On Monday 23rd March the UK was placed in quarantine in response to the global pandemic. Everyone was told to stay at home, apart from some basic rules for key workers and infrequent shopping trips for medical supplies and food necessities. This intervention was inevitable but probably earlier than expected. I do believe it was in direct response to many millions of people in the U.K. spending the weekend in parks and on the beaches for Mother’s Day and not taking the previous advice seriously enough.
Many people had already been isolating and taking all the previous advice seriously, but as is always true with human behaviour, many believed it didn’t apply to them. Actually probably many people are still not taking it seriously and I can share one small example in my own family!
Last night at around 8pm, my wife was called by her son, my stepson, asking to be collected from the countryside. He had cycled with his 2 friends into the countryside, about 10miles away to a quarry site, where unfortunately his bicycle encountered a puncture and of course he couldn’t cycle back.
So I went to collect him and his bike to take him back to his flat, he lives on his own. But he also needed some food, so I had to stop at the supermarket and buy a few things from there. Fortunately the supermarket was still open and I was able to get some essentials for him and also for my wife and I.
His 2 friends walked up to the car and I had to raise my voice for them to keep away from me. These 3 lads do not live together, they are not form the same household and they could have infected each other and in turn I could be infected also. Hopefully I haven’t been but the next few days will tell for sure.
I did give these 3 lads a bit of a roasting, because they definitely hadn’t taken the advice seriously and quite probably hadn’t heard the advice either the previous evening!
Apart from that event in the evening, my day was filled with a some work for a client, creating a storyboard for a new whiteboard animation project, which are featuring Gorillas! I also started a new walking routine with the dog to stay away from houses as much as possible, across fields and down a track to a water tower and because the weather has been so nice, it’s been wonderful very early in the morning at 7am. Pleased to say that I never had to cross anyone’s path.
The other project that filled my day, was helping my Taiko Drumming teacher set up his technology with the purpose of him starting virtual Taiko drumming lessons using Zoom. Zoom is probably the best technology for doing it. We just have to test a few other things before going live.
Because my work has been done from home for many years now, it definitely is not strange for me to work from home, but I’m definitely not looking forward to the prospect of lost revenue, which will inevitably be significant. More about that in my future journal posts, as I will explain why my business will likely not receive any support from the government. Quite worrying.
Be safe and stay well. #stayingaliveuk
[embed]https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-address-to-the-nation-on-coronavirus-23-march-2020[/embed]