It is 08.00 am on Friday 8 January 2021, one hundred and thirty days from the start of the 2020 – 2021 school year.
The cheery and not so cheery things to report
Mum and dad have commandeered the blog this week to describe the results of their festive reflections about the past year when Covid 19 took over all our lives, what we have learnt from managing to stay alive through these many experiences and how we feel it has made us much more resilient all round.
We hope it stimulates our readers to draw up their own checks and balances:
THE BIG PICTURE | THE PROS | THE CONS |
Poor health systems | Fantastic intensive care clinical response | Multiple health system deficiencies > no/ little emergency preparedness |
Poor health communications | Simple, clear, strict instructions > good citizen compliance > control | Confusing, contradictory knee-jerks > poor citizen compliance > no control |
The rapid Covid 19 response | Many fine examples of excellent health responses to the pandemic | Many fine examples of professional cronyism, backhander deals, etc, etc! |
Impact of severe adversity | An ascent of strong, resilient, independent human spirits | A descent into weaker, more fragile, more dependent human spirits |
All for one and one for all | Sincere, openly expressed respect and care for fellow humans | Sincere, openly expressed disrespect and lack of care for fellow humans |
Economy first, health second | Good for national budgets and big business | National budgets now forced to pay for greatly increased Covid 19 care costs |
The ‘Air Pollution’ experiment | No traffic > clear demonstration of improved urban air quality | Temporary benefit only as the economic drivers kick in again |
OUR FAMILY PICTURE | THE PROS | THE CONS |
Keeping safe | Daily comprehensive protection programme in place, enhanced with additional school measures | Top priority, can get very pressurised by other non-protection essential tasks |
Keeping physically fit | Daily simple exercise regimeDaily home chest physioDaily fresh air, every day | Occasional lapses due to not enough time and not enough energy |
Keeping mentally fit (mum and dad) | Great sense of achievement with: meditation better sleep patternscreative problem-solvinga ban on multi-tasking | Brain fog kicks in from time to time slowing down the pace of thinking and the productivity, and can dampen our spirits for that day |
Keeping mentally fit (our child) | The nasty impact of social isolation has been totally healed by attending school, school lunches and after-school activities | Spending extended hours in the school environment means greater Covid 19 risks for mum and dad. |
Keeping ‘immune’ fit | Great, simple nutrition from our 5* home restaurant | Has a real downside from the constant grind of cleaning up afterwards |
Keeping productive | Growing range of new family skills, language, music, drawing, sewing | Needs dedication and focus and time, so these past-times are not yet regular |
The big picture bottom line
It has been, and continues to be, a salutary lesson for all of us: At one stroke, and with great ease, Covid 19 has exposed many our human shortcomings and frailties:
(OR, if you have refused to play the game, you are still involved, whether you like it or not – you simply default to a much riskier game anyway, when Covid 19 simply spins the Russian roulette and keeps you guessing)
Our own family bottom line
While it is absolutely true that Covid 19 has stomped all over our family lives and plans (and everyone else’s) for one year already, and probably for another one at least, nevertheless we are also very aware, by its laying bare of the many, many human, health, social, business, economic, planetary and other shortcomings, that it has helped us to step back, examine, reflect, and update our personal and family priorities for what really matters in life.
What Covid 19 is doing today in France
Quite simply, and as we said last week, Covid 19 is still in charge, rampaging about the country in most places, reflected in the continuing the numbers of new cases and new deaths, testimony to the way the ‘men-in-charge’ are continuing their exasperating tinkering approach. They prefer to wait and wait and wait for their preferred Covid 19 vaccine thinking that it will save the day.
(but not the lives of the people that are being sacrificed because of their shoddy workmanship – if they were boat builders, their boats would be sinking right, left and centre).
Still nothing on the option of closing the schools, at odds to what is happening in numerous other European countries. It is impossible to understand their position on this. Do they believe that the schools are not an important source of transmission? Do they believe that the schools remain safe, despite the increasing presence of Covid 19 in a lot of communities? Do they believe that keeping them open will help control the virus? This is just nuts!
This is really getting repetitive! Each week is simply reinforcing no change, or worse still deterioration, from last week’s assessment, AND reinforcing precisely what they forecast in early December, that in January, the pandemic would continue to spread. This week, once more, in a loud voice, shouting from the rooftops mum and dad’s view is that:
And meanwhile:
Mum and dad are back into their ordinary daily routine. Following on from their PROS and CONS listing, we are now chasing down the following key elements of our daily and nightly routine:
Finally, after 130 days of exposure to their primary school, are Mum and Dad still coping?:
Hey, we’re coping much better than we thought at this point in the New Year. While we actually managed to enjoy the festive holiday timeout, in a strange way it was also a bit disturbing. We have grown very used to our own restrictive practices, delivered daily over the course of most of last year. The holiday break was both nice and not nice – nice to have a change to our daily rhythm and not nice because our usual daily rhythm is also our emotionally reassuring anchor, keeping us on the straight and narrow. We were actually glad when it was all over with back to school on the 4th January.
We are increasingly concerned about the schools remaining open in the present Covid 19 circumstances and about the lack of publicly available information about Covid 19 in schools. As declared in a previous blog, it is a matter that we simply have to deal with the best we can, it is completely out of our control. Our school related Covid 19 procedures are as bullet-proof as we can make them. Nonetheless, we find the situation very unnerving. It undermines our usual equanimity.
By John Saunders
World Health Communication Associates (WHCA) & INSPIRIT Creatives UG NGO,
MediaWise and MediaFocusUK
News You Can Use
We are all vulnerable to this virus. This is a unique time for our communities all over the world as we work to combat this massive global threat. This blog aims to collect and share your stories and reflections that can help others to cope, thrive and build resilience…
Our communities are at different stages of response in different parts of the world. We can learn a lot from each other. Building on World Health Organization and other evidence-based guidance, this blog will gather and disseminate stories that inform, inspire and hopefully strengthen social connectiveness while we all practice physical distancing.
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May the force be with all of us.
Sabrina, Mike, Steve, Tuuli and Franklin for the Connecting Communities team
BLOG: https://www.inspiritcreatives.com/coronavirus-connecting-communities
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