Coping with COVID-19

VERANDA TALK: Dr Airdre Grant discusses the importance of learning how to cope amid COVID-19 crisis.

BE CAUTIOUS: A COVID-19 poster. Picture: David Crosling

HUBRIS, as I understand it, is when your well-developed sense of importance is so strong that your vanity gets the better of you and you are unable to see when you are making a fool of yourself.

And in these strange rapidly changing times social media we see the best and the worst of humanity.

Madonna filmed herself in a bath tub of rose petals in her mansion to explain to us how coronavirus is the great equaliser. This was not well received.

It is an egregious example of hubris. Tone deaf one might suggest.

A social influencer worried about unchecked eyebrow growth and that the Botox doctors have stopped business.

She urged her followers (who are these followers, one wonders) to relax their makeup routines in the pandemic.

Gosh, thanks for that tip. Really focusing on the important issues

Some people who had been placed in hotels (some five star) in Australia, at the governments expense, to do their quarantine complained loudly that the food delivered to their rooms was too carb heavy and compared their conditions as exactly the same as being in a detention camp.

I am not sure those in the camps would agree that being in a serviced hotel for two weeks matches their experience.

That, my friends, is hubris.

A doctor in India posted words to the effect – find yourself in isolation? Be glad you have a house. Need to wash your hands? Be grateful you have running water. Asked to social distance? Try doing that in a crowded slum.

In New Zealand, where the lockdown is much stricter, the Government has introduced what the population have referred to as a Bonk Ban.

If you live apart from your partner going to visit them for what might coyly be referred to as ‘comfort’ this is to cease.

Stay home and we will get through this more quickly, said the much-loved Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

People find ways to cope.

There is much that is amusing, creative and good.

Some dress up in amusing outfits to take the bins out (look up the Facebook page Bin Isolation Outing), others join sewing groups to make masks and scrubs or sing online choirs. While there was a rush on toilet paper and hand sanitiser, there is also sharp rise in the sale of seedlings, DIY equipment along with sex toys and associated paraphernalia such as teledildonic devices (look it up).

We are all finding our way through in a time of great uncertainty.

We need each other and our essential goodness.

Stay safe. Be well.

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