Coronavirus confusion.

Coronavirus confusion.

It is hard to know what to make of this all. Our senses have been seemingly suspended, our mindsets gripped with fear, anxiety, terror, cynicism, total confusion and utter bewilderment. We have never experienced anything on such a monumental scale and we really don't know which way to go or to whom we should communicate with because reports from all sides suggest that the end of the world is nigh. But oh definitely not and we can exercise both rational thinking, commonsense and calm reasoning. There is a logic here, a proper medical and scientific explanation for coronavirus.

And yet coronavirus is here, a terrifying reality and something that may be with us for some time. For well over a month the TV and radio news bulletins have announced a series of stringent measures reminding  everybody regardless of age, class and background that coronavirus is here to stay and has to be cured sooner rather than later. The unsettling circumstances are such that all of us have been  left  in a state of high voltage dread, trembling trepidation and a sense that control has been completely taken away from us.

Around the world panic buying in vast supermarkets has spread throughout the globe in a way that none of us could have possibly predicted. How though do we categorise coronavirus because if we are to believe some this could turn into a national catastrophe? But then a small, still voice at the back of our minds keeps pleading us not to over react, not to empty shelves of commerce, food, drink, clothes, basic necessities and the kind of products that could be considered as essential to everyday existence.

At the moment though quite literally everything seems to have ground to a standstill, the pavements are more or less deserted, the trains and buses winding down and slowly disappearing, people wandering the streets on egg shells, nervously looking behind them in case they may be in too close  proximity to each other.

For this the way it has to be. Suddenly a horrendous outbreak of surgical looking masks have appeared on the faces of Britain. If they're not covered up against deeply apprehensive eyes, necks or cheeks then at all times there has to be some subconscious assurance that the mask will simply fend off any airborne diseases with the potential to lead to some far more serious condition. We are far from reaching the point of chronic paranoia but the truth is that there are some of us who would be entitled to feel extremely scared.

On a Piccadilly Line London tube train, you spotted a number of people with faces that had been totally submerged by either hoodie coats or balaclava hats. The bobble hat is very much the fashion statement of the moment. Throughout all the carriages there must have been an atmosphere the like of which would have seemed impossible to comprehend at the beginning of the year. You could, quite literally, count the number of people in any of the carriages and an eerie emptiness rapidly filled the train. The morning rush hour had subsided and so had the train itself on a horribly distressing scale.

There is a very real sense of dumbfounded bemusement, a genuine feeling that none of us have a clue what to do next, an aching desire to know much more than has been told to us so far. The critics have led us to believe that there has been a complete lack of leadership from the government, very little in the way of a comprehensive report on the subject of coronavirus and at this rate the whole country may to have to be shut down indefinitely.

Back in the supermarkets of the world, supplies of toilet paper, eggs, pasta, bread and milk while not quite disturbingly slow are still sufficiently worrying for a wider public who are still baffled. Groaning shopping trolleys are full to the brim with masses of tinned, frozen or everyday products that were once thought to be plentiful. The shelves are of course are a wasteland, a hollow wilderness where everything was once filled to capacity but are now just sadly bare, barren and frighteningly out of stock for who knows how long.

For sports fans around the world, stadiums and grounds are now nothing more than desert lands, audience participation at some of the most welcoming and accessible events now reduced to just a muted whisper. In Britain, football, tennis, the Grand National, the Boat Race and the London Marathon have been postponed, cancelled and sidelined by a disease that has somehow defied any description if only because very few of us know anything about it.

It is at times like this that we begin to wonder whether normal service will ever be resumed. How long will the tribalism and communal belonging that have come to define football ever be seen again this season? Football fans love to be in the same company as each other, love to cheer and swear cathartically perhaps because there is a vital need to let out all their pent up frustrations. Call it the herd or the pack mentality but the game has now become sanitised, purged off its fun, excitement and tension.

Everything has been stopped, paused, left hanging by a thread and the world has been condemned to a dark room, a place where the sound and fury of modern society has now been silenced, subdued and deprived of its natural stage. At the moment there is no environment, no recreational space for play, the wholesome joys of exercise or sport. We have been advised not to socialise, emotionally or physically interact with each other until the strictures have been lifted. We have been ordered to wash our hands thoroughly, to go through the whole process over and over again.

Above all, human interaction, once regarded as a given and a perfectly normal activity, has now assumed a different position in our everyday business with each other. We can still talk to each other and be in the same room as each other but the sense of keeping a distance and apartness is now much more acceptable and the preferred choice.

We are, certainly for the time being, no longer the architects of our destiny since the things we used to take for granted are no longer part of our traditional routine. How often should we clean our hands? When are we going to be given the green light to go back to enjoying the things that came naturally to us and are now wary of with a truly ingrained suspicion?

It is at times like this when we fall back on our coping mechanisms because the life that had hitherto been so settled and smooth running has now been severely disrupted and disturbed. We are now understandably jumpy, sensitive, restless, prepared for whatever the immediate future may hold but the vulnerable side of our personalities may be affected because the plans we might have made are now in tatters- at least temporarily.

Of course this may be the time to re-schedule the timetable of our lives in a way that somehow feels appropriate for us. This is not for the time for the apocalypse, nor are we heading for a global calamity. There has to be a part of us that recognises the severity of the situation we find ourselves in but would like to feel that life will return to its conventional rhythms and themes as soon as possible.So it's onwards and upwards for the global population. Coronavirus will be beaten and the good folk of the world will once again find its everyday footing. So let's keep calm and remain positive. It's the only way to be.