Like most people, I pretend I do but in reality these things are probably too big for one little brain to fully understand. Time, in general, is totally incomprehensible. I can never understand why some days last longer than others. Yesterday was really long. I had a cold and in every class I taught children were popping out to wash their hands every time I blew my nose. Small people know how to take advantage of a health panic. Obviously, with a cold my voice was hanging by a thread, which always makes time slow down. I would like to point out that I can categorically state that I couldn’t have Coronavirus because I haven’t been anywhere. I didn’t even go to see my son in Brighton, where Super-spreader Steve is from.
This morning my inbox is full of suggestions of what I could do with this extra leap day. Apparently, I could send flowers, have a spa break or check my dog’s dental hygiene. It reads as though I’ve been given an extra day in my life. I would celebrate but I don’t know how many days I’ve got in my life, so I’m going to continue taking them for granted.
Instead, I thought I might sit here and try to get my head around this Coronavirus thing.
I don’t know much about it but I do know that you don’t catch it from drinking Corona beer corona-beer-loss-£132m-pandemic. I also suspect that if you are now washing your hands enough to make them dry and cracked then you are probably overdoing it but I’ve learnt a lot about hand cream on Twitter. I also think that if you are buying the last pot of hand sanitiser then you probably weren’t washing your hands often enough before, or drinking enough water to prompt the toilet trips that lead to regular hand washing. There is a dystopian novel to be had out of hand sanitiser poisoning.
My instinct is to say, ‘get a grip, it’s just a flu,’ and I’m not sure that’s wrong but I know it’s more complicated than that.
I want to get cross with the press for whipping up panic but I know they are just reporting what they are told and using language creatively to get us to listen (Super-Spreader Steve)
The truth is, this is a new virus, so we can’t really know how people will react to it. We can’t know how many people will be susceptible or what the long term effects will be. We don’t know what morbidity rates it has in different sections of the population. We don’t know if similar viruses will have conferred immunity or increased susceptibility. We don’t know how many people will become asymptomatic carriers. With the unknown there is fear and I hate fear.
After yesterday’s attempt to teach with a cold, I was feeling super snippy about the whole thing. I might have snapped something about it being ridiculous and how this virus is just flu. I feel a bit ashamed of myself for that. Flu is horrible. It can kill and it can nearly kill (which is probably worse). There are vulnerable people everywhere and most would probably rather not have flu, or give it to a sick or elderly relative. However, the panic over this virus is bigger than the fear of flu because it is an unknown. Also, there are risks in life (like driving or using a sharp knife) that we don’t avoid because it would make our lives too small. Avoiding death at all costs could make life not worth living.
We’ve all watched disaster movies or read books where the whole population is wiped out by a new virus and this is probably what we fear. That’s what it looks like when we see it reported. Learning that there have been 2,835 deaths in China and that 79,257 people have contracted the virus feels terrifying. That’s a death rate of 3.5%, which still seems quite scary. However in a population of 1.386 billion, the percentage of the population to catch the virus is 0.057. That’s in China too, where people are living in poverty in unsanitary, close proximity conditions and it’s terrifying to let the government take control of your life. Don’t do the calculations for the cruise ship if that’s your type of holiday, luckily I get seasick on a canal barge so cruising was never high on my list of things to do. (Death rate is much lower - 0.08%, if you want to go and need reassurance).
I do know that I would find it hard to be in isolation, if I wasn’t sick. I believe in staying away from people if you have a temperature and have been secretly fuming about the ‘give them Calpol and don’t spoil their attendance record’ culture for years but to be in isolation if you are well seems like cruel and unusual punishment. I would find it particularly hard because I get a bit claustrophobic. I would find it almost impossible if I ran out of salted peanuts.
So, I’m off to get a grip with my extra day, maybe eat some peanuts and self-isolate my cold with a good book. If I drank beer I might treat myself to a bottle or two of the yellow stuff.
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