Life in lockdown continues. We are doing our best to cope but it can be difficult. My son has adjusted well to things, better than we expected given how much he hates to be locked in the house all day. We have food and we have entertainment. My son and I are watching Disney+, the new streaming service that just launched in the UK. Lots of Netflix and YouTube.

I’ve managed to get in some time to play Monster Hunter World with my friends, which is good. It’s almost funny that it takes a global pandemic to free up enough of our schedule that we can all get online at the same time. This has literally not happened for years. It’s a pretty thin silver lining.

My schedule of 7am for work continues, and it hasn’t gotten any easier. We are also eating a lot more, especially snacking, probably out of boredom. We just try to endure.

So how is everyone else doing? Starting locally my brother seems to have made a full recovery. My Mother so far seems ok, so it’s conceivable that she is correct about having had it earlier and being lucky with the symptoms. I would have thought we would have been exposed as well if that was the case but no symptoms at all from our side. We were very mildly ill a few months ago but I doubt we’re that lucky.

We’ve been promised tests will be appearing soon that will let us know if we’ve got COVID-19 antibodies. Apparently Amazon have agreed to handle logistics for this. Anyone who’s been asked to self-quarantine should be getting one for free, and they should become available in pharmacies soon as well. I hope this is true.

In worse news my father informed me this morning that his aunt has died from COVID-19. I haven’t really had any contact with the aunt and uncle since I was very young, and don’t really remember her, but it’s sad all the same.

In Scotland today the numbers are 1993 confirmed cases and 60 deaths. We have 547 cases in Glasgow. The lockdown has been pretty successful, on the whole, although there has been a spate of burglaries in all the empty shops. As a result many of the local shops and bars have boarded themselves up. The result is a much more apocalyptic look to an empty city.

More broadly the police have gotten powers to stop and charge people who are violating the lockdown. There has been some mild controversy about the way these are being applied because police in England used a drone to buzz people in a car park at a nature walk, then posted the footage on Twitter. People pointed out that as long as they’re maintaining social distance it’s within the rules of the lockdown to go and get exercise like that. It looks like the police around the UK will wind their necks in a bit after that but there’s a general expectation that they will slowly get more comfortable with these new powers. There’s a lot of concern that they might get too comfortable but that remains to be seen.

For the rest of the world; Italy’s numbers are heartbreaking, but they seem to finally be getting a handle on the situation. Lots of news today about how they are “flattening the curve”. Spain continues to struggle, but everyone is trying to replicate the success that South Korea has had in getting this under control. But that means testing, testing testing; and it seems like that is harder than it sounds, because plenty of first-world countries are having a really hard time ramping that up.

As for the USA, things have went from bad to worse. Last week they became the country with the most cases, then the number of cases just keep going up and up. They brought a Navy Hospital ship into New York to deal with the amount of cases. In an incredible lack of tact, someone decided it made sense to turn the Empire State Building into a giant red siren. It looks utterly horrifying, and is probably the last thing the people of NYC want to see.

So in summary, people continue to get sick and die, and we continue to hide at home hoping we don’t get it.