Covid19 - Time to stay at home

Since my last post, which unbelievably saw the traffic viewing my blog explode to more than 900, the government's advice has evolved rather drastically.  Like... from primordial slime to vertebrate evolution in just over a week. 

To start with, the schools were staying open for as long as possible.  The government was hoping that we would develop herd immunity without too many of our elderly or vulnerable people taking ill.  I'm not sure what changed their minds but somewhere towards the beginning of last week two terms became all important.  
Self-isolation - if you had any symptoms of the Covid19 virus at all then you should stay home from work for 14 days.
Social Distancing - if you had any underlying conditions or were older then you should keep your distance from people, working from home if possible.

Things moved very quickly at that point.  Most notable was the crazy panic buying.  Who knew that toilet roll would become such a valuable commodity?  Supermarket shelves were being emptied faster than they could be filled as everybody prepared for self-isolation or lock-down.

On Monday evening The Scouts announced that all face-to-face activity would be suspended until further notice.  Care homes closed their doors to visitors.  By Wednesday I accepted that because of underlying kidney disease and treatment with immune suppressants, I should probably stay home from work.  I wasn't alone.  The schools, which were still open at that point, began to creak.  Children with coughs were being kept home but more significantly any pregnant staff, staff with underlying health conditions, or staff exhibiting any symptoms of Covid19 were staying at home.  These home-workers began to prepare the work that would be needed for when (not "if" by this time) the schools closed and the schools struggled on with a reduced staff.  On Thursday that announcement came.  The schools would close on Friday evening except for the children of key workers.  Measures were then announced to support workers and businesses financially through the closures.  Interestingly, we now learn who the "key workers" are in our society.  The ones that we can't do without.  It isn't the financial sector.



Today, Monday 23rd March 2020, I got a text message instructing me to stay home and not go out for the next twelve weeks.  The NHS believe that if I were to get Coronavirus I would be at high risk of becoming extremely unwell.  Now it turns out I'm not going to be the only one who can't go out.  The Prime Minister has announced further restrictions.  Nobody is to go out unless absolutely necessary - which WILL be enforced.

In the meantime, I'm working from home, educating my children who are learning from home, Scouting from home.  So more on how we manage those things over the next few days.