I’ve been remiss in so far not using this blog to record my thoughts, expectations and coping strategies for the Lockdown. Today marks the 8th consecutive Monday I’ve been at home rather than at work. My wife’s been in the same position; our 5 year old has been at home since 17th March, and our 3 year old likewise the following week.
I don’t expect much to change in the near future – a gradual loosening won’t really change things much for us. We’re very, very lucky to have jobs we can do perfectly well from home. So we’ll be at the bottom of the list to go back to the office, and rightly so. 5YO is at school, of course, but as that age group is hard to physically distance and is not in a transition or key academic situation, pretty low priority too. The 3YO’s nursery will probably open soonest – I wouldn’t be surprised if such places, babysitters, childminders etc open up before the end of June. Construction sites, workshops and factories working in shifts for distancing will probably happen around the same time.
Then that’s probably it until, hopefully, schools generally open in September, maybe on a timeshare basis for a degree of distancing, and with that some return to offices, although maybe 50% of what it was before.
I don’t really see much hope for international travel, until countries can declare themselves as “clear” (as Jordan, New Zealand and some others have now done). Going to France by car via Eurotunnel (where you literally are in your own space entirely) would be very safe…but we’d need to buy a car…
The aim for society of course is to open things up in a manageable way – so yes, people get the disease, some get sick, and a relative few die…but without overloading the health service. This will still involve countless tragedies for individual families, but as a society, be something that can be coped with. Waiting for a vaccine is not a viable option – maybe it will come, maybe quite soon (6-12 months), but as we’ve never had a vaccine for the common cold (which mainly derives from milder coronaviruses), I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was in charge. There’s more impetus to find a vaccine now, obviously, given the increased lethality, but clearly these bat viruses are slippery customers.
(Note: We also need to be fortunate for a ton of other things: not having family in care homes, indeed our families seem to be self-isolating pretty well; having regular deliveries from Gousto and Abel & Cole which is supplementing supply runs to the little Sainsbury’s; children who are demanding in some ways, but pretty good, all thing considered; and getting our little balcony extension finished by the end of January, as that extra space is coming in very handy; having enough disposable income not to have that mental health stress added to the general background anxiety.)
Timsformational 