Diary of Spain in Lockdown - Boris Johnson announces he has coronavirus

Friday 27 March - Boris Johnson tests positive

The British Prime Minister and the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, both have coronavirus. Perhaps now they’ll take the situation more seriously. Their blasé attitude towards the disease and their misjudged strategy of herd immunity seems to have lost the country precious time. The USA is another one to watch; just last week we saw videos of youngsters on Spring Break defiantly ignoring coronavirus warnings, and the president, who seems to be living in a parallel universe, talking about opening business up again before Easter. In Spain the numbers of dead continue to soar, with another 773 poor souls losing their lives in the past 24 hours. We’re further ahead than the USA and we’ve still not even reached the peak, yet Trump is talking about beating the disease in two weeks while not implementing any of the necessary means to fight it.

This evening there was the almost daily showing of appreciation for health workers. Even here in our leafy suburb of l’Eliana we heard the cheers, clapping and banging of pots and pans at 8pm. And the support was answered by the medical staff themselves who sounded their sirens in response.

Meanwhile, we have completed our first two weeks of confinement and are all in good health so far. And still talking to each other, no mean feat, being crammed forced together 24/7. Nobody goes out except Juan, who goes to the supermarket and to work two mornings a week. And when he brings the shopping in, I unwrap or wash everything before putting it away. And for things that can’t be washed and don’t need to go in the fridge, we quarantine the whole bag in the spare room for a few days.

The first week of online schooling has now been completed and what an exhausting week it has been. And how many new skills we are all learning. But how much extra work it generates.

Like most people I can’t help but wonder how long this situation will last. The state of alarm continues until 12^th April at least. But when we look at China, people there are only now beginning to come outside gradually, two months after they were locked down. For the time being at least it seems lockdown is here to stay.