Life in the Times of Coronavirus: Lockdown Day 5
Time, perhaps unsurprisingly, has taken on new meaning during this government-enforced lockdown. Today, for example, is Wednesday. In a parallel universe, in a now imaginary world where the coronavirus does not exist or where, at least, all this never happened, my family and I would be on our tour of the Vatican Museums right about now. Perhaps we’d be straining our necks to admire the frescoes in Raphael’s studios or contemplating Caravaggios. Or waiting our turn in the museum’s bustling marble halls to enter the hallowed space that is the Sistine Chapel.
But in this world where coronavirus reigns supreme and where it’s the only thing we can talk about, it may as well be any other day of the week. Wednesday looks the same as Monday and Sunday cannot be distinguished from Tuesday. Time bends, time is malleable, but during this pandemic time seems to demand an exact accounting of itself.
Meanwhile, more bad news on the economic front. Sánchez, in a speech at the Congreso de los Diputados, admitted that the Spain’s GDP would fall and that the economic hardship would only get worse. (The chamber normally houses 350, but attendance was limited to just 33 lawmakers to avoid spreading coronavirus. Between speeches, a cleaning woman donning a mask and gloves wiped down handrails, tables and microphones in the assembly chamber. Simply surreal.) As of today, Spain has nearly 14,000 confirmed cases, and there are nearly 75,000 cases in Europe alone. King Felipe VI, that unpopular relic from another age, is due to address the nation at 9:00 p.m. tonight. Though not many people will be listening, as folks are invited to bang their pots and pans (caceroladas) the moment he starts speaking.
Given the economic problems on the horizon, I’m basically working as much as I can in case things grind to a halt. It helps me keep my mind off of all the chaos out there, including the fact that Spain has ordered all hotels to shut within a week to potentially use them as makeshift hospitals. Let that sink in for a second: tourism accounts for a huge percentage of Spain’s revenue, and it is shutting all of its hotels for the foreseeable future. My clients are mostly in the airline, hotel, or tourism industry, so I’ll be working as much as I can for as long as I can. Pray for the best, brace for the worst, and hope that I can keep the lifestyle I worked so hard to achieve. I confess that it’s hard not to be pessimistic.
Things on the street are the same as they’ve been all week and will probably stay the same until all this gets under control: windswept, barren, clean and mostly deserted. And quiet: I can hear the strange song of a distant bird and a dog yapping, yapping, yapping. Someone is vacuuming a few floors up. A baby cries for its mother and I hear what sounds like an argument between two male voices. I can even hear the train doors buzzing open 200 yards from where I’m now sitting. These seem unremarkable, except that a week ago I wouldn’t have been able to hear them due to all the hullabaloo in the street below.
Today I’ve seen a few more people pass by on the street below, and I couldn’t help but notice how different they were in terms of how they chose to protect themselves (or not) from the coronavirus. Two people, presumably a couple: neither wearing gloves or a mask. Both carried what looked like groceries. A stack of plastic cups fell out of the woman’s sack and started to roll down the hill. She stopped, picked it up off the ground and tossed it back in the bag. She then reached in her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. Her husband, who had stopped a little way ahead, handed her a lighter. They passed the cigarette between them and they stood there lazily in the early afternoon sun, the woman glancing over her shoulder to see if a cop was coming. Curiously, they still maintained the six-foot security distance, breaking it only to pass the cigarette.
About an hour later, a guy walked by wearing blue latex gloves, a matching mask, and a surgical cap to boot. I wondered if he was a medical student or perhaps a veterinarian, but as he passed directly below me I saw that his cap and indeed mask were, in fact, part of a popular Halloween costume that people wear at Carnaval, something very much like this, sans the lab coat:
Well, at least you can’t say people aren’t getting creative in these circumstances.
Anyway, the Surgeon’s car had apparently broken down. I watched as he walked to the edge of the empty street and waved at a passing tow truck. It slowed to a stop and the driver hopped out, also wearing a mask and gloves. I watched as they greeted each other (a simple wave, maintaining six feet of distance between them). The tow truck driver nearly threw the pen at him to fill out the requisite paperwork. The Surgeon stood, using the side of the car as a hard surface to write on; the driver stood several feet away, tapping his gloved hands on the hood. A few minutes later, the driver took the paperwork and duly deposited it in a plastic bag. They waved goodbye, the Surgeon saying something that I could not hear, and the tow truck driver roared away. The Surgeon, meanwhile, shuffled away in the opposite direction.
In case you’re wondering, I’m making the most of the time I’m cooped up at home. I’ve cleaned my house multiple times, as you can imagine, and I’m reading and writing a whole lot. Another mixed blessing of all this is that now I have time to catch up with friends back home I haven’t spoken to in ages. I also found the time to videochat with my brother and sister-in-law in California who are working from home.
It’s Day 5 of the government-enforced lockdown, and there is talk of extending the estado de alarma for at least another two weeks after that. Looks like we’re in this for the long haul.