A Second View From the Apocalypse.

So, here we are a week later. A lot has changed in the last 7 days! Both China and South Korea seem to have a handle on things and places like Italy have been hit particularly badly. Indeed in a somewhat surprising development China is now offering technical and practical help to Italy. Who would have thought that a year ago? Closer to home the number of cases of Covid-19 has been growing steadily here as have the numbers of deaths including at least one in my closest large city. It has, as they say, been getting real.

In advance of Government advice both individuals and organisations have been reacting to the hourly events. Sporting and other social events have been cancelled or postponed. Schools haven’t been closed yet but they probably will be by the end of the week or at least by the end of the month. The Prime Minister’s speech tonight will probably mean that a great deal more people will be working from home shortly. My work has been putting plans in place for just that and I expect to be told tomorrow that we’ll be expected to be working from home by Friday. Which is kind of a bummer from a purely personal and selfish perspective as we had planned a team evening out at a nice Italian restaurant followed by much alcohol this Friday. The way things are I/we really can’t justify that now – not only for the risk to ourselves but for the risk to others if we catch it whilst out enjoying ourselves and then pass it on to someone who has a bad time of things (or worse!). Of course rather ironically it’s my last week in work next week so I’ll be spending the time writing memo’s to people explaining my job, where we keep the photocopier paper and who to ask to get sensible answers on X, Y and Z.

After I give my laptop and cell phone back I guess that I’ll be spending a lot of time at home – practicing social distance. So pretty much a normal weekend then, just extended for a few months (at least). We’ll see how that goes. It’s not like I don’t have enough to read, watch and listen to in order to keep me occupied. That certainly won’t be a problem. Fortunately I like my own company and most definitely don’t bore easily! Cabin fever won’t really be an issue with me – I’ve had far too much practice to let a bit of ‘isolation’ bother me. It will mean that some of my planned short trips will need to be postponed (probably to next year) but a year with my feet up sounds pretty good to be honest.

Naturally people are still panic buying. Another week in and the shortage of toilet roll continues but my local supermarket did have some (briefly) this weekend. I didn’t need any so left it on the shelf. Still no hand-sanitiser (which I haven’t seen now for at least 2-3 weeks), little in the way of liquid soap but (oddly) LOTS of hard ‘cake’ soap. Go figure. Today I also noticed a much reduced supply of peanuts – weird. As Boris has recommended that pubs and clubs close I’m guessing that the next thing to fly off the shelves is various styles of alcoholic drinks. I’m OK for most things – at least day to day stuff. I had a mini-stockpile of various items in prep for Brexit so I’m most definitely not in panic mode… unless that is they run out of Coke Zero or Pepsi-Max. That could start a real riot – at least in my head.

One thing I probably won’t be doing in going ‘Up North’ this year to see my Mum. She’s 84 this year and I certainly don’t want to be responsible for bringing home an unexpected visitor after sitting for 3 hours on a train. Hopefully by next Christmas (2021) we’ll have a vaccine and I can stop worrying about being a disease vector. Keep safe and don’t forget to wash your hands regularly for at least 20 seconds! See you on the other side.