The other day I was in the supermarket. It was before my personal D-Day, but after all the news about panic-buying toilet paper. I thought, 'Let's check out the loo roll aisle - they won't have done that here. Not in my town.' How wrong I was. The shelves were empty apart from four packets of four rolls. I stared at the vacant spaces in disbelief and walked on.
I hadn't got far before it struck me that there really were only 16 loo rolls available. And I felt an urge to get some. A really powerful urge. Like the drive to pour a glass of wine when the sun's over the yardarm. I kept telling myself that I didn't need any loo rolls. I had plenty. But, in the background, only semi-articulated, were these 'what if' thoughts. What if they were the last ones I could ever buy. What if I was forced to self-isolate the next day for a fortnight.
It wasn't the thoughts that drove me to retrace my steps and get one of those packets, though, it was the pure feeling, the need. I had a profound sense that only four toilet roles could ease the turmoil within.
All the time I was conscious of what was going on - yes, I do mindfulness meditation, so yes, I was mindful of the drama being played out on different levels of my neural hardware. The consciousness of it could have stopped me... but maybe not. I mean, after all, it didn't.
A drive to buy toilet rolls. It's like a separate virus in its own right. Like a meme - a cultural action or belief that embeds itself in the psyche and plays out without our active approval.
But it's not the only way in which this thing is changing us. Don't you find yourself excessively aware of the sensations in your throat? Wondering if maybe it's a little bit sore? What about your lungs? I've just been running* with my dog and at every breath I was thinking, 'Yep, they're working. They're fine.' And I felt a sense of happiness at the fresh country air - which surely is pure. Maybe it could cleanse my airways? I could see how a yoga teacher might focus on breath and believe, really and truly believe, that the chi could protect her from contagion.
Magical thinking. I wonder how many extra people are praying? How many are trusting in turmeric or Vitamin C? Anything. Anything to lessen the fear.
This is an existential crisis. I know, I know, as pandemics go, we're lucky the mortality rate is relatively low. We're lucky, so many of us, never to have experienced war or famine or plague. But the worst we've faced as a generation, a society, is the worse we've faced and it will affect our ways of thinking and our behaviour.
Will we become more xenophobic or appreciate the importance of a global vision?
When Dracula was written more than a century ago, Bram Stoker imagined a contagion-bringing agent from overseas who turned modest women into sexualised predators, who killed without conscience and threatened to destroy Victorian values and society. The threat is so often seen as the other from outside. We are good; they did this to us.
However, consider where help will come from. Chinese doctors have had a head start in testing possible remedies. Their dedication, in extreme danger (many medical staff have died - a tragic inevitability), their expertise and their professionalism is now being directed not just at a Chinese solution but a global solution. They are working with scientists across the world to expedite the research project.
The US has the resources to produce a vaccine in sufficient numbers - though it will be 12-18 months before we have one. We in the UK do not. We will be reliant on others to lessen the impact of this coronavirus. We are a small country and we need the global community. We cannot do it alone.
I understand the desire - perhaps the need - to close borders. But don't let us close minds or hearts. We are in this together, a world together, let us not be divided by prejudice, but instead let us plan for a future beyond Covid-19. Only all our scientists and experts together will be able, if it's at all possible, to prevent, or limit the damage, of the next one, the worse one.
On that note, I have four spare toilet rolls - if you need them.
*by which I mean doing a very, very slow jog.
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