This is our war

So, we are in the middle (or possibly unfortunately still near the beginning) of the Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (commonly currently known as Covid-19) pandemic. As I write (in case you are looking back at this in 50 years or so) it is a new virus, not seen before December 2019. It is causing a range of respiratory symptoms and it is killing some people. The estimated death rate seems to be maybe 1-2% but may be as low as <0.1% and may be as high as 5%. We don’t really know.

In fact we don’t really know much about it … because it is new. It is so new however that anything we know is actually know quite a lot. Unfortunately, on the ground as a GP it is not enough to be currently very useful. Last week we were told we need to advise (insist upon) 14 days isolation for anyone (and their entire household) with a fever or a cough. So far this week this advice has not changed, but in the interim we have gone from slight changes to some activities, to virtually all activities being shut down. This is sensible scientifically with the information we have to date … BUT the sun is out, the birds are singing – it is a time we usually come out of isolation … no-one wants to be isolated for 14 days … it is March, Spring is here in the UK. Also, in March in the UK fevers and coughs are a normal part of life – the pollen count is increasing as blossom is out, so hayfever symptoms are starting; the usual spring time peak of chicken pox is starting to be on us (Fever and cough often precede the spots); the old cold viruses from the winter haven’t quite left us and often seem to surge as the whether starts to warm in the day, but is still cold at night. Because of all this a lot of people are being told to isolate. I just wonder how long it is practicable?

I find this whole thing difficult. I have, until now lived a pleasant, and to be honest privileged, life. I have a loving family – both close and extended, nuclear and natal; I have never been truly short of money; I have generally good health (or I consider that I do… although when I saw the size of my medical record I was quite staggered!); I have a job; I have friends; I am mobile; I live in a country that has some sort of democracy and a reasonable amount of freedom of speech / expression / belief; I live in an age of relative safety … and I am living during national ‘peacetime’.

We have been told that “this government will do whatever it takes” and that “these are unprecedented times”. We have been informed that GCSE and A-Levels are cancelled and that this is also “unprecented”. We have been told that “never before have so many production businesses been asked to change what they produce”. Well I think that if we look back to around 1940 we can probably see exams have previously been cancelled and businesses have changed their production. Some of my generations Grandparents have no O-levels / A-Levels … because they were cancelled and I’m quite sure many businesses were commandeered for munitions work. This is not the Second World war by any means and it would be wrong to suggest the hardships we face are anywhere near those faced by people in any true war … but we are in a challenging situation that requires sacrifice, and sacrifice is something that due to our peacetime upbringing, many of us are not very practiced at.

However I am hopeful for this situation. I am hopeful that we will all learn to make sacrifices, and to practice doing it better. The sacrifices we make now – be they larger ones such as those of home lock-downs and social isolating, or smaller ones like giving the last packet of pasta on the shelf to the lady next to you who couldn’t reach it (saw this, was lovely) – will make us better people and I think will help us to grow in love for our neighbour.

I am hopeful that also we will learn what we can do without; that we will start to ‘make do and mend’; that we will become more in tune with the nature around us, as the crowded man-made entertainments are not available to us. I am hopeful that we will realise we can travel less, pollute less, consume less. I am hopeful that the world will be given a few months in which planet earth itself can start to find balance.

The one thing we can’t do is to physically come together to talk and fight. To me that is the biggest struggle we face. Wars are fought and won within communities. We must find ways to keep our communities together – and hopefully make them stronger. I think we will, we are a resourceful species. .. but I hope we do it with an element of necessary sacrifice, and not in a way that bleeds even more from our fragile earth.