As people squabble over lockdown, Covid-19 has become all too real for my family – John McLellan

John McLellan reports some stories from the Home Front of the Coronavirus War and the news that his father has tested positive for the virus and is in hospital with pneumonia.

People exercise in the Meadows near the unofficially renamed Coronation Walk (Picture: Neil Hanna)

Just like wartime mythology, what really happened to communities in the pandemic will be the stuff of books and research for years to come, but one advantage of social media is that the information is out there if you know where to look.

So here are some edited Tales from Edinburgh’s Home Front, some three weeks after the declaration of war, courtesy of Nextdoor… “My daughter was in the Meadows for her once-a-day exercise walk, and she sat at the bottom of the tree to rest when a lady with teenager came along and told her to move. She was told she is a disgrace and disgusting.”

“I just came back from Sainsbury’s. Members of the same family or house, with two full shopping trolleys. Was very clear that they were family doing the shopping together, and no-one from Sainsbury’s said anything.”

“I was walking with my five-year-old son for our daily exercise and happened to turn a blind corner. We could not see the person around the corner and accidentally entered the no-fly-zone. We got quite the tongue lashing. My son asked why the lady was so mad at us.”

“We’d formed a sensible queue distanced outside Post Office, then some pond life who thought he’d get his giro cashed quicker if he was queuing indoors ushered everyone inside telling them they’d be fine if they were “two FEET” apart. No one stood up to him.”

Spirit of the Blitz indeed.

Avoid pedestrian rush hours on Union Canal towpath

Readers may be familiar with the urban saying “You’re not in a traffic jam, you are the traffic jam”, and social media has become quite the place for Covid-19 traffic management, with messages about how unacceptably busy the supermarkets have been and that sort of thing.

The Union Canal towpath is becoming quite the flashpoint because of the narrow walkways, particularly at the bridges, with calls for Scottish Canals to close it altogether because of the numbers at what passes for the pandemic lunchtime and teatime rush hour.

As my home office window overlooks it I have the perfect view of comings and goings and from what I can see there are as many idiots who don’t observe the safe-distancing rules on pavements as on the towpath. And anti-social cycling long pre-dates this crisis.

My father has the virus and pneumonia

The virus situation changes so quickly that articles for print in advance need care to avoid being overtaken by events.

This week’s column was written with that in mind, because not only was the Prime Minister’s condition unclear by the time of submission but I too face uncertainty as my father was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow where he tested positive for the virus and, unlike the Prime Minster, developed pneumonia.

I confessed here a few weeks ago to my own scepticism but concluded I might be about to find out how easily the virus spread, but like most I didn’t really think my family would become a statistic. Ultimately, that’s what we all become.