Pandemic Diaries: 2-3 months in

[jack]

The first few weeks I kept quite a detailed diary about every pandemic development to organise my thoughts and in case I needed to refer back to it. Then I sort of settled in and waiting while we passed a peak.

Now, things seem to get uncertain again. I was fine hiding inside for 2-3 months but now it's getting to me. Partly, I was fine hiding in winter, but sad if we have to give up summer.

Partly, I'm starting to miss seeing people in person. And partly, the uncertainty is hard: if I was just waiting and didn't have a choice I'd just avoid thinking about it. But now, the government is urging people to relax their caution when the peak has gone down... a fair amount, but not enough to be reliably eradicated by thorough testing and tracing. So, will we get lucky and that will have been enough anyway? Or will it lead to a second wave and another 6 months of lockdown? Or will it go up a bit and the government change tack quickly and it'll be somewhere in the middle? Not knowing what to hope for makes it hard to plan.

According to the government I can meet people outside at a distance. But doing that indiscriminately is going to raise the infection rate again. But how much would be safe and responsible? None? Some? More? I don't know whether to look forward to seeing people soon-ish? Or just accept that things will get worse again and I don't want to be "that guy" rushing out to make things worse between the first and second peaks.

I think I need to explicitly imagine what I look forward to, whether soon or in a year, to have something to focus on. Which is, seeing people, somehow or other. Eventually hugs. Going to the sea, or even just the towpath! Pubs. Crowds, coffee shops, people watching. Hugs are waiting...

Comments

[redbird]

Hugs, yes, definitely.

[rmc28]

If you look at the "excess deaths" charts at the bottom of https://on.ft.com/3gsdIrT it looks like the second wave is already starting, everywhere except Scotland.

Which is about what you would expect from people relaxing social distancing 3 weeks ago for VE day, a two-week incubation period and the illness getting serious at about 7-10 days.

So it will be rising further as schools partially reopen, which will accelerate the spread. I feel scared and sick about the next two months, and am just grateful we're in a position to keep everyone at home.

[sfred]

Lots of sympathy.

[silveradept]

Not knowing is difficult, especially when hugs are a potential thing to gain by relaxing. I have no advice, since I love somewhere that is encouraging people to open up even though the first want may not have completely happened through the entire country.

Eudoxia

[(Anonymous)]

I offer this: https://nadiabolzweber.substack.com/p/optimism-wont-save-mebut-neither
in particular, this excerpt:

"Having never read a business book in all my life, I was unaware of “The Stockdale Paradox” described in the popular book Good To Great, but I sure was grateful a friend told me about it this week. (Most of what I know comes from conversations with friends who have actualluy READ THE BOOKS)

An Admiral in the US Navy, James Stockdale survived 8 years as a POW in a North Vietnamese prison camp. When asked who of his fellow prisoners struggled to make it out alive he replied,

“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart….”

So the “Stockdale Paradox” is the ability to hold two opposing but equally true things at once:

You must have faith that you will prevail in the end

And at the same time you must confront the brutal facts of your current reality."

I think we have to make/find meaning in the present. (Insert cheesy quotes about the present being a gift, or being all we have, etc, here, to taste.)