Two years

At 20:00 on 22nd March, the PM announced the first national lockdown. So, at midnight pubs, clubs, bars and restaurants, as well as gyms, theatres and cinemas, all closed initially for three weeks.

I had been following the spread of COVID for weeks, this is what I wrote on 23rd March 2020:

I mean I could have written this as part of the usually daily blog, but I thought its not often an entire country gets shut down.

Mind you, we're not the only ones doing this, but it is worth pointing out that other countries, like Denmark, have not gone down the lockdown route because they were better prepared, there has been less panic buying.

So, when news came just before five that the dail "presser" was being delayed until half eight when a national broadcast would be made, it was obvious what was coming.

Even still, to see it written down in black and white, or in Tweets, seeing the reality of it, that for three weeks there will be no non-urgent travel, meetings of more than two people, all non key work to stop and people to stay at home.

These are days we thought we would never see, and yet it was clear that they would come, one day.

Pandemics happen, and have been known before. A virus jumps from one species to human and for us there is no immunity, and it rips around the world thanks to global travel through hub airports in a matter of hours.

It seems only politicans, those tasked with ensuring protection and preparedness were caught sleeping, and our brave leader, Alexander Boris de Piffel Johnson has been behind the curve from the start. And has gone from joking about shaking everyone's hand in a hospital with those infected to locking down the country in 14 days. Not bad.

And make no mistake, the lockdown isn't just because people ignored advice, but it because that advice was fudged and not clear, and for a week the Government prepared the country for the wrong virus.

But yes, Boris is doing a grand job.

It will take ten days to see if the lockdown works, and in those ten days death rates will double about every two days, and our health service will buckle under the strain, but they will do their best.

The plice can arrest those of breaking the lockdown, but the Tories spent a decade cutting numbers and morale as they did with nurses, doctors, teachers and fire service. All cut down to bare bones with no flexibility when the shit hits the fan.

But I'm sure it's not the Tories fault, it must be Labour's, or the EU's or the union's fault.

Then in my dairy entry for the same day: In the mid-80s, there was a book published, something like The Encyclopedia of the 20th century, a day by day history of what happened between 1900 and the current day. 1985 was an odd year to chose to publish, as this required annual update to bring it up to date. I read the first ten years, and learned about the opium wars, the Boxer Rebellion among other things.

Big stories happened, which we have largely forgotten about. A decade later the Spanish Flue pandemic happened, killing maybe hundreds of millions of people.

I wondered what it would be like to live through such tumultuous times. I read that upon seeing the City of London ablaze in 1666, Samuel Pepys buried a whole cheese in his back garden for safe keeping. He had just lived through an outbreak of the Black Death so he knew bad shit when he saw it.

So, we will all know what it is like to live through a pandemic, the sheer panic of not knowing how to deal with an unseen foe, not knowing who is and who isn't infected, trusting no one. Each night the infection rate and fatalities climb ever upwards, in an ever steepening slope, proving in real time that the policies our politicians have followed were the wrong ones and have signed death warrants. And there is no outsider or exterior organisation to blame, the buck stops with them. Teough Johnson and Trump will claim otherwise, they fiddled whilst the virus strengthened, infected and spread.

The next ten days will get grimmer, as numbers rise and rise. Only in ten days will we know if the lockdown, as it is, has worked.

So, to Monday. And at first it seemed a normal kind of day. For a Monday.

Up just after dawn now, as the year gets older. Sit with Jools to drink coffee, then once she left, go to do a session on the cross trainer.

We now have an early morning meeting on new MS Teams to catch up on news and for each to give a health update. We are jolly, but there is fear too. One of my colleagues has her partner work in the ICU at Aarhus hospital, she is pregnant and from Tuesday he is going on shift and they will not be able to meet again until, well, who knows when? So her unborn child is not affected.

We are cheery, but also know that for others it is serious. They are all missing not being in the office seeing each other, as we all are now working from our homes. I always work from home, so am unique in the team that the crisis hasn't really changed my life that much.

It will stop the church crawling and orchid hunting for sure, but otherwise, being an only child, I am comfortable with my own company. I do miss the footy though, that goes with out saying. But I'll say it anyway.

And outside it is a glorious day. Tough very cold. Or colder than it looks. I turn the heating down and am soon cold. But if I have it too warm, then the afternoon session on the cross trainer would be unbearable. It could be that I am just running hot so would get all hot and bothered no matter how cold it was.