend.  The drive to Cornwall can’t possibly count as essential travel and there might be a slight risk in me seeing them (we’re all in decent health, by the way) but if I don’t see them now, I don’t know when I’ll see them again.  That thought really upsets me.  I wrote it through blurred eyes.  I don’t know when I’ll see my brother again or my beautiful niece and my playful nephew.  I’d always do my part to support people through these trying times and I’ll proudly return to work next week but there’s also a bit of me that envies those who will be at home with their families.  When I come home from Cornwall, go back to work and socially distance myself, I’ll have no-one.

Yet I fear all this has barely started and it’s going to get much, much worse.