A Fourth View from the Apocalypse

Time certainly flies when the whole world is on lock-down. Last week was my last week in the office – except I spent the first 3 days of it in bed and the last 2 working from home. It was an odd way to leave a company I’ve been with for 32 years….. Technically I’m on vacation now until the 8th April which is when I actually leave. But still, basically I’m retired now…. I was hoping, at least after a few weeks doing very little but chilling at home, to wander around locally and even take some short train journeys around the region. After all Spring is in the air etc…. But, it was not to be.

We have been (strongly) advised to stay indoors as much as possible and only to venture out for food and emergencies. It helps that there’s nowhere to go – practically everything is shut – but it’s still passing strange. After being ill and them catching up with my final workload I hadn’t left the house for around a week. I did venture out on Saturday briefly to pop to my local supermarket partially to pick up a few things but mostly to see what’s occurring. Stocks of things were fairly good – still no toilet paper though – and I managed to get some fresh bread which I hadn’t had since the previous Sunday. I’m OK for most things as I was casually stockpiling for Brexit so I’m not worried about that.

Social distancing isn’t bothering me too much either. I’m pretty much a homebody anyway and have a lot of practice at not being around other people. I know a few people who are struggling with the isolation – despite everything Social Media can do to alleviate it – but it’s barely registering with me so far. I’m certainly not bored. Not having to go to work means I’m sleeping longer plus I’m reading more and can finally start to catch up with my accumulation of TV boxsets – Westworld Series 1 presently. Of course I’m also reading more too. I finished a non-fiction Science book yesterday and am already half way through a (admitted thin) political biography. I’m also heavily hitting a few YouTube channels that I stumbled across a few months ago. Several of them have over 1000 15 minute videos so I’m sorted for quite some time to come and am learning quite a bit of science, history, Lit an movie crit and more…. And, of course there’s music – lots of music (Herbie Hancock presently in the background). 

Although this is now the new normal it won’t be like this for long. Ultimately there will be a vaccine although it’s probably at least a year away. Things will probably ease off in the Summer although they’ll probably get worse again over the Winter. In the meantime all the things we should have been doing before the Pandemic will be, at last, in place so if there is a new surge in the winter we’ll be ready for it. This has been a hell of a learning experience for everyone. Maybe now the world’s leaders will take this seriously. A Pandemic such as we’re living through has been predicted for decades and we’ve had a few very near misses over the last decade or so. Yet we were caught woefully unprepared and we’re paying the price. We need early warning stations out there, we need well-funded global organisations capable of swift threat assessment and containment measures and we need health services that have enough flexibility to respond well to a crisis. Cutting everything to the bone and saving pennies off budgets now only stores up problems for later. Hopefully this is a world-wide wake-up call to all concerned. I do hope so because the next Pandemic could be a lot worse.

Stay Safe & Be Safe.