Author: Ali April 16, 2020

I had a funnier blog lined up but it’s not right today.

I talked to Annie earlier. She has a number of elderly relatives for whom she’s buying food, keeping an eye out for them, hoping they stay home. They lost three people they knew this weekend, all elderly.

Meanwhile her brother in law – a joiner – has been struggling as his business has stopped in its tracks since the lockdown. Luckily his skills are now in demand again, making coffins. And another friend - also out of work - has signed up as a hospital porter. He pushes gurneys into ICU carrying poorly people, and then three days later, he pushes them out again to the morgue.

Another colleague of ours has also been struggling to keep busy in his work as a procurement consultant, but a new opportunity has opened up as there is a need to buy more freezers at the morgue now, since funerals can’t take place so quickly.

I read about contact tracing in South Korea. https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-SOUTHKOREA-CLUSTERS/0100B5G33SB/index.html

One person managed to trigger 5000 cases by not stopping home when she felt bad. Meanwhile a friend’s neighbour in Leeds had a barbeque over Easter weekend with ten or twelve relatives. Obviously, they are invincible and knew that this didn’t pose a risk.

I suppose this week had to come. We’ve seen China, seen Italy, seen Spain. And this, maybe, is the worst week. Awful. But hopefully this is the worst week and the lockdown (and people observing it) will mean that cases slow and ICU staff get chance to sleep between shifts.

Maybe next week will feel bad but not so bad. Possibly by June, we can meet up in small groups, perhaps wearing face masks. Maybe we’ll know enough to get to people before they need the ICU.

Meanwhile Trump has cut funding to the World Health Organisation