The diary of a person in lockdown

Chronicles of the pandemic

Questions to set you thinking:

1. Where were you in 2020 during the Covid-19 outbreak?
2. Are the pandemic-related restrictions severe or rather lenient in the country where you live at the moment?
3. How have the restrictions changed your routine?
4. Did you catch the virus or manage to avoid catching it?
5. What is your attitude to the newly invented vaccines? Have you got vaccinated? What were the consequences? Are you planning to get vaccinated?

Sitting in front of my laptop and looking out of my window, I hit on the idea that technically it’s not ‘the diary of a person in lockdown’, but rather a person out of lockdown in times of globally pervasive lockdown.

Belarus is one of the few countries (along with Sweden) that have opted for not immersing themselves into the panic-room dungeon-like self-isolation. For better or for worse. The only restriction is that we are obliged to wear protective masks upon entering all public places such as shops, pharmacies, the underground. Having said that, there are quite a few people who either wear those masks incorrectly (with the nose sticking out of it and vulnerably exposed to the ubiquitous Covid-19), or stubbornly refuse to put them on altogether. And they do get away with it! To the best of my knowledge, no one in Belarus has ever been fined or reprimanded for ignoring the new-norm rules, especially social distancing. This one — I mean social distancing — gets violated on a regular basis, as people are too reluctant to queue in a Covid-friendly manner. What is the outcome of rejecting stringent regulations, like, for instance, in most of Europe and China, where curfews are nothing special and you cannot leave the safety of your apartment / house for fear of getting a huge penalty? Well, actually, the differences are miniscule, even negligible: all countries (with the conspicuous exception of a handful of countries like New Zealand, Australia, Iceland and China, where new cases of Covid patients comprised only 10–30 people per day in April 2021!), regardless of whether they take draconian measures or not, face a more or less equal tragedy — thousands of new cases daily, the ever-rising death toll, not to mention countless companies going bankrupt. The consequences of each new wave of the pandemic include: lots of patients having severe or light flu symptoms, lethal outcomes (in the worst-case scenario), degrading economy, depression due to staying home too much, some longer-term changes that are bound to take place in all spheres of life. The only silver lining in the cloud of this pandemic is the rejuvenated environment, which seems to be immensely enjoying less influence and less intrusion from humans. To quote some examples, the levels of air, water and noise pollution have significantly plummeted; but the use of plastic has skyrocketed, since consumers are buying more takeaway food these days.

Imposed home office and other changes

Regarding working from home, there are 2 types of employees: those who relish in the idea of working in a bathrobe and slippers, without leaving the comfort zone of the kitchen’s proximity (to be able to look for stashes of snacks every now and then); whereas there are workers who suffer from lack of socializing, who cannot put up with Zoom parties, who experience Zoom fatigue and are sick and tired of being confined to a few dozen square meters with the same family members, which might as well turn out to be a recipe for disaster.

On its face, working from home seems a bed of roses, daily routine with more quality time and without the stresses and strains of commuting is completely valid. However, if you consider that it keeps repeating day in day out with totally insignificant variations, it’s enough to go crazy. A change of scene is what you need if you want to hold onto your sanity, for God’s sake! So, you can clearly see what type I am, can’t you? Let’s stick to the facts, nevertheless. Staying indoors too much encourages you to indulge in junk food, in any kind of food for that matter, which leads to obesity, sedentary lifestyle, surging depression and a whole host of other far-reaching and long-lasting consequences. Staying home too much can render it truly unbearable, because you feel stifled, devoid of new emotions that come from mingling with new people, having some sort of social life, going places. What a nice shift would it be to retire into the comfort of your home after an eventful day? Let’s face it, the bleak reality is that every day is nauseatingly similar to the previous and next one, including the weekend. There has even been coined a new word — Blursday — any day of the week, no matter which one, inasmuch as all of them are identical. In fact, there have appeared lots of brand-new words, like covidiot, Covid passport, Covid-friendly, etc. Surely, most of them will be out of usage as soon as this pandemic is over. We are digressing, though. Getting back to the topic in question, living similar colorless days is fraught with looming mental problems, it would seem. Notwithstanding that, humans are sophisticated creatures. Luckily, thoughtful evolution has equipped us with unbeatable defence mechanisms. What do children normally do when they get bored? Yes, nag their parents. That’s not the only answer, though. More often than not, they exercise creativity and come up with original games and activities to while away their time. So do adults. When more enticing options such as staff parties, pub crawls, family get-togethers are off limits, for want of a better choice we turn to other alternatives, like reading, drawing, dancing, learning foreign languages, doing training courses and what have you. So, for the majority of grounded-for-no-misbehavior people, isolation / lockdown has resulted in discovering hidden talents or honing their existent abilities. A blessing in disguise, one would say.

Indeed, we are on the threshold of something unprecedented. Screen time is at its highest. Everything is being digitalized: from medical consultations (which are provided online — telehealth) through education (online classes), to sports coaching. Remote teams with the members working from various countries and continents are nothing out of the ordinary. The line between work and leisure has been blurred, as a result of which work-life balance has been suffering greatly. Online meetings, staff parties, lessons, dating, shopping, to name but a few byproducts of the pandemic, are here to stay if and when the Covid-19 alert is lifted. It’s the new norm now, like it or hate it. Those who jump on the bandwagon are given a warm welcome, while those who linger behind are doomed to fall behind with the times. However, the latter constitute a large quantity, because the pace of transition is breakneck: almost overnight it’s become sink-or-swim for businesses — food and beverage companies have had to organize deliveries to stay afloat; clothes companies have had to start sewing protective masks; tutors, coaches have had to go online; airlines have had to just hold out; hotels have had to double as rental housing for locals; IT and other companies have had to stop renting office space and send their employees to makeshift home offices. Lots of workers, such as flight attendants, pilots, travel agents, have been obliged to literally quit their obsolete jobs and re-qualify or hold out on unemployment benefits until things start looking up.

Vaccination and conspiracy theories

Mass vaccination is underway in spring 2021, the time of me writing this work. Considering that several countries (China, Russia, Germany, the UK, the USA, etc.) came up with the vaccines in record time — merely 1 year or so — the quality leaves much to be desired or, to say the least, is doubtful. Here are some of the most common vaccines on the market in spring 2021:

• Chinese vaccine — CoronaVac
• Russian — Sputnik V
• German — Pfizer–BioNTech
• British — Oxford–AstraZeneca
• the Netherlands — Johnson & Johnson
• American — Moderna

What if this whole thing turned out to be a well-orchestrated grand scam — behind-the-scenes manipulation of some sort? The current coronavirus pandemic has already taken the lives of numerous human beings — mainly senior citizens — and is still raging, while numerous people are choosing to get vaccinated. What will become of them in the distant and not-too-distant future? What will become of those who have been ill with the Covid-19? Quite mysteriously, some don’t feel a thing, yet others die unexpectedly within a few days, and yet others, after having been ill for a while, recover, but have permanent loss of taste / smell or multiple mental problems. Does this mean that the flu virus has grown to become a lot smarter than its predecessors or is it a malicious man-made endeavor, kind of biological warfare? The problem is that only with the passage of time will it be possible to obtain the whole truth. Misinformation and half-truths are abundant. History proves that mass deception with subsequent revelation of the true events (when the jigsaw gets finally put together) is not a figment of a crazy writer’s imagination, far from it — it’s stark reality. Take for example, the catastrophe in Chernobyl in 1986. The information about the real events was classified at first with the purpose of averting seismic panic from the society. Withholding information or deliberately tampering with it is nothing new, it’s been deployed a million times throughout history. With hindsight, we’ll be in the loop, now we don’t see the wood for the trees. I might come across as overly cautious or excessively pessimistic, or even childish, but, whichever it is, I reckon there are missing bits from the jigsaw anyway.

Mixed feelings

The feelings experienced by global citizens at the outbreak of Covid-19 in China (Wuhan, December 2019) up until now have been the following: disbelief, shock, confusion, bafflement, fear, frustration, anger, mistrust, despair, hopelessness and other negative shades and varying degrees of the given emotions.

The disease spread like wildfire, affecting most of Asia and Europe in no time and from there on to the other continents (except Antarctica). The authorities of all countries were puzzled as to what measures to take; citizens were disorientated as to with whom to stay in contact and whom to temporarily delete from their circle of close friends; tourists across the planet were upset to discover limits on travelling (some were even trapped in tourist destinations and couldn’t reunite with their loved ones).

Handshaking, hugging and kissing were rendered ‘hazardous’ and, subsequently, phased out. Covid-friendly fist-bumps were immediately introduced in place of hand-shaking. Dating, romantic relationships with new potential partners have been suspended and put on the back burner, so lots of single people feel so much the lonelier for that. For fear of complications, many couples have postponed their plans of child-bearing. Many employees have put off their cherished plans of job-switching. Most people have either decreased their travelling or have completely given it up.

All of the above-mentioned restrictions have resulted in frustration, depression, mood swings, and, as a result, rising domestic violence rates.

Takeaways

Covid-19 pandemic has been a globally significant phenomenon, as it has impacted every single country on Earth, influenced every single person on this planet and modified every single sphere of human life.

Take a while to ruminate about what you would have done or wouldn’t have done differently given a second chance. It’s likely to be substantial food for thought.