What about the prostitutes...?

Tuesday, 17^th March 2020

Like I have every Tuesday morning for the last ten weeks or so, I cycle into Brighton for my weekly therapy session. My therapist tells me that they will probably have to shut the rooms where I see him next week. He says he will continue to offer online therapy or ‘eco-therapy,’ walking and talking outside. In the end, we agree that I don’t need to see him anymore unless I feel the need and we wrap things up. It feels a bit strange to tell someone who has helped you and healed you, that you hope to never see them again.

Of course, the mental health of the whole world’s population is going to be put under some strain over the course of the next few months. At the moment, it is a generalised anxiety, and, for some, proper panic. Isolation will no doubt lead to loneliness and depression for some. The worst affected will be driven to suicide – this is simply a fact: incidental deaths caused by the pandemic.

Then there will be grief. Losing a loved one, most likely an elderly relative, is going to be made more difficult by procedures intended to reduce transmission rates. There will be no going to hospital to visit a dying relative who, I assume, you might not have seen face-to-face for weeks, anyway. And then there is the funeral. With crematoriums inundated, there will probably not be a proper service or any service. If there is one, then it might be immediate family only, sat apart and expected not to comfort each other with a hug or any other physical contact.

Mother’s Day is this Sunday but plans to meet up as a family have been shelved. Instead, we might go out for a walk: together but apart. No touching. Two metres apart, shouting to make oneself heard over the wind and waves. Behaving abnormally, in other words.

A lot of government announcements (recommendations at this point, rather than enforced) are telling everyone what they can’t or shouldn’t do. Yesterday, it was social gatherings, inside and out. Other countries or cities have gone or are going into ‘lockdown’ so social media is full of photos of empty city streets and tourist attractions with no tourists. It looks like a post-apocalyptic world but we are at the pre-apocalypse or mid-apocalypse stage. In weeks to come, going outside might seem like a revolutionary act, taken in the dead of night, balaclava on, to stalk your neighbourhood like a thief, stealing fresh air and exercise.

It looks like schools will shut soon. Already, in the school where I work, there are staff who can’t risk coming in for medical reasons or pregnancy or because they are looking after vulnerable relatives. And nobody really has Covid-19 yet. If there aren’t enough staff, it seems impossible to look after the children safely, and shutting schools is widely accepted as a means of slowing down transmission. It won’t be long.

My wife messages me from work (NHS, mental health services) to tell me she is probably going to be fitted for a hazmat suit and mask with the possibility looming of redeployment, to hospital wards if there are staff shortages. Presumably, anyone with a mental health issue will have to treat themselves or fall into neglect.

Finally, what about those whose work relies on face-to-face contact. Prostitutes can work from home but not without clients. If I’m not allowed to touch my face, is it alright to touch someone else’s face with my willy? Maybe you’ll be given an address to turn up to in your crotchless hazmat suit and condom, to shove your dick through a lubricated, sanitised letterbox. Or, does anyone want to connect on Facetime for a virtual hand job…?

Latest data for the UK:

Infected: 1,950

Deaths: 71

Celebrity Deaths: None (what are they waiting for…?)

People I know who are infected: 0

People I know who have died: 0