“Whoever saves one life saves the world entire,” so says the Talmud. As I ran past University Hospital Waterford (UHW) last night, that precept from the Jewish text, introduced to me by ‘Schindler’s List’, came to mind.
Preserving life has taken on a deeper meaning to most of us in recent weeks and any actions any of us can take to ease the burden on medical staff cannot be encouraged with enough gravity. The world needs selflessness now by the Everest load.
I thought not only of the fantastic staff at UHW, braced for a medical emergency of potentially devastating dimensions, but of every citizen in this State who ought to be doing all they can to keep themselves and their loved ones out of hospital right now. And that goes for Britons, Americans and Australians, whose respective governments have reacted sluggishly to so pressing and catastrophic a public health emergency.
Given my penchant for running at anti-social hours and the fact that this is my second spell living in this particular suburb, maintaining the recommended social distance from others hasn’t been too great an issue for me. I’ve come to know the less frequented footpaths in these parts pretty well so keeping clear of others has been comfortably achieved over the past week.
My run saw me head outdoors between 9:30pm and 10:20pm, during which time I saw only a handful of people over the course of five miles - and no, there were no groupings of any kind in sight. Perhaps the message that’s been repeatedly issued by Chief Medical Officer Tony Holohan and various Government Ministers is actually resonating.
By the way, apportioning so much of the blame for such groupings on youngsters doesn’t quite cut it for me. Earlier on in the week, most of the people I saw in Waterford not being mindful of other people’s personal spaces were well beyond the age of 28, never mind 18.
Nonetheless, regardless of one’s age, remaining at home and staying away from as many other people as possible has never mattered more in our lives. In saying that, we should spare a thought for victims of domestic abuse in its many guises in addition to those teenagers who are growing up in unconscionable hostility and deprivation.
Being at home pretty much all of the time presents new challenges, not all of them necessarily negative. However, in the case of the Chinese city of Xi’an, the capital of Shaanxi Province where over 10 million people were placed under a Government-ordered lockdown, the divorce rate “spiked” in the wake of the easing of quarantine restrictions.
As one city official in perfectly clipped civil service speak put it to the Global Times newspaper: “Many couples have been bound with each other at home for over a month, which evoked the underlying conflicts.”
Quite what the birth rate will be like in a host of jurisdictions nine months from now will no doubt create altogether sunnier headlines. Couples too young to consider the role that regular power outages during the 70s and 80s may have played in the conception of both themselves and their siblings may hear a yarn spun at their own wedding receptions two plus decades from now. We must strive for laughter during this crisis. We owe that to both ourselves and those we’re unexpectedly cosied up with 24 hours a day at present. Anything that eases the burden of fear that has beset society in both hemispheres can only be encouraged. Worry is undeniable, but it cannot be all we do right now.
On an altogether more serious note, the next generation will surely find sections of their school texts devoted to this appalling pandemic, the endgame of which remains sadly unknown.
As the World Health Organisation (WHO) noted on Friday, “it took three months to reach the first 100,000 cases of Covid-19 but only 12 days to double that, to reach over 200,000”. At the time of posting, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre reported the total confirmed numbers of global Covid-19 cases at 304,528, with 12,973 deaths and 91,676 recoveries.
The countries/regions with the highest losses of life are Italy (4,825), Hubei, China (3,139), Iran (1,375), Spain (1,375), France (562), the United Kingdom (233) The Netherlands (136), South Korea (102), Washington State, USA (94), Germany (84), Switzerland (75), Belgium (67), New York, USA (60), Indonesia (38), Japan (35), California, USA (24), Henan, China (22) along with Sweden and San Marino (20 in both instances).
According to WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus: “Every day, Covid-19 seems to reach a new and tragic milestone. Emphasising that “every loss of life is a tragedy,” Mr Ghebreyesus said these losses provide “motivation to double down and do everything we can to stop transmission and save lives.”
He added: “Today, I have a message for young people: You are not invincible. This virus could put you in hospital for weeks, or even kill you. Even if you don’t get sick, the choices you make about where you go could be the difference between life and death for someone else.”
So if you choose to act like an utter gobshite, then please do so in your own home, well away from Joe and Josephine Public. Stay at home and do so being mindful of that hospital staffer you know and how your 'slumming it' will not only make their working lives more tolerable, it may also save the lives of others you know and love.
Whether you like ‘them apples’ or not, I really don’t give a damn right now. Make boredom your lover. Wash your hands. Stay at home. And get used to it.
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