Coronavirus #2

It's starting to become somewhat of a bother. (Isn't that just a very British saying? For the uninitiated, that means it's making me furious.)

My son was due to sit a university entrance exam in Finland in just over two weeks, but their universities are all closed and the government has put a stop to gatherings of more than 10 people, so the exam isn't even likely to go ahead. Their government has today recommended all citizens return before they close the borders - as a citizen he would still be allowed back in after the close, but flights are winding down, so he couldn't get back here, plus he might then be quarantined and miss the exam he is returning for in the first place. It leaves us wondering what to do. Flights are very cheap but the reason is they're half empty, germy, and uninsurable.

It is the apocalypse and you can only
choose one item of value.
Do you choose loo roll?

People have regressed back into apes and I've heard stories of arguments and violence in the bigger supermarkets in our area. Pasta and paracetamol are out of stock, and people fight in the aisles. This is the evolution of our species, where people punch one another over toilet paper.

We are always short-staffed in the supermarket and none of us even has the virus. How will it be once we actually start getting ill? On the other hand the hotel job is slow as people avoid travelling. We sit and wait to see what our government will do next and whether we begin to host people who choose to self-isolate - or as the newspapers have suggested, we might be comandeered as a surrogate hospital.

A customer in his 70s bucked the trend this week. While most of them are saying it's just a flu, or moaning about the idea of being stuck in their homes for four months (the latest announcement of wisdom from our prime minister), this gentleman actually seems to read more than the Daily Mail. He said to me, "This is the worst I have ever seen. This will be worse than the war." While I am not sure it will be quite as lifestyle-harsh, I completely understood his sentiment. This isn't just the next sniffle we get every year. This is going to take out a quarter of our over-80s. I think a lot of young people need to take stock and consider what that means for nearly every family in the world. It's serious and it won't be over next week. And you'd think that rather than emptying the shelves of pasta they could start with changing their social habits as we have been asked...