Transmission

 

Thursday 22^nd May

Today is the day after the announcement that coronavirus will shut down schools in the UK.

The dust is settling on a strange new world of silent streets, and wary glances at infrequent strangers should one dare to venture out. The panic buying has already happened. I’m waiting for the looting to start. I’m lucky. I bought things early, already unwell and fearing what would unfold, glued to news from across the world, as colleagues in Asia shut up shop and went home.

That’s why I think we’ve already had it. Back in February, a colleague, over from Asia, sat next to me, glassy eyed and sweating. Go home, I said, meaning back to her sister’s where she was staying, but like all of us back then, we thought toughing it out in the office was the right thing to do; had probably picked up a bug from her sister’s kids. Back then, the virus casualties were numbered in their hundreds, still centred around the Chinese province of Hubei. Wuhan was only just closing its doors. No one thought it had spread any further. But we know better now.

14-year-old Jonah got a cough that went on for weeks, but of course, I told him to go into school regardless. When Ava finally succumbed, I worried that this was not just a seasonal infection, and spoke to my boss about the colleague from Asia. She reacted indignantly. No one here would consider the possibility it was Coronavirus. That would mean hazmats, isolation, deep cleans. It was too much trouble to think about. So we all just carried on as normal, and Ava too was sent to school, pale, but otherwise fine except for a bit of a sore throat.

A week later, in which I’d been on a yoga retreat-come-jolly with friends, and had the builders in during half term spent in in my North Devon holiday home, I too got ill, or rather, I thought, came down with an old-fashioned cold. Perhaps the headache I’d got on the Saturday wasn’t just a hangover after all.

Keep your distance, I told my sister and her family at her daughter’s bowling birthday party on the Sunday, feeling mildly feverish over a large glass of rose, and snoring like a walrus in the car on the way back to London.

That Monday, I took baby Lana to the children’s centre, rather quieter than it had been the week before. She had a sticky eye, but she’d had one before when she had a cold, and it wasn’t easy to stay in the house all day with her. At lunchtime, I needed a nap, but that was more and more usual on my days at home, fatigued by lunchtime after a morning of doing little more than scrolling, meeting postponed because I simply couldn’t galvanise myself away from my dreams.

I stayed off work the rest that week, but went in the next, still feeling a bit ropey as by then, the cold had turned into a cough, and a chest infection followed – but being away from my desk for longer would be frowned upon. I made a great show of hand sanitizing every time I coughed, but by then, other colleagues were coughing too. Probably just a seasonal cold, we all said. The chances of having it are just too remote, though we were all keeping an eye on the numbers on the news, some, wondering what the fuss was about, others enthused by the drama of it all.

That week, headcount in the office is starting to dwindle – an opportunity to skive a bit I thought, all too knowingly – but I still had things I needed to be in for, things I couldn’t just do on my laptop at home. I sat in close proximity with a developer, being careful not to breathe on him. The next day, his daughter developed a tummy bug and he too went home. Now they’re saying that could be the first sign of the disease.

The week after that, I worked from home as best I could, although I still went into uni. After all, my masters was expensive, and I’d already missed classes due to childcare issues and a teacher strike. I couldn’t afford to miss any more.

Two weeks later, a girl I’d chatted to that day also got sick. My sister’s sick too, now, down in Southampton, self-isolating at home with her kids. Now, she’s worried about how she’ll cope with the kids off for months, but I’m sure her husband will manage them, just as he normally does.

But mostly I’m worried about my dad, who visited the day before his birthday, himself coughing now and then – it’s just a cough, he said.

Ava, not nearly so peaky now, had baked him a cake, and though she was otherwise well, was still coughing a bit. I scrupulously wiped down surfaces and hand sanitised, but Dad had turned up early, and I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked – was still clearing up from Lana’s lunch, my hair scraped back in a ponytail, still in my yoga pants from the morning’s session at the children’s centre.

That day, Ava was off school due to ‘Parents’ Day’ – what in the old days, was ‘Parents’ evening’ has morphed into a day of school-based activities, so parents can engage with their children’s learning. I’d not gone for years. Ava was now in her last year of primary and had refused to engage me in her learning for some time.  So she’d stayed home for the morning, and only ventured out of her bedroom for a slice of her cake – a delicious rich coffee cake –  she rarely comes down for anything these days if she can help it – and certainly not for my father, who she’s only really met a handful of times, and who’s as bad at socialising as she is.

Anyway, once I’d got Lana into bed, and wiped up the kitchen and given myself a two-minute change and a hairbrush, a swipe of lipstick, I finally sat down to speak to Dad, who seemed extraordinarily relaxed about the situation. Of course, he thought he’s already had it – ordinarily, he spent a lot of time in the far east – his girlfriend’s Thai; his wife South Korean…

Well I guess you won’t be going out there for a while… I said, but he pooh poohed it – it’s just a blip, will be over by springtime, don’t worry about it, he said.

But you’re high risk, I said, worrying about his blood pressure, his weight, and the skin cancer diagnosis he’d only just recovered from.

You should make sure your, um, affairs are in order, I said, concerned that he was failing to understand the gravity of the situation. But, unable to contemplate his own demise, he was more worried about his businesses’ sales falling through the floor. After all, most of his customer base was in Asia too.

Back then, – was it really only just last week? – the virus was still seen as over there –. I mean, Italy was starting to look a bit concerning, and the UK had a few confirmed cases – maybe a couple of people had died – but no one was really panicked, except, it seemed, me.

That weekend, still glued to the news, Boris Johnson gave an imitation of statesmanship by suggesting the show must go on: schools and businesses would remain open; only the elderly and vulnerable would isolate themselves. Seemed sensible, I thought. The economic fallout would be far worse than most people coming down with, what to me, had felt like a mild illness, if indeed that was what I had had. Who knows? I even called 111 to ask if I should be concerned about my son’s cough, which had not let up in months, despite him winning several climbing competitions in the meantime, spreading his germs amid crowded and sweaty congregations.

Sounds like just a cough, the distracted lady on the other end of the line told me. Coronavirus is a serious illness. You can’t just carry on with your daily activities if you have it, she said. I put down the phone, perturbed. That’s not what I’d read – and I’d read everything.

It’s like when Bitcoins were about to crash. I knew – because I’d spent almost every waking hour reading and following the peaks and troughs of that particular wave – market reports, online feeds, Reddit… it’s easy to see where the market is heading to, and then it was on an upwards swing. But when our online wallet his 30k, even I began to see it all as too good to be true. I badgered Tom to sell. But he, who actually works as a trader, was too busy.

I thought the same about my ISA, where I’d stashed the Bitcoin cash I’d still made when the price tanked by half. It was at record highs, up 18% despite the dire warnings coming out of China. I should pull it I thought, but my Goldman Sachs market reports were telling me to stay invested. The markets crashed the next day.

No one listens to me about anything. Tom patronised me when I told him to buy extra provisions, just in case we had to quarantine for 14 days. He did, but called it The Zombie Apocalypse. He’s not laughing now the shelves are empty. But even I hope that my other suggestion – putting nails into Jonah’s nerf gun collection, doesn’t have to be exercised.

So, this what the calm before the storm of an economic apocalypse looks like. Even with the schools due to close on Monday, people are more or less carrying on as normal – jogging around the park, taking advantage of being able to work from home. I’ve not ventured out much to see which shops and cafes are still open, but for now, the local pub is still serving, to a slightly thinned out crowd.

I mean, no one I know has died, or even had a case confirmed because there are no bloody tests for it unless you’re admitted to hospital. Of course, people here are dying – the old, the infirm, and the odd healthcare worker – exposed to a multitude of doses – but even then, the numbers are minor compared to those who die daily of cancer, heart disease, diabetes – the diseases of excess and indulgence. But I do know people who’ve lost their jobs; who are already threatened with redundancy. Yes, people are worried about their parents, their grandparents, but even for those over 80, the odds of survival are in their favour. That’s why I thought Boris had played a blinder with his measured approach to the panic. It’s out the box, we can’t suppress it, can we? We have to let it run its course and protect the vulnerable while the rest of us carry on doing the things that make the world go round – picking, making, selling, trading. If not, the cliff edge is too horrific to contemplate.

 

That day, the day we were told to keep calm and carry on, that the schools would remain open and that ‘at risk’ groups would isolate, Tom and I decided to go to the busiest place we could think of, to enjoy it when it while it was quiet. We went to Westfield Stratford. It was much quieter than usual – we were able to pick up a bunch of ready meals from Marks& Spencer – the shelves there weren’t stripped bare – probably because of how horrifically expensive it is – but there were still lots of people milling around. We let Lana play in the kids’ area – normally seething with snot-ridden toddlers. Here a couple of older kids smiled and fondled Lana, helping her up and down the slide with zero regard to the newly coined idea of ‘social distancing’. Out of an abundance of caution, I asked them not to get too close, but they didn’t seem to understand me. In the end, I wiped her fingers with baby wipes when she was finished clawing her way up the artificial grass, but I didn’t have any hand sanitizer. Oh well, I thought – if we hadn’t had it already, we might as well get on with it. Surely, she wouldn’t pick up any worse here that she would at the childminders, and the schools were still open – that was the point of ‘herd immunity’ wasn’t it? – all these terms being bandied about like people knew what they were talking about.

By then, I was feeling robust, inviable. Of course, I didn’t want to get sick. I thought I’d had it already, or if I didn’t have it, that it made sense to get it –as the government advisors seemed to suggest. There was no way we could beat it, not now it was spread all over the world. We might as well join it.

The sun was shining for what felt like the first time in months. Young people filled the streets at the local market, buoyed up by the sense of shared and imminent catastrophe and the impending extended holiday from the real world of work.

The aches and pains in my arms weren’t anything to write home about. I’d been suffering weird malaise for weeks, likely as much hypochondria as a genuine cough and cold. But the headache was vice-like. And the stabbing pains in my chest worried me more because I’d seen images of what Covid 19 did to people’s lungs.

By Monday, pictures of empty shelves were flooding people’s social media, and outrage over hoarding became the new way to virtue signal. Of course, people will stock up, if they think they’re going to be locked in their homes, I argued fruitlessly to people I didn’t know; the government’s reassurance that supply chains were robust falling on deaf ears. People will be people, I said to the do-gooders, who were just miffed that they couldn’t get their preferred brand of beans. Funny how the ‘Free-from’ range was still available. No one seemed to be gluten-intolerant in a crisis.

In the small shops, shelves were still well-stocked but profiteering had begun. Prices were removed from shelves, and essentials had gone up in price. Well I guess, that’s capitalism, I sighed, safe in the knowledge that I had everything I needed at home, for now, at least. There’s something to be said for paranoia.

But Tom working from home was a lot less fun than I thought it would be. He was stressed, sweary and kept pacing. I worried his job was at risk, but he said no. Government bailouts meant they issued more debt, which is what his platform trades. His volumes were going through the roof. We too would make money out this crisis. I fielded the baby like a professional, keeping her out of his way, taking her for a long walk in the sunshine. We barely spoke all day.

By Tuesday, I was wobbly with my work colleagues, feeling miffed that, even though I had symptoms that had previously garnered VIP infectious disease control, I was still being asked to do my job – and on a much smaller screen than I was used to. Suddenly the numbers being touted by the news mongers were looking much more scary. People were voicing outrage against the government’s laissez-faire approach. They were demanding action. They were asking to be told to stay at home. It was, in some ways, genius. Now, everyone was told to stay at home for two weeks if they had symptoms, not seven days as they had previously, and the whole family had to stay home with them. Slowly, slowly catchy monkey.

I called my sister, that night, herself ‘self-isolating’ at home due to a persistent cough and a slight temperature. She looked a bit washed out, but mainly that was because normally I saw her with a full face of make-up. She’d been flat out, she said, at work. As head of HR for a large corporate, it was her job to manage layoffs, and she was working overtime. Aren’t you supposed to set a good example and not work if you’re sick? I asked. I don’t have time she said, swigging a large glass of white wine. We’re making announcements tomorrow.

Jesus, I said. Sipping my own glass of red. There felt nothing for it but to dull the news with alcohol, but after few more sips, I felt worse, so sloped off to bed.

I slept fitfully. Lack of exercise and pains in my bones, the cries of foxes waking me up early instead of the wail of sirens. It was eerily quiet.  I picked up my laptop and tried to write something, but my head was stuffy and no words came out. Instead, I scrolled the news channels until my eyes pinged. Words like troops, rations, morgues, bodies, emergency, closures, shut down, sprang out at me. My head ached, and I coughed. My nanny messaged to say she had symptoms but would come anyway. I asked if she was sure, but didn’t try to stop her. She said she would take Lana to the park. I felt bad for her, but I couldn’t galvanise myself out of bed. I’d felt much worse though, but this was a different kind of pain. It was a sort of pained despair. The symptoms were the least of it. I cried at a sympathetic male colleague who told me I could take a day off. This is a marathon, not a sprint, he said, and I wrote an out of office. Everyone was reeling from the news. I went back to bed in my pants, the delicious cool of the sheets on my skin, and the breeze from the window illicit luxuries at 11 am. I fell into a light doze, awakened only by the screech of the baby.

I venture downstairs, guiltily, my sweat smelling of onions and the garlic infused concoction I’d been adding to honey and lemon to ward of the sickness. Tom, who’d since dispatched the baby to bed, was still distracted by his computer. I fell into a news hole, awaiting the prime minister’s 5 pm address to the nation like it was a long-anticipated premier. It’s too late, whatever they do, I thought. The cat’s well and truly out of the bag.