In and around a London lockdown. A Cartoon Diary by Pidge.

 New symptoms were discovered: in the beginning it all seemed so simple. The only officially recognised symptoms of coronavirus were a fever combined with a dry cough. But anecdotal evidence gleaned from many comments on social media led to the suspicion that a loss of sense of smell and taste were often experienced by Coronavirus sufferers:                       As seen in The Spectator 

 Sneezes  and coughs obviously were to be avoided but for those people in the middle of a pandemic who didn’t have the foresight to carry handkerchiefs the government provided helpful official advice. They were advised to sneeze or cough into their sleeves. As with most government edicts this had some unintended consequences, especially for dry cleaners:

 Looking back it is interesting to note just how our view of the virus has changed. In the beginning the approach of the authorities seem to be to minimise any anxiety. This was reflected in the fact that the announcement of any fatality was always accompanied by the comforting comment that the unlucky deceased had always had “underlying health conditions. “ Carluccio‘s restaurant chain was one of the first bankruptcies of the crisis but it had  already exhibited  problems before the pandemic so it seemed appropriate to use this event to reference how ubiquitous the medical excuse had become:

The really shocking news was when Boris Johnson announced on the evening of the  20th of March that the pubs were to close immediately! If lockdown was justified it would obviously have to include pubs… but the timing! On a Friday evening after a week’s work when the massed thirsts of the country’s workers were about to climax in the nations’ pubs. This was no joke!

 After a while the generally complacent attitude towards the virus changed . The age of the terrifying nightly news bulletins had begun and we were bombarded with horrific pictures of hospitals in Italy so overcrowded that people were dying in the streets outside implying that the same thing could happen here and so it was that fears the coronavirus could be more lethal than originally thought began to gain traction  in the general population.

 And fears were not confined to the medical sphere. The public became aware that restrictions on peoples movements would disrupt the economic life of the country and the greatest threat was quickly identified as a likely national shortage of toilet rolls. This led  to panic buying and stock piling which changed the social etiquette of even some of the more genteel parts of London.

 At this time catching the disease did not appear to be too worrying. The only symptoms were a dry cough and a fever leading to a few days of mild discomfort. The only people that appeared to be at any kind of serious risk were the very old and even then they would receive the required hospital treatment well in advance of the feared future shortage of beds should the pandemic gather pace and even then they would  benefit from immunity from future infection which was the orthodox view back then. So when Jeremy Corbyn asserted that he would not comply with any government edict requiring the over 70’s to stay at home I thought he was following the same logic: And this cartoon never saw the light of day as I could find no reference to Jeremy repeating his declaration! The reason I identified with this logic and genuinely had these thoughts was that I had tickets for Cheltenham .... For further comment go to Cheltenham

 People became concerned about how the virus was spread. The population seem to become split between the apprehensive and those who just didn’t care. It was thought likely that some people were more infectious than others and the concept of the “super-spreader” i.e a person who infected a disproportionately large number of others  became a subject of discussion: As seen in The Spectator 

 It was not surprising that cruise ships lost some of their popularity:

 And so it began: One of the first indications we had that bad news was on its way as when it was reported that passengers on the Diamond Princess Cruise ship had disembarked having been in quarantine for a whole two weeks. I feel sorry for anyone stuck on a cruise ship as the following cartoon indicated: To follow the Diary chronologically from here select ‘Newer Posts’ from below and continue in the same way for subsequent entries.