Covid-19 in the community

It was a bit confusing then. Before, I think when it first came in, I thought it was by touching, never knew it could be spread by air, I just thought it was more or less touching, so you need so, no handshakes, then you need to just put, use hand sanitiser. Then later, we knew that we heard it going, Covid passed through air. Then later we were told that it could actually stay in air for a number of hours or so then it will have, maybe somebody has passed some minutes or hours and you passed it so yeah, the ways that which you could catch it was a bit confusing and again, that also, I understood that, because it’s a new virus, everyone is trying to investigate so there’s a probability that we might get things wrong. I mean the scientists, the government might get things wrong, and they will keep trying until they get it right, so I wasn’t really bothered. That’s why I stayed indoors.

I had a type of spray. I carry a spray, a mini one like this spray. In my backpack, I’ve got a hand gel, disinfectant wipe and three or four masks in my bag besides the one I have just in case I soiled them. So I will use spray everything down before I enter the house and before, you know, and I try my best but sometimes no matter, because there’s only so much you can do and that’s why I felt really sad. Disappointed with myself because I got Covid. Despite everything I done.

We start using mask and that and because, as I got a health condition, so my husband told me not to go outside that much so we, totally not locked but you can say a ninety five percent locked for me because not always. When I got a problem that affects my whole body, start going, you know, like shaking and that, breathing problem. Otherwise, when you see me, I’m totally fine, hundred percent moveable, like you can see.

So he was like, he was concerned about him with bringing it home to the kids more. And bringing it home to me because he was like, “The last thing I want is be the reason why you fall ill.” So he was more concerned about that, but I said to him but, “Well, I’m concerned that you might get it because you’re the one who’s running around looking after us and, if you’re poorly I’m going to struggle to do his role.” And he was he was able to be a bit more flexible and cover a bit of my things. So I said, “I’m struggling to do yours.” So we came up with a plan where, when he would come home, he wouldn’t touch the kids or he wouldn’t come and grab them or he would go straight sort of make sure, even though he wore gloves and everything and masks. And so he would, you know, come in and make sure he’s showered and he’d make sure he’d like cleansed himself and everything and then played with the kids. And he’d always make sure that that he would he had like loads of sanitiser in the car and he’ll sanitise the car properly, even like in between picking up customers like the door handles because you never know how careful someone else has been or not. So because of all that, we weren’t as worried. And he felt a bit like, we agreed that he shouldn’t rely on everyone is taking the right measures. He needs to take extra.

So did you have any fear for a specific family member? 

Yes, for husband, as he used to go for work every day. Costco was very busy, you must have seen, in the news, that up to two or three metres, four and five metres like there use to be two or three queues of people. People crowded in, shoving and pushing for their groceries.

My husband drives a forklift, does the stocking, everything…meeting people, “This is kept here, that is kept there”. So, don’t know, we just didn’t know. Young people also come there, as do old people. Poor things, who has what, who doesn’t have it, So he had, my husband had warned me strictly that, like at night, he’d leave work at ten, he’d come home at 10:15. “Before I arrive, you all go upstairs to bed” [laughs]. “Yes, don’t wait to meet me”. So he would unlock the house, go straight for a bath. He would put his work clothes in the washing machine. He would bathe carefully, and then come downstairs for dinner.

He also had that fear somewhere in the back of his head that “our kids are young, I come from outside”. Like my little one has a habit that he has to first hug his daddy. Wants to mess around with him, wrestle with him all that, and then tell him about his day at school, like “I did this, this happened today”all that kind of stuff. But then they weren’t allowed. They meet each other. They just met in the morning, that’s it [laughs].

Well, I guess people know what the risk factors are and so I, one of the risk factors is like, you know, cleanliness I guess and then another one about being close to people and taking risk, risk taking behaviours and I just, with like any virus or illness, there were a number of risky behaviours that people are aware of because it’s been drummed into us for the last eighteen months and I felt embarrassed and ashamed, like a little bit, just a very smidge embarrassment and shame because I took some made some decisions that were risky for my health. I attended, you know, I went to city that was high on the list of infections. I sat around people, who I didn’t know, probably spoke to them a little bit too much in their, in a small proximity. Drunk a lot so battered my, you know, weakened my immune system and I ended up catching what everyone in the world is aware of but doesn’t want to catch. And kind of proving, I suppose proving myself my own fears right and everyone else’s fears right that if you do these things, not risks, like if you take too many risks and put yourself in a, in harm’s way, then it will get you. And so yeah, those kind of feelings yeah, those kind of feelings.

Yeah, so we kept the table outside his bedroom and I was leaving the food. I was going away and then he used to open the door and take things like food. That’s how we kept the distance and stuff like that. When he leaves the plates or anything, I wasn’t taking it straight away, and leaving it out for long and all that. So, all these things we did and I make sure that I am not gonna get affected. But it was for nearly six weeks because his test kept coming positive.

Whatever the reasons, the probable reason that the community that I minister to was hit quite hard is because we are very sociable. We gather together for, you know, life cycle events, we gather together every Friday night. People go to their parents and grandparents, so the very strength of being a close-knit community is a terrible weakness when it comes to infectious diseases. The things that mark us out like when there’s a bereavement people gather, and they have a Shiva service in someone’s home, and it’s very comforting to have your friends come round to your home, and it’s built into, and for many people that’s the last bastion of their Jewish tradition. That they might do nothing else, but they have a bereavement, they’ll do it properly. Gathering for Passover Seders together is such an integral part of Jewish life. Friday night dinners, community events, daily prayer services, people saying Kaddish for those who are bereaved. We were denied all of these things for close to 18 months. People who were in hospital were denied pastoral care and visits, and family support. People who were bereaved had almost a triple whammy.

In Asia a lot of people wearing masks if they’re not well, if they go somewhere, because of pollution or, this and, that’s normal, you know. I don’t particularly have mask before that but it’s something that I’ve seen and that I’ve, you know when travel to the other side, to that side of the world. So, yes. And I, you know, read about and know about SARS and bird flu, all that so it is, it is some of them airborne so, yes.

Yes. I started panicking I thought “God I’ve had this. What if I haven’t got the antibodies because they kept saying that people who’ve had cancer and have had chemotherapy, they’re less likely, their immune system is less likely to respond. And there was me.” And I thought “oh that’s me.” So, I was afraid, I didn’t go out anywhere, and I had to send, my son used to do a bit of shopping for us and drop it outside, didn’t come in.

I started feeling a little bit unwell when I was there, but I put this down mostly to being fatigued because of travelling and lots of long days. It’s quite gruelling to be on pilgrimage and it’s very, it’s very beautiful but very gruelling so I put it down to that, but I was starting to feel a little bit unwell. So, I came back In February and then the information about Covid was swirling. There was much more information, a bit more public awareness as well. And so that was February and then we headed into the lockdown in March I believe and so like a lot of people my working reality, my day-to-day reality changed so I was working from home. I was inside, I was abiding by all the rules that we were told to abide by, so I wasn’t going out anywhere apart from going on my daily walk. But what I noticed was from March onwards I started to cough quite a lot and I started feeling very, very tired so I was isolating in my room. I’m lucky enough to have, have a home where there’s more than one room, where there’s some space where you can isolate. My, I live with my mum. She has diabetes, she’s an asthmatic. She is a woman of a certain age as well, so I was very aware of the fact that, you know, my mum was very vulnerable, so all of these factors were very much on my mind.

So, I, at the time, there was no access to testing, there was no access to any, anything that would enable me to know if I had Covid or not. The rules were very straightforward which was stay at home, don’t, you know, wear a mask, don’t go out unless it’s absolutely necessary so I followed all those rules. So, I carried on working in part because it’s the kind of person I am, I kind of push on through but what I remember in terms of symptoms were just exhaustion was increasing. I started developing an eye infection.

I told them many, many times, “Please wear a mask.” But my teacher said, “Oh no worries, it’s not any reason to worried about a pandemic.” I said, “So sorry, I don’t know you. You don’t know me. We must follow the rules, we must wear a mask to avoid this virus. Don’t leave to virus.” So, I decided to leave the college and I said to my teacher in college please if you can send me to online course, I can’t come to face to face because I can’t stop the people to his mind, their mind because they don’t believe in the pandemic, to wear a mask.

I remember being shouted on in a Tesco store in [place name] because I was, you know where, if you remember, you know the, most super stores had those one way arrows they had marked on the floor so you can go, you can just go in this direction but don’t come back kind of a thing and I just happened to step in the wrong direction, you know I had just taken, you know, and this man just shouted at me. And he say “how can you do this?” And I said, “look I am really sorry I didn’t mean to, I completely did not notice the arrow” and it’s not like, it’s not like I wanted to argue it was a genuine mistake. He’s like, “oh gosh.” You know people were paranoid at that point and he’s like, “Dude, I do not want to get Covid” and I said “just because I walked in the wrong way it does not mean to say that I’ve got Covid” [laughs].

No it’s more in general how you behave how you have behaved amongst people throughout Covid that it’s so easy to be critical towards people that you’re not, you know, standing 2 meters, you know, of course and also you see people dropping masks everywhere, there’s masks lying around everywhere and you think “bastard why don’t you pick up your masks” because then you can think “oh that poor person dropped their mask, you know, because we’re not used to having any masks”. So if you pull it down, pull out your keys from your pocket your mask could slip out and then you have somebody like me coming after “oh how could you drop it, you know, bastard” and there were lots of these plastic gloves everywhere and yeah. And yeah you know, it brings out the worst in you doesn’t it the suspicion, yeah definitely it’s almost like, you know, a war, warzone feeling but everybody could be your enemy.