Sixth day after we have been put into isolation by our government and I must say we are doing fine…fine-ish, is more like it. The experience in general still feels unrealistic and that makes every day really weird.
First, for me at least, was a sense of panic when the reality of the virus and the dangers it poses sunk in. My son and myself are both asthmatics and that means that we count as the endangered group of people who the virus might effect in a very bad way. But nobody really knows, cause it is a new thing. And as with all new things, they are sort of an enigma. Everybody can have a guess (and a lot of people make an effort to post their guesses online), but with serious things we need reliable information. To get those we will need research and other stuff that scientist do and that takes time. Research is ongoing, the vaccines are being developed, but hard data, solutions and certainty will be available only after the crisis will be over – fun fact, they do not know when this ordeal will be over.
So, after the panic subsided, some kind of obliviousness and a hint of exhilaration started to creep in. We were at home, the internet at our fingers, enough computers and suddenly more time that we would know what to do with it. And of course we took advantage of it, fixing the things in the apartment that needed fixing, doing improvements and taking care of things that needed taking care of while trying to make the experience of being locked in the apartment with kids as interesting and at times as fun as possible. New flower planters are up on the wall, the cracked paint in the bathroom scraped off and waiting for the new paint (the store with the paint is closed, so it might take a while), new shelves constructed -all of it made my wife happy. But soon even that small amount of exhilaration passed.
The new phase for me is fatalism – kind of going with the flow of things – but made more intricate due to the developing sense of germophobia. I have been on sick-leave until today due to my sinus infection (nope, seems I have dodged the corona for now), but during that time so many things have changed regarding the virus itself. All the developments going from bad to worse and then even worser (nope, not a proper word). To make things worse still, the bad element of our society has quickly picked up on the fact that most people do not leave their homes (no, I am not talking about the people that want to buy all the toilet paper in Slovenia). Therefore it is free picking for the ones that do not have any moral restrictions about abusing a really bad situation for their benefit (again, I am not referring to all the shop-hoarders). The direct effect of this is that our bike got stolen right in front of our apartment. When we called the police, they said that we need to report the theft personally at the precinct office. Imagine that, if you want to report a crime, you need to risk your health by breaking the isolation and going all the way to the police office, touch bunch of stuff and then go back home (see, everywhere I be I see germs). I really hope that the criminals are not aware of the police modus operandi, otherwise we might see a more apocalyptic behavior soon. Despite this, we managed to find a way to report the crime online, an option that was not presented to us by the officer on phone.
The escalating news reporting about the virus impact coupled with all the instructions on social distancing and proper hand hygiene has definitely forced us to change our daily habits. Staying mostly at home covers the social distancing, but sometimes you need to go out. When we do, it looks something like this. Open the door to the apartment, go back wash your hands, exit the apartment and use the elbow to close the door behind you. Exiting the apartment building by stairs (can get exhausting due to the fact we live on 6th floor), using wet wipes to clean the hands once outside the building. Then outside do not touch any surfaces unless you are about to fall on your face. Go around any people you meet (which has been hard, because the people still seem to be taking the lock-down as a chance to have an early holiday and the nice weather has made staying inside really hard), avoiding them at least 1.5 meters. Strictly but politely avoid any conversations and get back home as fast as you can. Repeat the entry protocol as described above. Wash your hands again and again.
Right now my hand are so over washed that I have completely dry skin although I usually have quite greasy skin. Dealing with cracked dry skin is also a new experience for me.
The situation outside our home hasn´t improved either. At work the first instructions were to work from home. That lasted about a day and then changed to staying at home on partial paid leave until further notice. We will see where that goes.
And that is the base situation right now. Thankfully due to the technology available, we can keep in touch with family and friends, some of that communication has been quite funny and helps keep up the spirits. Honestly, I must say that our spirits are quite all right. We have enough food, people we know have not gotten the virus yet, except this guy:
I will take this time allotted to us by the virus to spend time with the kids (my current assignment is the home educator, which can lead to some tense situations, but overall I think I excel at home teaching 🙂 ) and fiddle around with this blog. Here is an example of the fiddling:
Oh yeah, there is also Witcher 3 that I need to finish, so signing off.
No Comments Yet