Coronavirus diaries: day 1

At a nearby grocery store

The purpose of these diaries is to document the every day changes that occur during the coronavirus pandemic. I'm motivated by Victor Klemperer's Diaries in which he documented the day to day changes occurring in Nazi Germany. I'm not equating the two, of course, but I think it's important to notice the small details in the way our lives are changing, as cumulatively, they will lead us to a different place.

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Today was essentially the first day, of the first full week, of limits on non-essential travel. My two teenagers are off of school, and I tried to introduce a structure with a 9 a.m. family meeting - essentially just to get everyone up, dressed and active. I'm thinking that we are in for the long haul, so having a daily structure is important.

At this point, we are all healthy. I do know of two work colleagues who indicated that they were currently or had been down with a fever, and feared coronavirus. But to this point, the virus has not affected us directly.

I worked at my computer this morning, and in the afternoon I dropped off the lawn mower at the repair shop. As I was out, I went to the grocery store in a nearby town. It's a superstore, but there were only a few people shopping. On the P.A. system, they announced the shopping limits: shoppers were allowed no more than three of any one item, and two of restricted items.

The store had some items that our local grocery store did not have - and I was able to get three tins of tomato soup (which we are going through quickly, as we are now all home for lunch every day). I was also able to buy beer, which had recently become almost sold out locally when they'd announced that pubs were to close. There was one battered 12 pack of McKewans Export remaining, so I took this, and some bottles of craft ales.

Walking past the toilet roll aisle, I noticed that the shelves were largely bare.

At the checkout, I was only permitted to buy two bottles of the same beer, and thus had to put my third bottle back. I was able to buy any number of different beers, however.

On the drive home I listened to a press briefing in which they again discussed the coronavirus outbreak.

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At 8:30 in the evening, we sat in the living room and watched Boris Johnson's special announcement. I feared that we'd be restricted from getting out to exercise at all, but fortunately he announced that individuals could go out once a day to walk, run or cycle. All non-essential businesses are to close.