Perhaps sadness is primarily a result of former happiness, if so today was sad because it was happy. My parents went out briefly; my father to the newsagents, my mother to have her hair cut. I felt that they should stay in, safe, but wasn't sure. Exercise is important.
I started to make the barest of plans for art and the year.
Deb, restless, called to ask if I'd like to join her in a shopping trip. I thought the exercise would alleviate anxiety, so we went to Tesco to buy a few things. This actually resulted in more anxiety, it felt like having a picnic on a battlefield, visiting a cold cathedral full of invisible poison. I kept feeling the urge to not breathe too deeply, and to keep away from everyone, and not breathe too much near Deb, either, in case I was invisibly toxic. This hellish thing, it is the not-knowing that is worst. If I had an electronic 'instant infection detector' (I'm sure they're developing them) everything would be easy. If we could see those 'blue' people, the infection could be easily controlled. We need something like that, some camera, x-ray, augmented reality detector. I've heard though, that even now the swabs only detect coronavirus in those who have developed symptoms, that a negative test can still mean infectious people. I wonder if this is true.
Many of the shelves were bare but most were not. I looked at the fancy foods from across the world and paused for a moment at whether they really would continue to be here. Home Bargains had no medicine at all, every shelf empty including my hayfever medication which will be important for summer.
To escape the tension, we went to the park. Joyous. I brought my boomerang, a Christmas gift and threw it a few times for the first time. The park was expansive and empty, we ran until breathless over the field in the spring sun, used the fitness equipment, felt invigorated.
I've decided to release The Burning Circus on World Poetry Day. It's clear that holding out for a public launch is a forlorn hope, so one must merely be delayed.
The news seems less panicky, but no less serious. The current plan appears to be to clamp down on the infection sharply then very gradually lift restrictions, so that the health service can cope with cases as they emerge. Of course, this plan will still mean the inevitable deaths of the susceptible, that everyone would be exposed.
This is probably overly negative thinking though. When the virus is too short of hosts, it will vanish. I had the idea for a remarkable option: that the 'containment' phase that countries try with one or two cases can be effectively extended to the entire world, that the world will hold its breath, one singular time, a suspended note, when everywhere in the world is in lockdown and every single household compliant. After two weeks of this, the virus would run out of hosts everywhere and be eradicated.
This, relatively short term, health crisis will become a medium term economic one. The country, the world, will effectively need to be put into hibernation. To me it seems that there is only one option, that every company will be offered loans that will pay for all costs for a year or two of hibernation, and that those loans will be paid back once the company is back up and running. The political question is whether the loans should be subsidised and by how much, and which industries are to be given them. There would have to be similar measures for individuals though: small businesses, the self-employed; everyone affected, and these make up the majority of the economy. Perhaps, the companies like Amazon, set to benefit from the locked economy, could be taxed to subsidise the relief of those companies who would otherwise be taking Amazon's business.
Enough pipe-dreaming.
I remain concerned about possibly being infectious, that I must protect my parents and Deb. Every trip out, every visit to Deb, is an exposure to potential risk, and I feel that this must stop. I feel an underlying anxiety, muscle spasms, heart skips, tingles due to hypoxia, but lesser than the panic I felt a few days ago. I feel unable to relax, always vigilant, in case my exhalations are harmful to others. Every so often I feel unexpectedly tearful.
I feel blessed to live in this quieter area of the country. Those in the major cities must feel far worse.
There is an Edwardian air everywhere, caused by several things: the echoes of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, a war-time spirit, a Wall Street crash, but also War of the Worlds. The B.B.C. adaptation, screened so few months ago, seemed to echo this reality in some strange way.
