Dawn of the brain dead

So we're seven weeks in to quarantine here (I think!) and we do, regrettably, finally have a confirmed case in the village. Inevitable, I suppose, given that very few corners of the globe seem to have escaped entirely. But we're both still well and if we were hardly leaving the house at all before (you're not even allowed out for exercise here) we'll be doing so even less now. Suspect we'll be discovering what the freezer's been hiding in the ice monster at the back over the next few weeks. We're coping happily enough with the confinement – though I'm really missing football now. I do confess, however, that I don't miss the weekly terror of another defeat on the inexorable slide to relegation that most weekends brought.

The reason for the title of this entry would not test the guessing capabilities of a simpleton. In a world, virtual and physical, where we're being told the Chinese created the virus deliberately, that 5G masts spread it. That it doesn't exist at all, that 'cures' can be bought on the internet. What we most needed was the planet's most powerful half-wit telling his countrymen and women to ingest bleach.

It is, of course, the press's fault – he was only being sarcastic to test their reaction. Well let's give the man way, way, way more credit than he deserves and believe him for a moment. Such a 'test' at the very least shows that this so-called politician has about as much grasp of politics as a three-year old. You can only hope that his supporters, who seem bewilderingly in thrall to this dolt, aren't stupid enough to follow his advice.

A secondary reason for the title is a piece of what (I hope at least) was poor journalism on a Spanish newspaper's website, claiming that medical staff at a hospital had been attacked by a 'fallecido' of Covid-19. This means that a dead victim of the virus attacked hospital staff. For everybody who's been waiting with something like gleeful anticipation of the zombie apocalypse, or who regard this crisis fearfully as its herald, the accuracy or otherwise of that paper's headline will be of considerable import.

Away from Trump and other horrors, the vast majority of 'normal' people continue to display patience, empathy and support for those on the front line. Just in the social media stuff I see, which is extremely limited, there are friends of my partner making medical gowns and masks in Sussex, others volunteering to help locals who can't get out to do their own shopping. The spirit of community, which in large cities is at best attenuated and at worst non-existent, has been revived most powerfully when people paradoxically are forced to stay away from each other.

I've seen a lot of messages that we can't go back to 'normal', that 'normal' was the problem. Well, yes. I'd certainly like to hope that when we slowly start to come out of this, the recent appreciation shown to key workers everywhere is converted into something a bit more concrete, that would actually confer rewards on them for their hard work and fortitude. I'd be lying, though, if I said I thought that's what would happen. The everyday worries that most people have to deal with - the mortgage, the kids, their job - will quickly barge their way to the front of most people's thinking, understandably. Brexit (remember that?) will once again dominate the news.

Of course some aspects of society will have changed - we'll all fly less, I reckon, because it's going to be a lot more expensive and people won't have the money if they were furloughed. There may also be a lot fewer airlines about. But the right won't have to pay lip service daily to the NHS and can go back to denying them pay rises and telling us how lucky we'll be to be 'independent' of the EU, though this crisis demonstrates the inter-connectedness of things in a manner which should be clear even to the stupidest individual. Stuff like this affects everybody, and would better be resisted if we prepared for it, and then fought it, together.

Be well, all.

Update - a week and a day into quarantine

So, what was going to be a 15-day stay-at-home order will now be 30 days, on pain of a €600 fine if you're stopped by the police out and about without good reason. Food shopping, going to work if you're a key worker, etc, is OK. Just being a bit stir crazy and needing to get out is not. Seeing the pictures from Bondi Beach and various places in the UK recently are very frustrating when this thing has already taken so many, and is now taking people known to me. My sincerest condolences to M, E and G for the loss of their father in Madrid. And best wishes to P for the recovery of his father, currently in hospital. This is going to get close to home for a lot of people, including some of those who were in those photos in Snowdonia, the royal parks etc. It's fucking horrible. Stay indoors, people. Seriously - they're not saying this shit for nothing.

I said to mates in a (virtual) drink last week that, in times like this, you see the best and worst in people. So looking up, not down, I'd like to beg your indulgence for a moment while I big up my own missus and some other ladies in our village who have been producing masks for staff at local hospitals, old peoples' residences etc. Now I know the score - they're not going to stop the infection on their own. But I defer to the knowledge of medical professionals here, and the nurses here have told us that not only are they helpful in a clinical environment, but there's a chronic shortage of them here. They're using disposable, paper masks, or nothing at all. Against that, cloth masks are an improvement.

My partner Cris, and others, have answered the call. She has produced hundreds of these things - working from 7am on Sunday, I think it was, through the day, pumping them out as fast as she could. The effort continues and others have joined in – shout outs to Minda, Yoli, Marián, ChuChi, Pura and anybody else I've forgotten or am unaware of, to whom my apologies, for doing the same. What started as a few masks for local nurses has spread to the hospital at a much bigger town about 45 mins away asking for them too. Hundreds are needed, pretty much anywhere that they're used.

They come in a range of looks...

Something for everyone.

My admiration for such gestures, and I've seen many others all over the place from good, selfless people who want to do something positive, is rather tempered by the fact that they're necessary at all. 

We call the everyday heroes and heroines behind these masks, and others like them, 'key workers'. They are indeed the keystones on which any functioning society is based. I know this is hardly original thinking but it's medical staff, teachers, cleaners, transport workers, food industry and chain-of-supply workers, and so on, all those people who are still working now when many others have been told not to, who hold our society up. Any structure, whether actual or abstract, is only as strong as its foundation, no matter the riches at the top. You don't build anything by starting with a 300-ton gold roof and then go about supporting it with balsa-wood and flour'n'water glue.

I haven't heard anybody yet wondering when the hedge fund managers, the currency speculators and stock market players are going to step up and keep things running. I've picked on finance but it could just as easy be, I don't know, YouTube 'influencers', fashion designers or footballers. Nothing personal against any of those people – my point is that the money is all in the wrong damn place. Cuts are routinely made to public health services and a lack of basic stuff like masks, soaps, and staff are the inevitable result, for all the lip service they're then paid by the government when they're front and centre of a crisis like this one.

You can't pay your mortgage, or build hospitals, with lip service. I'd love to believe that when (if) western society recovers from this, this imbalance will be addressed and wealth shared a bit more freely with those who have so little of it but make it possible for others 'above' them in the first place. A pipe dream, of course. You only have to look across the Atlantic so see the 'advice' the dolt in charge over there is giving to know exactly how much the people who profit from the work of others with much less money than them really grasp this reality.

Anyway. Be well, everybody. Stay home if you don't have to go out and listen to the advice of the medical professionals, not the divs selling 'cures' and other charlatans.