Journal of the plague year
Mar. 16th, 2021 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livSo the pandemic started, for most of us not in Italy or China, sometime around March 2020, and the exact anniversary isn't really a specific day. I said I was starting counting from March 16, so here we are. It's been a year.
I felt very worldly-wise when I predicted that
My life has been basically ok for the year. I have meaningful work to do which I can do from home and which keeps me financially comfortable. I have all the internet I could ever need. I have friends who are willing to make time to talk to me even through technology which makes a wholly inadequate substitute for in person conversations with hugs, and indeed friends who already stayed connected online because they live in different continents.
Nobody in my immediate circle has suffered any scarily serious illness, though many people have had a pretty miserable time with acute or post-acute 'long' Covid. I myself have enjoyed slightly improved health through not going into germy places, and slightly worse health through doing very little exercise. Yes, I know it's legal; I just haven't been consistently motivated to go outside for the specific purpose of official Exercise rather than my usual default of keeping moderately active through just walking and cycling everywhere.
I struggled a bit towards the end of two long stretches of keeping apart from my OSOs. But that was greatly relieved by initially bubbling as long as infection rates remained low, and then when we had the worst second wave on the planet, permanently bubbling when the law introduced a new category of a household with a child under one with one other household. But otherwise I've been basically ok, bored and frustrated and very very angry about living through democide, but so far I am in fact living through it.
This week,jack had his first vaccine dose (not entirely clear why he is in the relevant priority category but we're in no way complaining). My parents and two of my three siblings have been vaccinated once each. And even if you discount the hype and propaganda, it looks really plausible that the programme will reach the entire adult population by the end of summer. I'm worried about the knock-on effects of schools returning, I'm worried about the exit road-map not in fact being informed by the data but continuing to relax restrictions while it's not yet safe. I somewhat expect a third wave and I am almost certain there are going to be far more deaths than there should be before the pandemic is really 'over'. But I do have some optimism that vaccination is going to outpace infection sufficiently that most of us will get our lives back sometime this year.
I'm organizing a second online Passover Seder, which I have a lot of emotions about but it will be ok just like all the other online versions of festivals have been ok. And I'm not planning anything yet for the summer but I'm kind of planning to plan.
On a national level I think we're not going to learn any lessons from the pandemic, there's not going to be any new normal where everything is accessible to people who find it a huge effort to leave their homes, and everybody cycles and walks instead of driving, and commuting and pointless meetings are banned, and people avoid germy social practices like handshaking and working through illness. Most people other than the highly privileged few won't continue to benefit from working and educational flexibility. There won't be even adequate, let alone increased, funding for health or social care to deal with the backlog and prepare better for future epidemics. There won't be any extension of slightly less terrible benefit payments, and nobody is going to repeat the totally simple intervention which suspended homelessness almost completely in spring 2020. 2022 is going to be like 2019 only more shit, because now we've actually left the EU and the economy is in freefall and repressive and racist laws are ramping up while everybody's distracted by the pandemic.
But on a personal level I expect the second half of this year and most of next year will be pretty nice, actually. When I let myself believe it, I am looking forward to being able to travel at least within the UK again, and see my friends. There's a good chance I will be able to keep lots of the perks that the pandemic brought me in my working life, from at home-working as the default rather than the exception, to people taking online education seriously so that I'm a highly sought-after expert rather than a cinderella.
So, I dunno. Just keeping on keeping on, I guess.
I felt very worldly-wise when I predicted that
realistically it's gonna be monthsrather than just a few weeks. Even months in I didn't predict that we'd still be here a year later. The problem is now people are predicting that things will be gradually moving back towards normal by the summer, and I can't believe that because this time last year people were predicting it would be over by summer and were badly wrong. But this time the prediction is based on vaccination rates, not just assuming it can't really be that bad.
My life has been basically ok for the year. I have meaningful work to do which I can do from home and which keeps me financially comfortable. I have all the internet I could ever need. I have friends who are willing to make time to talk to me even through technology which makes a wholly inadequate substitute for in person conversations with hugs, and indeed friends who already stayed connected online because they live in different continents.
Nobody in my immediate circle has suffered any scarily serious illness, though many people have had a pretty miserable time with acute or post-acute 'long' Covid. I myself have enjoyed slightly improved health through not going into germy places, and slightly worse health through doing very little exercise. Yes, I know it's legal; I just haven't been consistently motivated to go outside for the specific purpose of official Exercise rather than my usual default of keeping moderately active through just walking and cycling everywhere.
I struggled a bit towards the end of two long stretches of keeping apart from my OSOs. But that was greatly relieved by initially bubbling as long as infection rates remained low, and then when we had the worst second wave on the planet, permanently bubbling when the law introduced a new category of a household with a child under one with one other household. But otherwise I've been basically ok, bored and frustrated and very very angry about living through democide, but so far I am in fact living through it.
This week,
jack had his first vaccine dose (not entirely clear why he is in the relevant priority category but we're in no way complaining). My parents and two of my three siblings have been vaccinated once each. And even if you discount the hype and propaganda, it looks really plausible that the programme will reach the entire adult population by the end of summer. I'm worried about the knock-on effects of schools returning, I'm worried about the exit road-map not in fact being informed by the data but continuing to relax restrictions while it's not yet safe. I somewhat expect a third wave and I am almost certain there are going to be far more deaths than there should be before the pandemic is really 'over'. But I do have some optimism that vaccination is going to outpace infection sufficiently that most of us will get our lives back sometime this year.I'm organizing a second online Passover Seder, which I have a lot of emotions about but it will be ok just like all the other online versions of festivals have been ok. And I'm not planning anything yet for the summer but I'm kind of planning to plan.
On a national level I think we're not going to learn any lessons from the pandemic, there's not going to be any new normal where everything is accessible to people who find it a huge effort to leave their homes, and everybody cycles and walks instead of driving, and commuting and pointless meetings are banned, and people avoid germy social practices like handshaking and working through illness. Most people other than the highly privileged few won't continue to benefit from working and educational flexibility. There won't be even adequate, let alone increased, funding for health or social care to deal with the backlog and prepare better for future epidemics. There won't be any extension of slightly less terrible benefit payments, and nobody is going to repeat the totally simple intervention which suspended homelessness almost completely in spring 2020. 2022 is going to be like 2019 only more shit, because now we've actually left the EU and the economy is in freefall and repressive and racist laws are ramping up while everybody's distracted by the pandemic.
But on a personal level I expect the second half of this year and most of next year will be pretty nice, actually. When I let myself believe it, I am looking forward to being able to travel at least within the UK again, and see my friends. There's a good chance I will be able to keep lots of the perks that the pandemic brought me in my working life, from at home-working as the default rather than the exception, to people taking online education seriously so that I'm a highly sought-after expert rather than a cinderella.
So, I dunno. Just keeping on keeping on, I guess.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-17 03:27 am (UTC)I'm already having to negotiate with specialist doctors to not have to drive 150km to see them when the special telehealth payments run out at the end of March. Homeless people are back on the streets. The higher unemployment payment is going away soon. It's very disappointing.
(no subject)
Date: 2021-03-17 08:41 pm (UTC)