The Coronavirus Diaries – 14th December 2021

I have decided to write a diary of our time through the Coronavirus pandemic. To keep for the future. It’s such an unprecedented time and full of so many mixed feelings and events we have never encountered before it is hard to process it all.

It’s been a long time since I have written one of these, 5 months in fact. When Boris announced the end of most of the Covid restrictions and the return to some sort of semblance of normality. We all know the world did not go back to normal, but it has felt like our life has been a bit freer. We went on holiday, have seen friends and the children went back to school with absolutely no bubbles in September.

The black fog of covid was always lingering in the distance somewhere. From making the decision to limit the activities we did on the lead up to our holiday so we wouldn’t go into isolation, making sure to lateral flow before we went to my Great Grandma’s party. But I think the hardest has been the regular calls from the school. A cough of any calibre has meant children have been sent home to be tested, they have to stay home until a negative test is produced. I understand it and it is so so hard for schools to manage the ever-changing conditions. But it has meant my children, Logan, my eldest, in particular, has missed quite a bit of school.

Now we have the emergence of Omnicrom, a new more infectious variant. Early reports say it’s less severe but time will tell. What I do know is how covid is running rampant through our schools right not. With daily reports of high infections in my children’s classes and friend’s children’s classes and the highest infection rate at the moment is in the 5-7 year age group. My daughter (7), tested positive for Covid on Monday 6th and Sunday my 3-year-old also tested positive. What is so strange is that their symptoms are entirely different.

My daughter has had headaches and a mild fever for three evenings, and while this has passed now a week later she gets very tired. My 3-year-old son has mild, cold-like symptoms. At the moment, My husband, oldest son and I are all negative and taking daily lateral flow tests. My husband and I are triple jabbed and my son had covid last year, so there is hope that we may have immunity. If we test postive after Wednesday then we will have another Christmas in isolation.

I think the hardest thing about this is that Logan, my oldest son tested positive for covid at almost exactly this time last year. He went into isolation on the 8th, tested positive a few days later, and we went straight from being in isolation to a lockdown Christmas. I’m not sure I can bear to do it again. Although as I have said to my children, I have done it once, I can do it again. But let’s not lie, it was pretty miserable.

In my opinion, schools should have closed on Friday it is clearly whipping through primary schools because they are the largest unvaccinated group. To give them all a break, even if they visited friends in that period it will be in smaller groups. It’s sad and it’s hard, even without schools closing, it’s another festive season where parents are not allowed to go and see plays, nativities and concerts. Bo’s pre-school have closed early due to infections, so the nativity was cancelled, last year he was in isolation. It means he will never have a nursery nativity. I know there are much worse things in the world, but it has made me sad nevertheless.

My daughter is struggling in isolation again, being ill of course isn’t helping. But the idea of all the fun things her friends are doing at school is really upsetting her. I think she would do better if she knew everyone was at home. She’s a social child and does not do well without social interaction. She can come out of isolation for the last day of school so I will send her back in for that.

On top of this, we have the awful scandal where government ministers were partying last year, while the rest of us were locking down. People, myself included, are understandably furious and fed up with the utter disrespect. When people were dying alone, with relatives unable to visit them in their last hours. Women giving birth alone, or painfully losing babies with no support. People missing cancer treatment, I could go on. I personally think Boris needs to resign unfortunately it’s yet to happen.

So we’re facing the prospect of Christmas in isolation, although fingers crossed it will not happen. There are rumours of all sorts of things in the news like there always are. Today Sajid Javid refused to rule out the further school closures and it feels like some sort of horrid De Ja Vu. Have we not learned from last year? The promise is the fast rollout of the third vaccine, if they can do 1 million people a day between now and the end of December that would be pretty amazing. But this is not over until the whole world is vaccinated as we have seen with mutations.

A lot of us are in pandemic fatigue, we’re coming up fast at the two year anniversary. When we all naively thought it would all probably be over in a year. I googled how long the Spanish pandemic lasted and it was two years, so there is hope. But it’s clear to see we’re far from the end of this. A couple of weeks ago Logan said to me, Mum will we ever go back to normal, and I tried my best to answer honestly, but truly I do not know when that will happen. Soon, I hope, because I miss it.