I have been thinking about self isolation as day 4 dawns and various newspapers hint that everyone over the age of 70 may soon be instructed to stay in doors ………. perhaps for months.
It is an odd prospect but given that most of what we need is delivered to the door, and most of my research can be done online, it doesn’t seem an insurmountable challenge.
Of course, it will mean engaging with our grownup kids will be tricky, I won’t be able to indulge my interest in photography, and the long walks across the meadows will become a distant memory.
But these maybe judged trivial when pitted against those who cannot shop online, or can't afford to run the heating throughout the day.
That said social media has begun self help groups, of which our own Chorlton Coronavirus Community Response, looks as if it will reach out to those who are cut off.
And that leaves me thinking about the long view, and perhaps the most memorable moment of self isolation, when an entire Derbyshire village chose to voluntarily go into lock down in 1665, when faced with an outbreak of Plague. The killer disease had arrived in a flea infested bundle of clothes from a London tailor. Within a week the plague began to spread.
I have no doubt that some villagers chose to flee, but the majority stayed, and while the figures for those who died are disputed the death toll was substantial, with the church in Eyam recording that 273 died from the plague.
I can’t begin to imagine how those villages coped with their decision and with the 14 months of isolation.
Yesterday I picked up on the response for some of those in Italy where in the face of a national lockdown, residents are taking to their balconies to perform everything from hyms, songs and musical recitals, and in one block of flats in Milan a group of inhabitants sang the Italian national anthem.*
True, amongst this national determination to do tough it out, there are stories of panic buying and even of criminals visiting the elderly with scams linked to the sale of facemasks, and shopping offers.
But something similar will surface here in the course of the next few months.
I suppose what is particularly saddening is the way that national governments across the world are responding with a nationalistic knee jerk.
Yesterday I read that Poland had closed its borders, that Austria was demanding that visitors had medical proof they were free of infection and President Trump continued to add countries which were no longer able to fly to the USA.
All understandable I hear you say, but there are those voices which are calling for a truly international response to the pandemic, which will in the long run be the way to beat the virus.**
In the meantime, I have set myself the task of reading a shelf full of unopened books, bought over the course of this year, along with the six volumes of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire which mother bought for me in 1961.
There are also a heap of old DVDs and a mountain of research.
But I will miss taking those photographs.
Location; our back bedroom
Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson
* Applause, songs and rainbows on the windows, the therapy of the country that never gives up, DI GIUSEPPE SMORTO, la Repubblica, March 15th 2020
**In the coronavirus crisis, our leaders are failing us, Gordon Brown, The Guardian, March 13th, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-crisis-leaders-failing-gordon-brown?CMP=fb_cif&fbclid=IwAR28xPkk0aknw4K8zIay8EBtCVt82x5SYdK0cTRAForPBk7BTEgLcxEIWmU
and "We need an EU pact to be extended to the G7, in the logic of a total war on the virus. Enrico Letta, la Repubblica, March 15, 2020, https://rep.repubblica.it/pwa/intervista/2020/03/14/news/enrico_letta_europa_coronavirus_ue-251321155/?ref=RHPPTP-BL-I251300660-C12-P2-S5.4-T1
 |
| Manchester, 2019 |
Of course, it will mean engaging with our grownup kids will be tricky, I won’t be able to indulge my interest in photography, and the long walks across the meadows will become a distant memory.
But these maybe judged trivial when pitted against those who cannot shop online, or can't afford to run the heating throughout the day.
That said social media has begun self help groups, of which our own Chorlton Coronavirus Community Response, looks as if it will reach out to those who are cut off.
And that leaves me thinking about the long view, and perhaps the most memorable moment of self isolation, when an entire Derbyshire village chose to voluntarily go into lock down in 1665, when faced with an outbreak of Plague. The killer disease had arrived in a flea infested bundle of clothes from a London tailor. Within a week the plague began to spread.
 |
| Varese, 2017 |
I can’t begin to imagine how those villages coped with their decision and with the 14 months of isolation.
Yesterday I picked up on the response for some of those in Italy where in the face of a national lockdown, residents are taking to their balconies to perform everything from hyms, songs and musical recitals, and in one block of flats in Milan a group of inhabitants sang the Italian national anthem.*
 |
| Alghero, 2016 |
But something similar will surface here in the course of the next few months.
I suppose what is particularly saddening is the way that national governments across the world are responding with a nationalistic knee jerk.
Yesterday I read that Poland had closed its borders, that Austria was demanding that visitors had medical proof they were free of infection and President Trump continued to add countries which were no longer able to fly to the USA.
All understandable I hear you say, but there are those voices which are calling for a truly international response to the pandemic, which will in the long run be the way to beat the virus.**
 |
| Chorlton, 2020 |
But I will miss taking those photographs.
Location; our back bedroom
Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson
* Applause, songs and rainbows on the windows, the therapy of the country that never gives up, DI GIUSEPPE SMORTO, la Repubblica, March 15th 2020
**In the coronavirus crisis, our leaders are failing us, Gordon Brown, The Guardian, March 13th, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/13/coronavirus-crisis-leaders-failing-gordon-brown?CMP=fb_cif&fbclid=IwAR28xPkk0aknw4K8zIay8EBtCVt82x5SYdK0cTRAForPBk7BTEgLcxEIWmU
and "We need an EU pact to be extended to the G7, in the logic of a total war on the virus. Enrico Letta, la Repubblica, March 15, 2020, https://rep.repubblica.it/pwa/intervista/2020/03/14/news/enrico_letta_europa_coronavirus_ue-251321155/?ref=RHPPTP-BL-I251300660-C12-P2-S5.4-T1
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