Ever since the current pandemic intruded into my awareness back in March there has been an air of unreality about it. Of course I have assimilated the statistics regularly. I have heeded the precautionary advice issued by the government, and tried to behave as a responsible citizen. Nevertheless, I have to admit that there has been a feeling that I have been going through the motions without really committing to the substance. It has been a bit like parents telling their child that Father Christmas is coming. There is no substance behind the story. Or, at least, the substance that there is doesn’t correspond to the story, which has a kind of symbolic value and a largely mythical status. Among ourselves, as adults, we know that we don’t have to take this stuff seriously. It is actually for the sake of the children.
That has changed this week. The change began when I woke up on Saturday morning with a temperature, and feeling totally wrecked. It didn’t take long to establish that my condition was due to a bad response to a flu immunisation. It did establish the fact that I certainly don’t want to feel like that again in a hurry! This was followed by the news that a friend and his wife have gone down with Covid-19. These have been the first people known to us in person who have succumbed. I gather that their condition is not life-threatening, but suddenly the reality of this thing appears to be so much closer.
This sense of the growing reality and danger of the disease was intensified dramatically today. My wife took a ‘phone call from one of her long-standing and closest friends (who was one of the witnesses at our wedding) telling us that she has just been released from hospital after having been diagnosed as infected with Covid-19. She is now in no danger, but the experience has been extremely unpleasant. Because her husband is very vulnerable for various reasons he has had to move out of the family homes now that she has returned, and is compelled to live with his daughter. The personal disruption extends well beyond the individual diagnosed with the disease.
In practical terms all of this will make little difference to me. I will continue to be cautious and socially responsible, as before. I will try to get down to the new painting project I have been promising myself for a week now, but putting it off. Somehow, however, the “atmosphere” has changed, and the world is not as it was last week. As far as I am concerned at least, the “phoney war” is over.