Currently the world is, sort of, waiting for a pandemic. A few years ago it was bird flu. We also had swine flu scares. Now it’s the coronavirus strain from China. Lots of Chinese cities are becoming ghost towns as more and more people prefer to lock themselves away.
Is it lessons from 1918? The misnamed Spanish Flu killed between 50 and 100 million people which is more than both world wars combined.
Over 100 years later, a couple of plane loads of Brits, fresh from China, have been dropped off into quarantine, isolated for the two weeks incubation period. If no-one comes down with the flu then they will all get to leave. If someone does come down with the flu, the two week wait clock restarts.
One of these locked away Brits was on the radio this morning. He is married to a Chinese woman and they have a young son. He talked about his self isolated Chinese in-laws who venture out occasionally to buy vegetables.
While having to stay in your house for weeks of isolation isn’t going to be a lot of fun, I do feel a lot more sympathy for the people on a cruise just off the Japanese coast. The passengers are all locked away in their cabins, only allowed out in small groups every five days for a bit of fresh air.
The ones on the outside of the ship have the cabins with balconies which isn’t that bad. Not when you consider the ones in internal cabins with no windows and just a couple of bunks. If we were locked away on the Brittany Ferry for two weeks in the tiny cabins we book, I’d go mad. Though I think Mirinda would have killed me first.
It may seem unconnected but the spread of flu germs makes me think of this sign at the gym (and the other gym I used to belong to). It is the wrong way round.
It would make a lot more sense if it read “Please wipe down equipment BEFORE use“. My reasoning for this is simple.
The majority of people I have observed at the gym don’t bother using the disposable sanitised wipes to clean off for the next person. This more or less guarantees a good solid dose of someone else’s bodily fluids when you engage with the equipment. And that’s fine if you don’t care.
However, what I do is wipe the equipment down before I use it. This ensures that it is as hygienic as I need it to be. And I think that makes a lot more sense.
Not that I went to the gym this morning. I didn’t have a good night’s sleep (I don’t know why) and woke up with an aching ankle. I decided to forego any germ ridden cycling and stayed home instead.
And it was a lovely day for it.
We waved Mirinda off as she headed into town then set about the usual raft of housework. Then, as lunch made its way through our bodies, we headed up to the park for a walk.
While it looked lovely, the weather was anything but warm. A very chill wind kept the temperature below zero as we fought against it. Every time I threw the ball for Emma, it went back the way we had come…until we headed back when it flew miles ahead of us.
I’m not 100% sure but it seems to me that the wind is always in my face when we head up into the park and at my back on the way home. I’m sure this can’t be the case. I’ll take better notes.
The rest of the day was spent in the usual home related stuff I do every week. It’s such a treadmill. Use something, clean it, put it away, use it again, clean it, put it away…and so it goes for ever.
This particularly strikes me in the kitchen. It makes me think that time may be like Brian Cox’s arrow however, it does quite a few loop-the-loops on the way through.
