Covid Quarantine

I felt a little under the weather on Friday 5th November, then finally tested positive to Covid-19 through a Lateral Flow test on Sunday 7th November. We had friends staying at our house, and neither the friends, nor other family members had contracted Covid before and so I very quickly (and entirely understandably) became persona-non-grata. I immediately holed myself up in the bedroom and closed the door. Our guests politely but efficiently packed up and left and my wife and youngest son adopted the role of becoming my provider.

Food, drinks, books, play-stations were all brought to my door and left. I would collect these items, consume them and leave the dirty dishes, cutlery, cups and saucers outside my door where they would be collected. It was like living in a hotel, it is like living in a hotel, for I am still here five days later. It’s now Friday 12th November, I’ve recorded 5 Positive LF tests and earlier today I received confirmation that my PCR test was also positive. The positive PCR test kickstarted the test+trace program, I detailed everyone I had met and everywhere I had been in the days prior to infection and the system set about pinging people.

The symptoms haven’t been too bad at all – I am double vaccinated and would describe my ailments as being a ’heavy cold’ at worst – headache, sore throat, hot and cold flushes, dizziness.

I thought I would read a lot – what an opportunity, what a perfect excuse to do nothing except indulge in pleasures of the mind. I planned my time – 10 days with no obligation to do anything – I would write, read, sleep. I would lose weight, emerging from my solitude and taking everyone by surprise with my physical and mental transformation.

I am half way through this experiment and none of this has happened. None. I have books, I have TV, I have music, I have a phone, I have an iPad, I have a journal. I have everything I need. So how have I spent these past 5 days? I’ve spent them doing all and none of these things. I start to read but I get tired or bored. I turn to Netflix but I can’t decide what to watch and so I flick from programme to programme. I turn off electrical devices and open a book, but then I get tired and fall asleep. I wake up at 3am and reach for my phone, easily burning 1.5 hrs on social media. I wake and feel tired but it doesn’t matter for I have nowhere to go, I make plans for my day knowing full well I will follow none of them, continuing to flit like a butterfly from TV to PS4 to iPhone to book to iPad to bed to TV …

The days roll by steadily in a hazy blur. I try everything and achieve nothing. This is life in quarantine, just like real life – grand plans ignored, projects deemed too difficult and so are quickly discarded only to be replaced by everything … and nothing.

So what did you do in quarantine? Oh I did everything! PS4! Netflix! Books!But what did you do? I did nothing except take procrastination to another level.

My wife and son test daily and thankfully have remained Covid negative to date, so at least I haven’t passed this on beyond the four walls of my bedroom. Oh and I wrote this blog entry.

Credit: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay