Friday, April 24, 2020

My thoughts on Covid-19

Before I start this blog post, I have to apologise to all the people that comment......I can't work out why, but I can't reply. I thought it was just that I was trying to reply on my phone, but I can't seem to reply on the laptop either.......so if anyone knows what I'm doing wrong let me know....I use blogger.

For a while now, I've been interested with the idea of "the village community". I've always "done" better when I've been part of a community - be it the school community when the kids were young, our farming community or the market community when I was doing them. I think it's a natural human emotion to want to belong to a community.

One thing they've found in two of the Blue Zones that I know anything about, is that community played a large part in people surviving into their 100's. Both Okinawa and Sardina list traditional diet and lifestyle and the community surrounding them as factors to longevity. Community in this sense means family, friends and the village community. Often several generations live under one roof. We currently have 2 generations under one roof - will that mean that we'll live a longer life!

So, if community is such a big factor in health and wellness, what is happening now that we are self isolating. Grand parents are being encouraged not to see grandchildren and vice versa.  Fortunately, thanks to technology, contact can be maintained, even if it doesn't include a hug! There is a growing sense of community amongst various facebook groups and this is also good for most of us, but the extreme extroverts are probably struggling! I find that the sort of groups I'm in or the pages I follow are trying to keep up more regular contact and a conversation happening, even if it is only online.

One solution I thought of for a slow coming out of isolation, is to try and stick to small community areas. For example, we live near Bungendore and most of the essential items we need are available there. We could set up "working hubs" so that office workers could work together but on their own work externally still. At least they would be working "with" people. If there happened to be a covid outbreak it could be monitored and traced back to where it started. If many people got it, then it could still be contained within that community.

The benefit of that would be that local shops and local producers are supported and people can start moving about within their community instead of being isolated. We're pretty lucky that there are five of us in this house and we go out each saturday to the local farmers market. Some people could be in a household of 1 or 2! That would be very lonely!

What will the other side of Covid-19 look like? People are learning or re-learning skills. Gardens are being planted. Chickens being bought. Bread being made. Parents are home-schooling. People are shopping at farmers markets or direct from farmers. No one is going out for coffee! People aren't travelling, planes aren't flying and cars not driving! So many things that Climate Change Activists have been campaigning for for a long time. We've been trying to get people to take a look at their lifestyles and make some of these changes. I'm not sure if there is any noticeable difference in carbon in the atmosphere - some say there is and some say not. But surely if we could keep it up, there would be changes!


We're aiming for self sufficiency with eggs. Having a grandchild around is also going to increase our resilience!


Supporting local producers - good for community resilience.

I also acknowledge that there has been a lot of economic damage done, but maybe we just need to change aspects of our industry and business world. One thing that has been highlighted is our reliance on imports (and exports). We don't make things in Australia any more, so we may have to re-skill some of our baristas to become factory workers. We have all the raw materials that we need to make most things, so maybe we need to start making our own things. Like toilet paper and packaging, basic things that we rely on buying from overseas.

We only need one of these stickers!

We certainly need to look at being a little more self sufficient - both at a Country level and a local level. Being more self sufficient and less reliant on imported products, will make us more resilient. I think we need to be careful that our self isolation does not destroy our sense of community and that we can continue to be involved in community while also maintaining sensible distancing efforts. We are also lucky in Australia that we seem to be keeping things under control with very few new cases, but I also think we need to be careful to move away from isolation slowly to prevent uncontrolled outbreaks.

So take care out there - keep a physical distance, but not an emotional distance.

7 comments:

  1. Yes I do hope that we keep the best things about isolation in our lives after all this. Opening up within our small communities sounds like a good idea. You might check your settings on your blog and see if anyone can post comments. I now blog at https://africanaussiegoesgreen.com/

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    1. thanks....obviously blogger doesn't like apple macs or safari. I'll pop over to your blog and have a look. cheers, Lucy

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  2. Thanks for the tip, but it didn't make any difference when using safari. If this works, it means I need to use google instead!

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  3. Have you read Grown & Gathered two books and their last one called "The Village" these are excellent talks about the happiest people in the world and generational living etc. One benefit of little to no planes flying and factories not polluting the air is climate change so the world is getting a "breather" as a benefit of this pandemic. Not seeing elderly parents and family is the hardest during all of this. I think The Barefoot Investor "save 6 months of your income for a MOJO account in case of emergency] is even more so important now to people however with loss of income, wages etc. that may prove difficult for sometime to come however the comfort of knowing you had 6 months of bills, food money etc if you lost your job would be of great security and this is a perfect example of "the unexpected". No one in their wildest dreams would have imagined the world as it is right now. Yes, everyone is making bread, growing veggies and getting chickens...there will be some good come out of this and people may reassess their "busyness" of their lives before CV19. No one is running around before or after school activities, families are eating dinner together with the Dads home [if they are not essential workers] and/or if they are now working from home. It's been a huge wake up for life in general. Stay safe. Kathy, Brisbane

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    1. Hi Kathy (sorry I didn't reply earlier)
      I have the village and love it but have only read G&G as a library borrow. Great books! Things are now coming back to normal and I really worry that people will just go back to living how they did before covid, but maybe they'll keep growing and making food because it just tastes so much better! and yes, that will continue to benefit our world.

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  4. Some excellent points here Lucy. Although I'm one of those who is perfectly comfortable being in isolation, I am mindful of those extroverts who are struggling. Especially young families with both parents working from home at the same time as homeschooling children. I've been thinking a lot about the people who had no savings at all to weather a crisis which Kathy (above) has mentioned. I can see many silver linings that this pandemic has caused, whilst obviously acknowledging the heartbreaking death toll. If people don't learn something from all this, then nothing ever will help them to 'get' it. People need to get back to community, self reliance, taking responsibility for themselves particularly in a financial sense. I know I'd be howled down if I mentioned the reckless spending that so many people persist in doing, living above their means and surviving on credit. They are the first to claim the Govt assistance that is being handed out so freely, with little regard to who is going to fund this spending in the generations to come. Folks like us who have lived frugally and saved a nest egg to get ourselves through a crisis claim nothing from the government. There is no incentive for people to do what we have done. It makes me wonder, seriously it does make me shake my head in disbelief at the lack of financial logic in our society.

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  5. I like isolation too, but I'm glad to be able to visit family and maybe start making some friends down here. I so agree with your comments! But am concerned that some people won't learn from this covid time. And yep I love frugal living too!

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