Coronavirus Diary: London in Lockdown 19/03/2020

by | Mar 19, 2020 | Coronavirus | 0 comments

Woke up today with no symptoms.

It sounds like they might cancel the Olympics in Japan now. In the UK they’re doubling the military personal who are on standby.

They’re now saying not to use public transport at all in London now.

I understand why, but the tubes were so empty last time and I was hoping it’d be safe to go out and take some interesting shots of London.

I’ve been writing a huge amount at the moment, I think because there are zero distractions and I can work in complete silence.

We had two Zoom meetings today and I barely spoke in either. It’s strange, you kind of see yourself in the third person in these virtual conferences. I find it especially hard online because I don’t know how or when to interrupt to get a word in.

LOADS of cars out today when Kat and I went out for a walk. More than we’d normally see.

It’s weird and a bit depressing to see that after the trickle of cars yesterday and the day before. While there are not a lot of people out and about on the streets there are maybe a few more than before. I think the panic is dying down a bit now.

I haven’t really been following the news on the pandemic as intensely, I’m sort of just settling into the peace and quiet and getting stuff done.

It’s a bit of a surreal situation at the moment. It can sometimes feel like younger people, under 50, who are less at risk of dying from this, are self isolating and not going to work or the pub to protect the older generations…

Yet some of the older generations don’t seem to be taking it as seriously. They’re going about their business as useful, going to garden centres, getting their nails done, going out for Sunday roasts.

It feels like there has been a collective amnesia about Spanish flu? Surely this would have affected people’s parents and grandparents. It’s strange that soe people are being so blasé.

Matt Hancock was on Newsnight. Apparently there’s a new test they’re making where they take a blood pinprick to test for coronavirus.

It’s as quick as a pregnancy test and will show if you’ve already had the virus and therefore have immunity. They’re also saying they want to do 25,000 tests a day with the normal, existing test.

It’s refreshing seeing politicians from different parties not talking to each other like idiots for a change and trying to find some common ground.

Felt a bit emotional when I heard that 1,400 British manufacturers have said they’ll change some of their processes to try and make respirators. Amazing. Even Formula one have said they’ll help.

From Today’s News:

Panic buyer abuses staff in Tesco and films it read here

Homeowners in US may get a year long break on mortgage payments if they’ve lost their jobs due to Coronavirus read here

Virus shows America’s vulnerability to biowarfare read here

Coffin trucks in Italy as cemeteries are full read here

Aggressive testing drive in Italian town cuts new coronavirus rates to zero read here

Possible Coronavirus cure, remdesivir (Ebola drug), used to treat Italian man read here

Rich Americans trying to buy their own personal ventilators read here

Turkey says it has sent 500,000 testing kits to the USA read here

Vegas strip club to offer drive through peep show read here

America is panic buying guns read here

Israel government sends texts to people’s phones if they detect from their GPS they’ve been near coronavirus infected read here

Dutch researcher working on possible coronavirus cure which is delivered via an inhaler directly into lungs read here

Czech government introduce rule that everyone must wear face mask when outside house read here

TV hospital dramas donate masks to ‘real’ hospitals read here

iFixit is building central resource hub for the maintenance of hospital equipment (with blueprints for every machine) so that repairs can be quickly crowdsourced and 3D printed read here

9% of Americans have lost their jobs already due to coronavirus according to survey read here

Carnival offers cruise ships as temporary care hospitals read here

Idris Elba tells people to ignore myth that black people are immune to coronavirus read here

Netflix to cut streaming quality in Europe to cope with demand read here

Death rate in UK rising faster than Italy read here

Become a Lost Legend. Check out these 5 books that changed my life:

Behave – Robert Sapolsky

Don’t Sleep There Are Snakes – Daniel Everett

I Contain Multitudes – Ed Yong

Entangled Life – Merlin Sheldrake

My Traitor’s Heart – Rian Malan

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