14 April 2020
Tuesday · Day 19 of lockdown
The Gauteng Health Department announced that the Johannesburg Expo Centre – which had been selected as the site for a large emergency field hospital – was almost ready to receive its first Covid-19 patients. Some mining operations resumed in the country. The South African Reserve Bank cut the repo rate by one percentage point, and the International Monetary Fund predicted the worst global economic downturn since the Great Depression. US President Donald Trump announced that he would halt funding to the World Health Organisation, specifically because of the organisation’s opposition to the US decision to restrict travel to China.
The path ahead looks daunting. Lockdown was supposed to end in two days, now it has been decided that it will only end in two weeks. The world is facing an epidemic and no one knows what the future will bring. Yet, we as citizens are still critical of the decisions our government is making.
All the negative talk in the news and on social media criticising our government has made me realise that people are impatient and will always blame others when times are tough. I have decided that I will not be one of those people who judge the government and talk negatively about the leaders of our country. I will respect their decisions because I believe that our safety is their first priority.
Nevertheless, I will continue to educate myself on what is happening and will engage critically with the decisions that are being made. I hope the rest of the country does the same.
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Every day I find it harder to write in this diary because every day I feel the same way. There is only so much to do in your own house. In the movie The Breakfast Club, the teacher gives the students an assignment to each write a one thousand word essay, but he explicitly says that it cannot be the same word over and over again. Every day here is the same, though, and so I feel it would make sense to just write “bored” 200 times for this dairy entry.
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News has been circling about the BCG vaccine [the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine is a vaccine primarily used against tuberculosis (TB)] for quite a while now and now I think it’s becoming significant enough to write about. It has been argued that the BCG vaccine provides at least partial immunity to Covid-19. Since all South Africans by law have to take the vaccine just after birth to prevent against TB, this apparently explains South Africa low infection rate. There is some merit to this theory (although at this stage it is just a theory). Currently scientists around the globe are exploring vaccines related to diseases such as malaria, HIV and TB, so the BCG vaccine could hold some potential. However, this theory has not been tested at all by the scientific community and people who have been vaccinated are still getting the virus.
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Do you know what frightens me? It is failing second year and not coming back to varsity. That is my biggest fear at the moment. I am losing focus and at times I panic but don’t seem to do anything about it. I had a dream that I was writing some maths paper but I don’t remember studying any of the content. I woke up crying. Everyone else in my dream seemed to know what they were doing. I am studying but not with the same effort that I did before. There must be people who are more depressed than me, but at times I just cry and cry and cry.
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The past two days, I have just been revising and catching up on work. Yesterday, I basically spent the entire day doing my Financial Management assignment, while today was spent with revising Political Science. Strangely enough, I feel a bit stressed about all the work that I need to revise, but at the same time, I know that I will do everything that I need to do. I think that I may just be a bit anxious about online learning. I think all my modules will sort of be self-taught, with the opportunity to ask questions. However, I am a rural learner, so it will be quite an adjustment.
All of this has me thinking about how crazy it is that one’s home is stereotypically associated with safety, comfort and consistency; however, there’s so much change and uncertainty that’s taking place while being stuck at home during this lockdown period that the typical association of home is changing. Well, it is for me, at least.
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I baked all day long, using ingredients I could find in the cupboard. I never get to bake when I am staying at my residence at university, so I have really been enjoying being able to do that. I was missing one of the key ingredients so I decided to go to Checkers, expecting the trip to take no more than 20 minutes. When I arrived there was a queue just to get into the supermarket (everyone standing five metres apart, of course). They were probably trying to regulate the number of people inside the building to prevent overcrowding. Almost everyone (including myself ) were wearing a mask as a stark reminder of the freakish times we find ourselves in. The whole atmosphere felt like a scene from a dystopian novel or movie. At the moment I am not reading or watching any sci-fi type books or films because it hits too close to home (silly, I know). When I finally got inside the Checkers, they did not have the ingredients I was looking for. I went to two other supermarkets before I found a place that did not have a long queue and that had what I was looking for. The shelves were mostly empty. The whole experience was a bit disturbing. Today I also heard that the small neighbourhood Italian restaurant that my family has been going to since I was in primary school has been forced to close down. It might sound a bit trivial, but I felt devastated when I heard the news.
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I am finding myself more and more restless each day. The weather is very indecisive. It changes from blue to grey from hour to hour, reflecting my own mood. I am finding that boredom is becoming more common and my routine more and more claustrophobic. Groundhog Day!
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It was one of my best friend’s birthday’s today. My mates and I tried to make it as special for him as possible. We gathered together for a zoom call and chatted for about 2 hours. During the zoom call we also all downloaded an online poker app. We ended up playing poker into the early hours of the morning. It was all fun and games until I lost R100 to my dad!