by Another weird day, but all days are weird now. Three lessons, which is equivalent to about seven before coronavirus hit. I finally got some masks, so that’s good. On the way back from my mission (going outside the front door now feels like an expedition), I took this picture of a petrol station. Not long ago, some of those prices began with a six. On a sunny late afternoon, the prices having tumbled, the place was empty. That felt so strange.
In the square there were still a few people, but milling around is now against the law, and everybody seemed to be going somewhere in a hurry. There probably weren’t any more pigeons than usual, and surely nobody is feeding them, but it felt like you couldn’t move for them. I don’t think pigeons can transmit the virus, but after today, when a Belgian cat tested positive, as did nearly everybody fronting the British response to Covid-19 including Boris Johnson, almost nothing would surprise me.
In the western world, the virus continues to wreak havoc and force impossible choices. I’ve just watched John Campbell’s latest Youtube video, which includes a clip where a man from Madrid is in tears as he learns that over-65s in the city will no longer be given respirators. Parents and grandparents with maybe a quarter-century still ahead of them, sedated and left to die. What can you say? Spain saw nearly 800 deaths in 24 hours, while close to 1000 people died in Italy, their highest daily tally yet, just as it looked like they might be stemming the flow at last. Britain’s death toll jumped by nearly a third today to over 750; my Skype student in the UK told me that non-essential work, such as construction, is still going on. As for America, the situation looks very grim indeed in several cities and states. They needed a national lockdown weeks ago.
Here in Romania, confirmed cases are at almost 1300, with 26 deaths. Quite a big jump in cases today.
In my Skype lesson this evening, we went through an article which included the phrase “getting plastered around the clock”. When I told him what getting plastered meant, he imagined some kind of drinking game where participants run around a giant clock in the centre of the room. He gave me the useful advice to avoid Romanian hospitals if at all possible in the event that I get infected.
