Still in a Covid state of mind

Restrictions may have eased but the fear remains because it’s unclear what really constitutes safe social distancing.

SHE came running down the staircase, all dressed up to go out. I stopped her in her tracks.

“Where are you going?” I demanded to know.

“I’m meeting friends for lunch, ” she replied impatiently.

“What? Where? How many of you?”

“Three of us, ” she said, naming her BFFs from high school and a restaurant I had not heard of.

By this time, I could feel my anger rising and I decided to lay down the law.

“You are not going out.”

“But my friend is on the way to pick me up.”

“Tell her not to come. If you go, don’t bother coming home.”

And seeing my set furious face, my daughter realised this was one fight she could not win. She called her friend to tell her “Sorry, my mum won’t let me out” before stomping up to her room.

I had won this round but I felt relief and bad at the same time. I understood her desire to meet friends she hadn’t seen in months and the chance to get out after being holed up at home.

But after staying home for nearly 80 days since March 18, I do not want to risk all the hard work and discipline in keeping the coronavirus at bay from my family and home. That’s why I had to turn down my own BFFs’ suggestion to meet for dinner.

I sat with my daughter after we both calmed down to explain why

I barred her from going out.

Thinking back, even when Wuhan went into lockdown on Jan 23, and it had spread to countries like South Korea and Japan, I still didn’t feel very threatened by it.

My friends and I did briefly consider postponing our holiday to Fukuoka in late February. But Tokyo was the infection hotspot, not Fukuoka. So off we went, as I shared in my Feb 26 column which I blithely headlined “Let’s keep calm and carry on, shall we?”.

I went on to say we should be more worried about the normal seasonal influenza than the new virus because statistically, the flu was more infectious and deadly than Covid-19.

That was then. With each passing day, researchers are learning more and more about SARS-CoV-2 and why Covid-19 is far more dangerous than the flu.

Right from the start, we knew the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions like diabetes and cancer would be the most vulnerable to the disease. And that, as I have said before, describes my mum to the T. As for me, I am in the third highest risk group.

It was also initially thought young and healthy people would be spared, but that has been proven wrong. While it may be less common among them, it can develop into a severe and life-threatening illness.

What’s more, according to a Bloomberg report, even after patients recover, they can suffer from breathlessness, fatigue and body pain months after. Some have poorer lung, heart and liver functions.

The report adds, “And that may be the tip of the iceberg. The coronavirus is now known to attack many parts of the body beyond the respiratory system, causing damage from the eyeballs to the toes, the gut to the kidneys.”

This was what I wanted to tell my daughter. Apart from the health risks to herself and older members in the family, namely her parents and grandma, I told her about other issues that bug me. Like how far must we distance ourselves to be really safe.

WHO recommends at least one metre or three feet, but the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says two metres or six feet.

Raina MacIntyre, a professor of global security and the head of the Biosecurity Program at the Kirby Institute, Australia, however, told livescience.com: “The 3-6 foot rule is based on a few studies from the 1930s and 1940s, which have since been shown to be wrong — droplets can travel further than six feet. Yet hospital infection control experts continue to believe this rule. It’s like the flat-Earth theory – anyone who tries to discuss the actual evidence

is shouted down by a chorus of believers.”

Adding to the confusion is the suggestion by a particle fluid dynamics scientist at the Massachusetts Institutes of Technology that the

distance should be 8.2m or 27 feet apart to avoid infection from sneezes or coughs. Go figure.

Scientists also say other important factors are time spent being exposed to an infection source and how much viral load there is. That’s why confined spaces like lifts to me are very bad places to be in. And public loos. Do we wait for the cleaner to disinfect the cubicle after each use?

The best preventive measure, which research increasingly confirms, is wearing a mask as it prevents the wearer from spewing droplets when one speaks, sneezes or coughs.

We can be masked doing our grocery shopping, jogging in the park, queuing to go to the bank but you can’t eat with the mask on, can you?

Restaurants are trying to do their best to provide a safe environment with even kopitiam putting up

plexiglass sheets to separate diners. That’s fine if you are eating alone but that doesn’t make for conducive meal-sharing with family or friends, does it?

I would also avoid places offering buffets. Making several trips to pile our plates and using the same serving spoons is one of the fastest ways to spread the virus.

Then there is the air-conditioning factor. A report from China showed how one asymptomatic diner infected eight others seated on three tables on one side of a restaurant where the air-con unit was blowing down on them. Researchers believe the time spent together – about an hour – and the air-con aided the infections.

I do feel sorry for businesses trying to restart operations to stay afloat and keep jobs.

All I can do for them for now is to order goods and food for home deliveries.

I will encourage my family to wait it out until we have clearly flattened the curve or have a vaccine – which China has announced could be available by the year end – because, as livescience.com says, the only really sure way to prevent yourself from getting infected is staying indoors and away from other people. Until then, it’s a hermit’s life for me.

The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.

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