Living with Coronavirus
- Ella Peebles
- Apr 9, 2020
- 8 min read
Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives. 2020 has undoubtedly rocked the world. COVID-19 is the biggest pandemic the world has seen in centuries, creating havoc for health services all across the globe, and is quite possibly an event that will go down in history. Nurses, health workers, and supermarket staff have been rushed off their feet in the UK, providing service after service for the citizens of this country. Businesses are shut; schools and colleges have shut; bars; restaurants; gyms; the lot. This is the biggest lockdown the country has seen since the events of WW2, and the government are desperately attempting to stop the spread of the disease. Coronavirus is a viral infection that affects the lungs, creating symptoms a dry throat, fever, and in worst cases, shortness of breath. It is said that those who are older, and those with underlying health conditions such as asthma, diabetes etc, are most at risk and therefore extra pressure has been put on these groups to stay at home. I've been at home from college since the 20th March now, and I thought it would be a good time to talk about how this pandemic has affected my life and what I've been doing to combat it.
I didn't go outside as much I probably should have been even before coronavirus hit. Apart from going to college, I tried to avoid going out as much as possible. As much as I love nature, I love the comfort of my own home more. I think this was amplified by the fact that I wasn't a huge fan of getting up and travelling to college every day. I know many young people at the moment are struggling with not being able to see their friends, and not being able to go out and do things they usually would be doing, but if I'm honest, I don't entirely share their concerns. I'm quite happy at home at the moment. I'm independent. I do my own thing. Even I have to admit that I haven't been out for my daily exercise enough though. To try and compensate, I went for a long walk with my parents the other day, to try and get some fresh air into my lungs. We've had some great spots of nice weather recently, so I've also tried to get out into the garden as much as I can, which is currently looking quite nice from all the time we've had to do some gardening! Salem's bush in the front garden is looking extremely healthy this year, and Kurt has spent a fair amount of time sunning himself near it. I think with everything that's been going on, it's hard to realise that we are fast approaching summer, and I don't think we should have to miss out on the weather along with everything else, so it's a shame for people that don't have gardens, because the police are consciously monitoring large parks to ensure there aren't too many people going to public places to soak up the sun.
Not being at college has hardly hindered my progress at all. In fact, I would go as far to say that it's improved it. For the past couple of weeks, I've been sticking to my college timetable as much as I can, albeit getting up slightly later...9:30 mostly, which gives me plenty of time to get on with my work. My teachers have been setting me plenty of work daily, but what I find great about it, is that I can decide what topics or areas I need to spend more time focusing on, so if I finish the work quickly, I can go and revise something I did a couple of months ago. It's less restricting than being in a classroom. Contrary to most people, I don't concentrate as well in a classroom. Too many people and too distracting. Being in my room at home at my desk is how I did well in my GCSE's and at the moment it's serving me extremely well while I self-teach my A-Levels. Obviously this pandemic has caused chaos for many students in Year 11 and Year 13, and I honestly couldn't imagine being in their position. I got lucky. I couldn't imagine being a year behind and having to wait unpredictably for my GCSE results after not being able to sit the exams; same for the people supposed to be sitting their A-Levels this year. Most of my friends don't like the home learning method, and I can understand that. It's certainly not for everyone, but at the moment, I'm confident in the progress I've made. It's technically supposed to be the Easter holidays at the moment, so I'm trying to do a few more things that I enjoy, (which quite frankly I can do inside) such as listening to music, reading, writing, watching TV and films.
I'm certainly not one of those people you see at the moment on the news, who come up with insane ways of keeping busy at home. I saw one man on there last night who had transformed his entire garden into a cricket pitch! And another older woman who was sharing her new yoga tips, whilst many people who were supposed to be competing in the Olympics in Japan this year are already practicing for next year, using equipment in their garages and front rooms! I've been doing everything I usually would be doing. I've taken to making sure I'm getting enough exercise, since I barely leave the house, which has included the use of Just Dance on the Wii mainly. I knew that game would be a good investment some day...I'm at home with my Dad, but we don't see each other that much, since we both do our own things mainly. My Mum is still at work for the moment, as she works for the NHS, but she is doing slightly different tasks than she would usually be doing; the sector are slowly adapting to the situation. I've been trying to keep on top of cleaning the house as best as possible, in order to try and take the strain off her. The NHS have been doing a fantastic job at the moment, as are all other key workers. I have been joining in with the 8pm clapping on Thursdays and would happily do it for many more months to come. The NHS deserve way more credit than they receive, and I think it's a shame that it's taken such a serious pandemic for us to realise that. It was great to hear everyone clapping though; I thought it was a great way of uniting the community at this incredibly difficult time.
At the moment, I'm taking some online classes to prepare me for university-style thinking, as I was chosen to make the most of the opportunity. The course I'm participating in is called 'Critical Thinking' and a lot of the discussions we've had for the past couple of weeks have been centred around the vast amounts of misinformation that has been spread around coronavirus. Many people say that this misinformation is as dangerous, if not more dangerous, than the virus itself. There are many theories published about how the virus started, such as a connection to the new mobile network, 5G, or that it came from a Chinese laboratory. Horrific as it is, there were many cases of people drinking bleach, in the hope that it would do something to cure or even prevent catching the illness. It doesn't escape notice then, that a lot of these conspiracies aren't very considerate or justifiable. What we have been discussing in these sessions is the idea that emotions in news can be a very dangerous thing at this critical time. Fear creates desperation in people to understand, decipher and prevent this virus taking any more lives and causing any more damage. So people share news. They share as much as they can; too fearful to stop and think for a second that they might actually be causing more damage by sharing it. The course is about having that second moment of thinking, to evaluate why this source might have been created in the first place, and what impact it might have. Linking back to what I said earlier regarding the NHS and how it's taken us this pandemic to appreciate them fully, we can apply this idea here. Fake news has been an issue on social media and online for many years, but the height and scale of the coronavirus has recently escalated it to a new level and it's important that we are conscientious about how we proceed appropriately with it. Many social platforms have now included many regulations on their sites in order to provide important and often life-saving advice. I will include a couple of the articles that we've read in these sessions at the end of this post, if anyone is interested in having a look at them, as I think they are highly beneficial to have a think about. It's just shown me recently how even during a time like this, education is not to be halted. There's an incredible amount we can learn about the coronavirus for many different subjects. For economics, you could have a look at the predicted chaos that this is going to cause for many businesses around the world. For biology and medicine, you could have a look at exactly how the coronavirus attacks the body. For history, you could start comparing this to older events. There's been a lot of concern over the halt of schools at the minute, but have we actually stopped to consider that we could arguably learn the most by living through something as problematic as this. In the words of Benjamin Franklin, "out of adversity, comes opportunity."
For my family at least, one thing we've been making the most of has been watching lots of old series of The Chase on TV...My Dad has a bit of an obsession with it at the moment. "The only thing getting me through not having the football on," he says! Every night, when we're settled with something to eat, "the chase is on" as Bradley Walsh would say. I'm honestly surprised I haven't had a dream about it yet; the theme music is practically ingrained into my head. I've been trying my hand at a bit of scriptwriting as well whilst I've been off college. I'm participating in another online course which is essentially a "screenwriting for beginners" which I've found really interesting to help me experiment with different styles of writing. Apart from that, I've been doing everything I would usually be doing at home; I've recently just finished binge watching the Harry Potter movies again, I'm watching some old classic doctor who episodes too, and spending time with Kurt. The most important thing is that we don't lose who we are through this. We're all in it together, as they say, and this has affected us all in different ways. I know we're all still battling with the loss of Kojo in our house. It's incredibly difficult not seeing him around the house, demonstrating all his tricks that he used to get up too. Being at home has helped though. We recently celebrated the anniversary of Salem's passing too on the 22nd March. I couldn't believe it had been a year, but this all helps me feel closer to all of them; Rowan too. They are the spirit of this house. Time is what I needed. I was struggling at college again, constantly feeling disconnected from everything, but having to carry on regardless. Despite the awful situation we are all under, I hope I'm allowed to say that I hope it gives people a time to reflect and to appreciate the true subtleties that are around us everyday, without us all really noticing. Time was running away from me after Kojo died; I just wanted it to stop, even for a little while. So I'm going to make the most out of this bad situation, embrace what I've learnt about critically thinking from different angles, and try and appreciate the time I have to reflect on how precious and special life truly is.
Some interesting articles on fake news in the time of coronavirus: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-51967889
An article on thought processes and bias when we apply critical thinking:
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