Thoughts on COVID 19

"Soon we must choose between what is right and what is easy." Albus Dumbledore.

Out to get some shopping done

My favourite part of being shut inside my own home is the permanent state of being able to be on my own, with the exception of Andy. I've loved being able to sit in the bedroom, on my own, for hours, with either a series of different books or my laptop, working on a new post or looking at jobs. There's always something to do to keep my mind busy, and keep myself calm. I can't speak for Andy's experience of this all, but its thrown a spanner into the works for both of us. It's thrown us closer together as we haven't spent this amount of time together in quite a while as we've both been so busy with our lives at work. Now that we're both at home, we've been learning to balance out the amount of time we spend together, as well as ensuring that we both get time alone. We're both introverts. We both need time alone to ensure we're able to function at our peak. I've discovered that when Andy's introverting, I am the exception to his need to be completely alone. I can sit in the same room and watch him game, without taxing the steady charge of his 'batteries.' I'm very similar to this, though I can introvert in large crowds of people as long as no one bothers me. I've been known to just sit somewhere and relax, whilst watching the world go by, often with a cup of coffee (any sort of coffee works). Now that the world is on lock down, I can't go out to sit somewhere, even if its away from other people. The police have been stepping up the enforcement of the rules to ensure people stay home. Fines are becoming more common and thus no sitting in the park. I can understand why, given the fact that the government and the health officials are trying to prevent the spread of COVID=19. We all want to be released from this confinement and the sooner we'll be able to leave this state of confinement is if we all do as we're told.

I've been chatting with various family members about this virus. My family are spread out... my sister lives in France, my brother lives in The Netherlands and my parents are currently in Uganda. Each of these countries have been taking different stances on how to deal with the outbreak. None of us know how long the confinement will last for. Personally, I'm expecting it to last a few months. Until June or July at least. Reason for this, is because the news have written about various countries (and counties in the UK) that had aimed to lift the isolation over the next few weeks but they've extended it. No one seems to know how long we'll be waiting for this to be lifted. Our lives are all on hold.

Thinking back to the quote at the start of this post. We all have a choice. We can choose to go out to spend time with our families, our friends, people who we don't live with, but my question is, it is right to do that? We don't know who has the virus and how it might spread. You might be passing it on to those around you without realising it. There are people in society, in our communities, that COVID 19 will finish off. Their immune systems are already compromised by other sicknesses and by unknowingly being in contact with those around us, when we could avoid that contact easily, we pass it on. We need to follow the advise of the government. Stay home, stay safe. Pretty straight forwards, but really hard for so many people to follow. Shame we can't just stick to the rules, before they become stricter, and try to make things easier for those around us.