Corona-diary

Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini has been following the coronavirus outbreak.

Corona Diary: Entry 5

Week? Another one just went by.

The days and nights ebb and flow. When they flow it seems almost normal. There is a structure. I get up, I dress, I make my bed and my coffee. A meeting starts. People appear. We talk, we  plan, we keep going. The afternoon light comes. A brisk walk out, supper made, drink drunk, kitchen cleaned. The rhythm of the day is intermittently interrupted by the new ritual of washing hands and sanitizing the space we pass through, the door knobs and light switches we touch. Night falls, the news is on. Cuomo appears. Maddow rants. Fox froths. A movie, a book, the lights go out. The day is done. Read more here.

Corona-diary: Entry 4

Does it matter?

For a moment, I felt like I was channeling Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek: Enterprise. There he was, in deep space, passing endless days boldly going where no man (or woman) had gone before, and making sense of it all with a few words jotted in his log. But Picard had it easy. At least he was going somewhere. Here we are doing our best to be bold, but it turns out that stagnating into the unknown requires a lot more than blind courage. It’s all about dualities. Read more here.

Corona-diary: Entry 3

Normality is beyond our imagination now

It’s the uncertainty that makes this hard. If we knew we had a week, a month, or three and that then life would be back to normal, we’d be able to manage better. It would be like a mini-hiatus from daily life, a chance to get to the stockpile of things on the back burner that never get done. But we just don’t know how long it will last. In the aftermath, normality may be something beyond our imagination now. Read more here.

Corona-diary: Entry 2

Human security is national security: Opening the Pentagon’s coffers to defray the costs of this pandemic

This will be a meandering post with a destination, I hope. It’s funny how despite all our powers, for good or bad, nature always gets the last laugh. The unpredictability of Corona driving us to distraction is one end of the spectrum, but at the other end is the coming of spring. No matter the winter – heavy with snow, or just grey skies and winds – spring comes like clockwork. In Georgetown the magnolia trees are blooming pink and the cherry blossoms are waking up. People may be cocooned and bunkering at home – except the occasional dog walker or jogger or stroller with a stroller. But nature? It’s doing what it always does. A new year-  a Nowruz – is coming. Read more here.

Corona-diary: Entry 1

Back to diary time

Dear friends,

Back to diary time. I confess, the boredom is already seeping in and I’m used to working from home! But here are three thoughts and a tweet:

1. The governmental responses in the UK and US are indicative of the absolute failure and the blind faith in the ideologies of neoliberalism, extreme capitalism and individualism that have been peddled to us for 40 odd years. Our health systems can’t cope, people go to work because they have few savings and no sick days, our ‘leaders’ are far more concerned about the markets than about human lives, our media is largely private and is therefore not giving objective facts and editorializing far too much, and public attitudes are too focused on individual wants and selfishness (I want to go/come/stay/travel/buy loo paper etc.) than thinking about the collective good and personal responsibility. Read more here.