17 April 2020

Friday · Day 22 of lockdown

South Africa’s coronavirus death toll spiked with 14 new deaths reported. The government announced some adjustment to regulations for the next two weeks of the lockdown. Hardware components needed for essential repairs were permitted and plumbers, locksmiths, glaziers, electricians and roof repairers could also go back to work. The ban on the sale of alcohol and tobacco remained in place. Shinzo Abe, the Prime Minister of Japan, announced to media that Japan would review its support for the World Health Organisation once the pandemic ended. In Australia, the mayor of Warrnambool was fined after contravening regulations by meeting friends for a beer outside of a liquor store.

The start of online classes is approaching and I’m not ready mentally. I’ve been unproductive academically and I feel stifled. Even writing these (not-so-daily) reflections has proved immensely difficult. I’ve had intense migraines over the past few days that wouldn’t be eased by painkillers, so I’ve been sleeping for the better part of three days. It’s lovely how the days go by when you’re asleep. We received further communication about online learning, so I’m trying to get all my affairs in order before Monday. It’s definitely going to be tough. I left home to get away from domesticated life, and between house chores and academics, I won’t have much time for what I really want to do – design. The whole situation’s left me depressed and uninspired.

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As the virus grows, people remain isolated but healthcare workers cannot do the same. I see my mother wake up every morning to go do her job at clinics all around the city and I worry. However, I can take comfort in the fact that I know she does not work directly with patients, which reduces her risk but does not remove it entirely. Those who are in contact with patients, our frontline healthcare workers, are the ones that are at the most risk of getting infected. Hundreds of [those] workers have sadly died throughout the world due to their exposure to Covid-19. In Italy, over 17 000 health workers have been infected with the virus, representing 10% of the country’s known cases.

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It is amazing how we, as a country with a large population and a low average income, tend to support massive retail businesses that are run internationally, rather than supporting local businesses that will grow our own economy.

Now more than ever, people are starting to see the value in our smaller businesses, as supplies in the big chain stores are running low, and they realise our smaller corner shops are more important than we often give them credit for.

Maybe this time was necessary for us to realise that it is important for us to support our local businesses within our community.

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Today I went grocery shopping. It was my first time outside in four weeks. It is funny how grocery shopping is the nearest thing to an adventure these days. I wore a mask and gloves. On the way to Spar there were more cars on the road than I expected. When I arrived at Spar, I had to wait in a line for more than an hour. In that hour, the workers from Spar sanitised our hands and trolleys three times. While I was waiting, I just observed all the people. Everybody had some form of a mask on. Some were using builders’ masks, others normal headbands and a few even had masks made of underwear.

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Last week Health24 reported that a team of researchers in Australia plan to fast-track the production of the BCG vaccine (a vaccine that prevents severe forms of tuberculosis [TB] in humans) to see how impact corona symptoms. Now a new study has surfaced investigating the correlation between the Covid-19 mortality rate and global BCG vaccine policies. More simply put, scientists are trying to work out if are those nations which make BCG vaccination mandatory are less susceptible to high corona related deaths. This will be very interesting to see, but it is a difficult question to evaluate since there are many different factors contributing to the mortality rates (e.g. cultural norms and health infrastructures).

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Many reports have said that, in some areas, the police and army have been “aggressive” towards certain communities. My opinion is that the police force and the army need to show leadership and to act as calmly as possible. Any bad action will be highlighted by the media and if society does not trust the police we could end up in a bad situation where entire communities and groups of people will rebel the lockdown rules.

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I started this diary a month ago today and all I can say is that life has changed drastically. We used to live in a world in which everything was so fast-paced, routine driven and comfortable. This all came to a halt and we are now finding ourselves in a much slower environment, an environment that has even given us the opportunity to be ‘bored’.

It is so scary to think about. No one ever predicted something like this would happen. […] Luckily, being humans, we are very capable of adapting. Also, as I have mentioned before, we are extremely fortunate to be living in a world where everything is so easily accessible and operational through technology.

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Not much to report today. I got quite a lot of studying done, though I still have so much more to do. My eldest sister’s been stressing a lot lately. She works for a food exporting/ importing company which has been fortunate enough to allow their staff to work from home whilst still paying them. However, it is difficult for the business as they rely heavily on exports/imports. My sister works in the finance department and her workload varies day to day. Today was one of the busier days where she had many deadlines and her computer was giving her problems. Murphy’s law, right? This actually happens quite often. The company didn’t have the means to get everyone laptops to take home, so she came home with her entire desktop. She usually just connects to the company’s server, but some days like today, the computer does not cooperate. My sister usually works till 5:00 pm but because of all the technical delays she was in her study until 8:00 pm.

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Today I woke up at around 6:30 am. I had a sore nose and seemed like I still have flu. I was very worried because now I have tried every medicine for flu and it doesn’t work. I am beginning to suspect that I might be one of the victims of this pandemic. I can’t think straight. I think I will have to isolate myself for about two weeks to see whether I have symptoms. Only then I can go for testing.

At 8:00 am I went back to sleep because I felt very tired. I got up at 11:00 am. I studied as much as I could before going to fetch the food parcels that are being issued to students at the LLL [a residential village for senior students]. When I got to the LLL, I found a group of EFF [Economic Freedom Front, a political party] students debating. I was not interested about the debate because it was not even the reason I was there. Late, I made myself noodles for dinner from out of the food parcel and then fell asleep again.

* * *

As I was reading more on the indefinite extension of the lockdown, I realised how much focus was put on the liquor ban. Many article titles were a version of ‘lockdown’ continues, and so does the ‘liquor ban’. Last Sunday, on the video call with my extended family, my grandma mentioned the looting of liquor stores in Cape Town. Today, I saw that just fewer than 20 stores have been looted. Weirdly enough, I can vaguely understand why liquor stores are being looted. I also understand why so much media focus has been given to this topic as the aim of the lockdown is to save lives, and with the indirect effect that alcohol consumption has on many of the social issues in our country, there’s a huge possibility that public intoxication could reverse what lockdown aims to accomplish.

On a completely different note, something I found quite cool happened today. Our neighbour, who makes his own honey, passed a huge jar of honey to my dad over the wall between our houses.