Plague diary 19/03

[liv]

Day 3 (Wednesday): successful social distancing, yay. I worked from home, I came into contact with no humans except jack.

Work tried to establish ways to keep in touch, socially as well as for specific work concerns. We have just moved to a new system, Cisco Webex, for conference calls, and it's really not holding up to the volume of everybody suddenly moving to WFH. So we had a slightly hilarious team coffee chat, when half the participants had no audio and we ended up playing charades.

Mood-wise, I felt slightly manic all day. Every time I had to communicate with someone at work I used way too many words, and I got plenty done but everything felt like it was in a massive rush and slightly out of control.

I also successfully persuaded my mother, and my Stoke community, not to hold big Passover seders with crowds of vulnerable people travelling from all over to gather in a small room and share meals. It is going to be really awful to miss a big seder with my family of origin for the first time in my 41 years of life. But better than infecting my over-70 parents or my paralysed brother. And the Stoke community are breaking a streak of even more decades, and they grumped that I (along with the Chief Rabbi of their movement, the United Synagogue) am overreacting, but they're not risking the health of their various elderly and frail members, so that's good.

Today I mostly worked from home, but I had to go out for, of all things, dental surgery. I'd assumed it just wouldn't happen in the middle of a pandemic, but a tooth extraction is sufficiently urgent that it went ahead. The poor receptionist was absolutely frantically sanitizing every surface continuously.

I had never had a tooth taken out before today. Really rubbish first, I must say! The dentist was super lovely, kind without being patronizing, but I found myself very close to panic. The actual operation lasted only a couple of minutes and the local anaesthetic was the (not very bad) worst part of it, but anyway. I decided to walk home in order to calm myself down, though jack did offer me a lift. Then I met up with ghoti_mhic_uait and we went for another walk together, which did a lot for my general mood and happiness.

Town was quieter than usual, but not completely dead; there were enough walkers, cyclists and joggers out and about that it wasn't entirely easy to maintain the prescribed 2 metre separation from everybody. Also businesses, including pubs and other social gathering spots, are still open (because the government are trying to make individual businesses rather than insurers or the state assume the risk of telling individuals not to go to bars, but not telling bars to actually close), and were quiet but had some customers.

Personal status: If I had the beginning of a mild cold before, I now feel I have the end of a mild cold. Sore throat which I can't tell if it's an infection or a reaction to having my mouth poked about.
Social circle tally: One case, four with suspicious symptoms. All online acquaintances so far.

Comments

[ambyr]

I was informed recently that Conservative Judaism had determined some time ago that while a minyan had to be formed in person, it was acceptable to fulfill your obligation to pray with a minyan by connecting to the in-person minyan via a two-way video call. My conclusion was that clearly we needed to find ten righteous Jews in a hurry to lock them away in an isolated retreat for the duration so they can serve as a minyan for the world.

[liv]

That is actually a genius idea! I would totally volunteer, except that it would mean isolating away from my partners, so on second thoughts, no. I think we're going to try to do some kind of video link-up for me and my siblings and my parents celebrating Pesach in separate households for the first time ever.

[cynthia1960]

I thought I saw some tweets yesterday from Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg about minyans under quarantine.

[hilarita]

I'm glad that the Synagogues are being sensible about this.

[lilacsigil]

I always get a sore throat after a dentist visit, and the more dramatic the visit the sorer the throat, so I hope that's all it is for you. Also, one time after I started randomly crying at the dentist, it turned out that one of the ingredients in the injections is adrenaline (to control bleeding) but a substantial proportion of people have a panicked emotional response to it. It helped me to know it was the medication, not the experience.

[liv]

Wow, most helpful comment ever! I literally had an adrenaline shot, no wonder I was shaky. I feel a lot less like a terrible wimp now.