Love in the time of Coronavirus (I)

The supermarket Is still only five minutes by car from home, but inside it's not what it used to be two weeks ago. It looks a bit like being in an apocalyptic movie. A cheap one. First of all: the silence. The underground parking lot is almost empty and the barrier at the entrance is already lifted, so that I don't need to push the button to get the ticket. Thoughtful. I get out from the driver's seat and start walking towards the entrance, while waiting for a zombie to come out of nowhere and chase me back into the car. The ambiance music is appropriate and just waiting to escalate abruptly for the danger scene. Amusing. I go up the escalator to find a non negligible amount of red and white tape that tells me where to go. Well. Mostly where "not" to go. I follow. The post office is closed and so are all other shops and restaurants of this tiny Swiss mall. The supermarket is open, as announced. Apparently I have to queue just to enter. There are signs on the floor, two meters apart and people keeping the distance. Nobody talks. Few make eye contact and it feels like it's something we should not do. I do it anyway and most people look away. Before entering I have to take a plastic ticket with a number that has just been disinfected by a lady in orange. It seems to be her only job and she is really good at it, for what I can see. She tells me I have to use the dispenser in front of me to disinfect my hands before going in and I wonder what would happen if I started to run towards the dairy section without doing what I am told. I clean my hands, of course. The silence and the music continue among the aisles. One of the employees seems cheerful and smiles a lot. But he is the only one. People with shopping carts see me from a distance and I can guess they are planning how to avoid me if I were to be headed their way. I smile. I fill up the cart, trying not to forget anything: fruits, vegetables, canned stuff, dry stuff, frozen stuff, bread, and baby stuff. I have a list on the phone, but I am not good with lists. The cart fills up quickly and I find pretty much everything I was looking for. However the lockdown seems to have made a few victims on the shelves:  no hand sanitizer of course, the pasta is almost finished, only very expensive toilet paper (5+ layers of silk-like fabric) is left to buy, no bay bay leaves, no ground cinnamon, and no sesame seeds. The last three missing items make me elaborate on some complex conspiracy theories. I arrive at the check out and all the cashiers are protected by a plexiglass barrier. The lady that helps me is very kind and the transaction proceeds smoothly. I go back to the cart, load the car and come back home. Still five minutes. No traffic. I take the elevator up to our apartment and I text my wife to come help me because I decided I don't want to enter with the clothes I wore at the supermarket. Silly, I know - Judge me not. As a brief parenthesis, I have to add that the day before my wife injured her eye and has to avoid too much light for a couple of days. She opens the door with sunglasses on and a worried face. I proceed to hand to her a bag of tangerines while wearing only underwear and a t-shirt in what must be the most ridiculous drug-dealing scene ever performed. We start laughing like idiots...



What got me thinking, of all of this, is how easily and fast the reality changed (and I do not mean the sunglasses-underwear exchange). People avoid meeting and talking outside and all non-essential shops are closed. If someone were to wake up from a coma today and go outside, without being prepped on the last few weeks of events, this could look like Switzerland had suddenly become a communist-like dictatorship. Everybody complying to the official messages from the state as all gatherings of people are readily dispersed by the police. Here, the punishment can go up to five years of prison.



I don't know how exactly to express this thought. But the thing is that we all have known for a while what had to be done in terms of social distancing, staying at home, and all the individual actions needed to "flatten the curve". The news from Italy and China, the never ending reminders to wash our hands, the countless videos and articles from respected scientists telling us what had to be done already yesterday. Already one week ago. Nevertheless, we had to be forced to. Nobody closed his or her shop before the law came to be. Nobody protected supermarket employees before the emergency was declared. Nobody (or very few) started home officing early on. Nobody stopped meetings and gatherings before they were officially forbidden. We had to be told. We had to be scared into it. We had to be forced to do it and this behavior can make a big difference. Social consciousness had to be forced down our throats. We did not come together independently. I understand this, of course. I don't live on Mars. However this is just the beginning. These are just the first two, three, four, five weeks of complete lockdown. More to come? And after that? We will need to control the spread of the virus, we will need to avoid a second wave, we will need to go back to a "slightly" different normality. We will be told how and when we can get our freedoms back. We will have to rely on some authority to know which freedoms we are allowed to take back... for now.






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