The times they are (barely) changing
We’re staying home, the shops are empty – Guy Kelly pits the pandemic against the pingdemic
‘Nostalgic” probably isn’t the right word, but it certainly makes you feel oddly stuck in a time loop: the BBC headline “Covid: Shoppers told there is no need to panic buy”, accompanied by photographs of empty supermarket shelves, next to other stories about rising cases, Brits enraged by cancelled holidays, and incoherent government advice …
Sixteen months on, we are in the grip of another crisis: the “pingdemic”. The NHS contact tracing app is picking us off like sitting ducks, taking pupils out of school, forcing us to stay at home, driving everybody a little bit mad.
It’s the pandemic vs the pingdemic. They look the same, they feel the same, they even sound the same. But there are differences…
Shopping Pandemic
The lavatory roll aisles looked as if the nation’s curry clubs had all met the night before. Stores monitored how many items people had in their trolleys. A fear that off-licences would be deemed non-essential led to queues at corner shops. Hot tubs sold out, and Peloton bikes. Boris Johnson was forced to urge shoppers to be “reasonable and considerate”.
Were we? Were we heck. We packed our little pandemic shelters to the hilt.
Pingdemic
Shelves aren’t necessarily empty because everybody’s buying the lot, rather that the number of retail workers forced to self-isolate is affecting supply. The Co-op is “running low on some products”; Iceland fears store closures.
But it’s not loo roll we’re after. No, we want paddling pools, outdoor projectors for the summer of sport, at-home lateral flow tests and, yeah, booze. And we want them now.
Travel Pandemic
“I must give the British people a very simple instruction: you must stay at home,” Mr Johnson implored, on March 23 2020. Flights ground to a near-halt. Then, weirdly, summer came and we were allowed abroad. On July 6 2020, 111 days after the Foreign Office warned against foreign travel, holidaymakers were able to go to most of Europe, plus the Caribbean, without needing to isolate on return. The “summer of staycations” didn’t really materialise.
Pingdemic
Owing to Test and Trace adding jeopardy to each day – plus the maddeningly changing traffic light system – the norm is to have eight overseas holidays booked, then needing to cancel seven of them, before deciding it’ll be safer just to find the only campsite with space in the entire country (a farmer’s field in Kidderminster, £112 per pitch) for a week in the rain with your in-laws.
Politicians
Pandemic
The most powerful people in the country, struck down and forced to isolate, leaving us leaderless when we need them most.
Pingdemic
The most powerful people in the country, struck down and forced to isolate, leaving us leaderless when we need them most.
Socialising Pandemic
It happened in stages. House Party (remember that app we all used once?), then Zoom quizzes, then Zoom calls, then chatting to our neighbours for the first time in 11 years. Then we could meet outdoors in groups of up to six from different households – meaning a big night out involved drinking warm, tinned gin and tonics in the park.
Then came July 4, when pubs and restaurants opened, and we could meet indoors. A possibly ill-advised “Eat Out to Help Out” summer followed, before another lockdown. Christmas, you’ll recall, was cancelled.
Pingdemic
Pubs, restaurants, nightclubs – all open, some without any caveats, others with the threat of Covid passports hanging over them. Going out is fraught with danger, though. The disease still lurks, but perhaps more likely is that you’ll pay for those few pints with the inevitable trill of Test and Trace.
You either risk it or cancel everything in order to wait for your PCR test to arrive, before keeping yourself fresh and sanitary for a bigger plan – a holiday, a family event, a wedding, a birthday – further down the track.
Childcare Pandemic
Homeschooling hell. Why aren’t teachers paid £1m per year?
Pingdemic
Homeschooling hell, again. Almost a quarter of pupils (1.7m) were out of school last week, including a million children forced to selfisolate because of a case at school – a 32 per cent increase in the space of a week.
Sport Pandemic
Football in the park banned, the Euros postponed, Wimbledon cancelled.
Pingdemic
Enough live sport on TV to mean you reasonably don’t have to leave your sofa. Only, the sport is unsettling. Tens of thousands of fans at the Euro 2020 final? Uh oh. No fans at the Olympics? Oh dear. Playing football in your safe, Covid-secure garden against a wall, with nobody else, where even the app can’t get you? Just right.
Conversation Pandemic
“We must come together as one, revive the Blitz Spirit, share banana bread with our fellow man, support the NHS. When will we meet again? Whenever the fates allow…”
Pingdemic
“ANOTHER F***ING PING. I haven’t even been anywhere! Oh I am absolutely over this. No, Janet next door, do not talk to me. You are trespassing.”