It was in late February that I developed an horrendous ‘new’ cough. I spluttered my way through every day, saying proudly to my partner how wonderful my immune system was in fighting off whatever virus which was trying to knock me down. This deep, barking, unproductive cough hung around for a week or so and I became extremely breathless at times, especially when out walking in my part time job. My joints, especially my hands, became arthritic. I used my asthma inhalers far more than usual in February and they made very little difference. So I carried on coughing, wheezing and, a few days in, there were times when I was almost overwhelmed with tiredness. After around 10 days, the cough gradually disappeared, the arthritic pains went although the shortage of breath and tiredness stayed on for weeks. I would have had a virus, but was it THAT virus?
I had heard about this awful coronavirus that was sweeping through China, but this surely was no different from Swine Flu, SARS, Ebola and all the other viruses that had threatened but never arrived here. Our politicians didn’t seem especially bothered, least of all our prime minister Boris Johnson who seemed to be permanently on holiday from Christmas onwards, so why should I be? The media reported on this virus as though it was only happening to people elsewhere and life in Britain carried on as usual. So the reaction I felt was simple: I did as I always try to do when I am unwell. I work through it. That’s what my family, both my paternal and maternal sides, did. Indeed, getting staff to work through illness has been the modus operandi of every employer I ever worked for.
Coronavirus was a bit of a joke at first, with people sharing pictures of the woeful Mexican beer Corona and the 1960s fizzy drinks of the same name. Much as politicians are loathed and despised by many, we still look to them to lead us in times of crisis. But there was no inkling from anyone in power that there was a crisis coming down the tracks. I had been reading about this new COVID-19 virus in my newspaper since the turn of the year. A few hundred people catching it in one country did not seem a great number, yet scientists were regularly expressing deep concerns. Life here went on as normal. I still went to the pub, I went to various record shops, I carried on working; nothing had changed.
By the time Liverpool were hosting Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, I was thinking things weren’t right. Madrid was in lockdown, the football club could not play at their own home ground, but many thousands of their fans could fly to Liverpool. Then, the Cheltenham Festival took place, attended by 250,000 people. COVID-19 was well-established in the United Kingdom and mass sporting events were still taking place. That was the time when the government appeared to wake up, having seemingly been asleep at the wheel. A half-arsed request by Boris Johnson to not go to the pub was soon followed by the PM’s “You must stay at home” message. As we now know, it was too little, too late. From the end of March, things happened very quickly. The virus had spread quietly across the land and the death toll was on the rise.
We’ve all learned new words and phrases. ‘Social distancing’, ‘The R number’, ‘Furlough’, ‘One rule for Dominic Cummings, one for everyone else,’ to name but four. I almost feel like an expert on COVID-19, even though I am patently not. The words that continually float around for what passes for my brain are these? “Have I had COVID-19?’ followed by “Does it matter, anyway?” If I take an antibody test and it proves I’ve had the thing, will I then be immune and if so for how long? If I’m not immune in future having caught COVID-19 – and science has no answer at the moment – then it’s probably not worth finding out.
In my mind, I’ve had COVID-19 and it was relatively mild. Also, in my mind I may have simply had another virus and it was relatively mild. I’m not lying awake worrying about this aspect of the effects of the virus but I am lying awake fretting about how life might never be the same again if the world is stuck with COVID-19 forever. Remember that there has never been a vaccine for a coronavirus. Who’s to say there might be for this one?
