A surprising number of people seem to have the mindset that this will be over in weeks. “Just need to keep the kids occupied for a few weeks”, etc. I spoke to someone yesterday who still thinks they’re going to be going to Spain in June.
This shit is going to last months, and we’re not even past the first one yet.
I do wonder what effect the relentlessly dour news coverage is going to have on people, particularly those susceptible to it (anxiety etc). There is basically no good news at all now, anything anyone might have been interested in watching or attending is cancelled, parents have to try and keep their children amused whilst isolated with everything closing down, whilst wondering whether they’re going to have a job to go back to, etc.
Whilst I’m sure it can’t compare to what people went through during WW2, etc it does feel as if we’re under attack. This is quite unlike anything this generation has ever experienced before.
I really hope that when this dies down that there will be real, sustained pressure on governments to properly fund the sciences, healthcare, etc to anticipate the next diseases. Imagine if just a fraction of the defence budgets of the world had been spent on this stuff, we possibly wouldn’t be needing far more money pumped in to prop the economy up, or maybe have had so many people die. When the beds and ventilator run out it’s going to get really bad, I fear.