Coronavirus: We all have a duty of care to each other | Verity Lush

We should be on the home straight to a mood-lifting spring... as long as we are not all riddled with the coronavirus.

When the news about said virus first began to drift into the papers and popped up on the television news, I suspect that the majority of we Brits maintained our usual sensible and stoic outlook, kept things in perspective, and didn’t pay a vast amount of attention.

A couple of months on and steadily, steadily we have observed the spread of coronavirus, leaking out of China and creeping into other nations. And still we have remained calm, unless ‘we’ are the Daily Mail.

However, the virus is now taking hold across Europe.

World leaders are succumbing and members of the World Health Organisation are appearing on TV sporting the masks that they told us are of little use.

We need to be realistic: the virus will soon have a more significant impact on the UK than the initial Brighton cases did, and we need to begin (if we are not already), being that bit more careful with hand-washing, sanitising, not touching handrails where possible and so on.

Widespread panic is both unhelpful and unnecessary, but so are comments like ‘oh, it’s just flu’, because millions of people have a flu jab each year.

They don’t have it for fun – they have it because their health conditions may lead to them becoming seriously ill, or even dying, from complications caused by flu.

I’ve heard of several people recently visiting their GPs because they’ve been somewhere in an affected area and now have flu symptoms.

But why on earth are they going to the GP in the first place? Why are they not staying at home?

Unless you live under a rock, then nobody can have missed this guidance, surely?

We all have a duty of care towards one another.

Now is the time to exercise it.

I’ve swapped wonky-wheeled trolleys for mouse-clicking

After years of insisting on taking my offspring to the supermarket so they will know what a sprout is, recognise an aubergine, gain an idea or two about budgeting, I have finally caved in to the online shop.

What a world of ease and wonder. It is like some form of sorcery. I have spent more than a decade with my kids straggling around Tesco, bickering, before we emerge – usually into the rain – with me trying to not only prevent them getting run over, but also pushing the wonky-wheeled trolley two miles across the car park in gale force winds.

No more. Forgive my joy if you have been clicking online for years. This is a game-changer. I am a convert!

The GP who wants private health care for his family

Given how stretched our health service is, and how exhausted and over-worked its employees are, I wonder how it will cope if coronavirus did sweep through the UK.

A GP has told me he is considering private health care for himself and his family. A patient he referred to QA in 2019 has had an appointment come through. For 2021.

When we’re under this strain and when members of the health service buy private insurance, it’s indicative of troubled times – frightening and thoroughly disturbing.

Although, of course, we’ll start seeing that extra £350m a week going to the NHS now we’re properly Brexiting. Won’t we?