Public service announcement: If you found my blog because you're looking for information about how Covid-19 is impacting the UAE, you will find part 1 of a timeline of everything that's been happening, here.
I am not someone who scares easily, but I must admit that for the past six weeks or so, I have been uneasy. I have always had a penchant for stories about post-apocalyptic or dystopian visions - Handmaid's Tale, 28 Days Later, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, then a couple of years ago I got somewhat obsessed by three part radio drama called Resistance by Val McDermid, about a weird but deadly food poisoning-viral hybrid that is resistant to all drugs and kills the vast majority of humans. Don't listen to it right now, trust me, wait until this all over.Ever since late January/early February when the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan first started making global news, I began to feel like I was a character in one of those stories, saying things to Him Indoors, like: "We don't need to worry about this virus reaching Dubai do we?" and then imagining a cut away to chaotic scenes in a Chinese hospital and/or a passenger sneezing as they passed through security at Dubai International Airport.
I even asked a colleague: "This isn't the one is it? This isn't the one that kills as all?" To which she replied, "No, I was more worried about ebola to be honest," and rightly so, as, I heard on the BBC's Coronavirus Podcast the other day that the death rate for that was unthinkably high, with half of all people who contracted it dying, compared to around two per cent for Covid-19.
But, I am not afraid to admit that I am afraid. And I find myself saying this again and again: I am not afraid of the virus, I am not afraid of dying of it myself. I am in reasonably good health, I am not in the vulnerable age bracket, and feel like I am informed enough to take the right precautions to stop myself from catching it. I am not afraid for Him Indoors as although he is prone to a hacking cough when he gets a cold, which drives me to distraction as it wakes DB2 up in the night, he is also pretty healthy, as is DB1. I would be lying if I didn't admit I am a little anxious about how it would impact DB2, as although we are told it does not affect children, she has had a rough first year with on and off infections, and she suffers with super high fevers when sick.
I am a little scared about my Dad in the UK, who is 77. He doesn't do the Internet, so he isn't as bombarded by the safety messages about hand washing and avoiding contact that we are, although when I spoke to him on the phone the other day he assured me he was washing his hands "every five minutes". And ditto the parents of Him Indoors. And I feel a sense of unease about being so far from all my extended family while this is happening. At such times, one has the urge to gather, which is of course, exactly the wrong thing to do right now.
What I am also afraid of is people's reaction to it - how quickly online and in real life scenarios descended into straightforward racism against Chinese people, or anyone that looks Chinese, the hoarding of toilet paper, the sharing of absolute scaremongering nonsense on WhatsApp groups, the hectoring of people if they don't display unbridled enthusiasm for confining yourself and your entire family to the house, even before any government restrictions are put in place, and how quickly people started to brand others "selfish" and "irresponsible" for the crimes of wanting to keep bookings for long looked forward to family holidays. Wanting to, mind you, not actually keeping them.
I really hate the criticism of those who want to carry on going to the supermarket as normal, or meeting friends at the mall. We all know that those of us who haven't "socially distanced" ourselves yet, are more than likely going to have to do it for a time at least, and it's OK to be sad about not seeing people, because humans are social animals. Even introverts need to see friends and move among other humans from time to time. And it's one thing to be a quiet sort of person who likes to stay home and is at ease in their own company, it is quite another to be told you cannot leave your house. You would not think that this was an established fact, considering the ton of abuse I have seen people getting online for wanting to go about their business as normal.
Then there's the economic impact, which I will get into more later, but in Dubai we have seen newly opened hotels mothballed, people told to work from home, then the town's biggest magazine publisher has asked employees to go down to a three day working week.. There is of course a lot more to it than that, which I will save for a future post.
From my perspective, after DB2 was born, I decided I was going to look for a full time job, by the end of the year, and in the mean time pick up some of my old freelance gigs to earn some money. The full time job never happened as freelancing was going well. But poof, a couple of weeks ago, jobs started to get cancelled as events that I would be reporting on or writing promo material for were postponed, and I am looking at a very quiet few months work wise. Thankfully I am starting to pick up some online work that doesn't require me to attend events or interview people in person, but nothing yet to match the assignments I was working on earlier this year.
We will survive as we can just about manage on Him Indoors' salary, but this is certainly not how I saw this year panning out last year, when I invested in hiring a full time nanny so I could commit to more work without having to worry about bouncing a one year old on my lap during phone interviews and racing off to school pick up for the five year old half way through the working day.
All in all, coronavirus can do one. It has made me that one thing I really try not to be, scared. I'm selfishly afraid or how we will manage financially, I am afraid of what the economic impacts will do to my career. I can trace the starting point of the real fear back to 3rd March when the government here first announced the month-long nationwide nursery, school and university closures - two weeks of Spring Holidays moved forward by two weeks, then two weeks of online learning from home. I am afraid of the impact on DB1 who, having done such a great job of adjusting to school life, will now be away from it for four weeks, and there have even been suggestions, denied by the UAE Government it is important to add, that the closures could be extended for the whole summer term. The last day at school before the closures, I honestly felt like crying during school pick up, as I am so uncertain about what is ahead.
That was my Offred from The Handmaid's Tale moment, the point where she talks about key turning points when people should have realised the monstrousness of the Gileadean Government, when they closed the libraries, or froze women's bank accounts, she says. It is melodramatic to think of this in these terms, and I should add that it is not the government that is the monster here, but the virus, and what it is doing to all of us. As I say, I have seen the hate and vitriol caused by this disease spreading, and to me, it doesn't bode well - people demanding border closures and removal of Chinese nationals and wanting people prosecuted for spreading the virus. I also feel uncomfortable at the way children, the people who have the least control over anything, are being viewed as virus spreaders, and governments around the world are moving towards telling us to keep them away from each other, with very little interest on the impact this will have on their emotional wellbeing. A little bit of fear goes a long way. Don't write in to me about that, I am fully aware of why it is being done, I just wish there was more of a conversation about how to help them deal with the inevitable isolation.
I will stop now, as this is turning into a misery fest. I came to the decision to start writing about this whole sorry scenario as a way to give insight into how a "normal" family (no sniggering at the back) such as mine in the UAE is impacted by this virus. And because I was effing miserable, and writing usually makes me feel better. And, because I suspect I am going to have more time on my hands in the coming months due to a reduced workload, so I may as well do something.
Future blogs won't be as long as this. The next update, when I get to it, will be a rundown of the restrictions we are currently living with in the UAE. That might sound insensitive to talk about 'living with', considering people are dying in their thousands of this illness. But I think, even those of us who do not get sick are going to be in for a tough time, and I am genuinely worried about the effect being so confined is going to have on all of us. Once again, I am not afraid to say that.
No comments:
Post a Comment