I’m in isolation. Two jabs and pretty much zero human contact in the previous week besides my family yet, somehow, a simple hug ‘hello’ was probably all it took to get myself some second-hand Covid. The Euros final weekend of super-spreader parties in mid-July got a lot of us, right?
Judging by the Covid numbers in the last week, I’d imagine a lot of you were in the same boat in mid-July. Whether it’s due to my vaccine helping (pro-vaxxers) or because I’m not over 80 and don’t have underlying health conditions (anti-vaxxers), it was among the mildest colds I’ve ever had. Sure, there were some freaky headaches and more paracetamol in a few days than I’d usually like, but it was really only the total lack of smell that was my coronavirus ‘tell’. If this was 2018, I wouldn’t have even really noticed and just gone about my business.
While considering appropriate analogies to introduce our ‘flexible’ edition, the situations that have affected me this month made me realise what a moving target it is/was getting (or not getting) Covid. Mask-wearing/not mask-wearing aside, after a trip to the UK, I had my ‘day 8’ (the test that replaced the day 5 and day 10) test looming and even though I’d got a ‘ping’ telling me not to bother (after one to say I should go) I went along and got tested anyway. I was set to go and visit my parents and didn’t want to chance it on their behalf. Ironically, I pretty much opted-in to a positive result, as it seems the policy this month is now ‘get tested if you feel like it’. After flexing the test schedules, flexing the option to even have a test, I was now in up to 20 days of isolation. Great. Thankfully the addition of two hours a day of freedom to us isolated types, it’s meant that, well, we’re not really isolated!??! And just as we go to print, the period of isolation is taken down to 10 days. Rules of dealing with Covid? Stay flexible.
Over the coming pages, we have flexible people, flexible workspaces, artists with flexible approaches to recycling, our family law feature and some fantastic fashion and jewellery shoots. We meet people who have adapted their lives to help during lockdown and are now making their way back to normality. I hope you’re able to do so too. I certainly will be. Just a few days to go…..
