On Good Friday a local worthy put on the Roman centurion armour he usually wears during the procession and paraded with it up and down the street in Madliena where he lives while someone in the background played recorded funereal music by the La Vallette Band.
It was a hoot to enliven the day and also the Covid 19 lockdown. One is continually surprised by the creative inventiveness of people.
The lockdown has deeply changed the way we live. People today yearn and desire the lockdown to end and for life to return to the way we were.
We are also encouraged by the other countries that are easing their lockdown although in those countries we look upon as our models the easing has not begun yet and will in any case be a very limited one and carried out under the strictest supervision.
Compared to them our lockdown has not been that strict. We did not have police fining people just for being out nor did we have helicopters or drones descend on people enjoying a BBQ on their roofs nor did we have to carry a paper to state why we were out of our homes. Yet each and every instance I have just given was the experience of people in Italy and the UK. Nor did we have to wear a facemask on the streets.
And till now we have been quite safe. The number of infected people has remained rather low as has the number of deaths (at least till the time of writing – 11am on Friday). The number of tests almost among the highest in Europe and on Thursday we were told, almost as an afterthought, that we have gone down to below the 1:1 infection rate which is a proportion taken as an important benchmark in such cases.
We say this even considering that there have been many who were cavalier with the lockdown rules, both Maltese and foreigners going out for no reason, having parties in homes, and people at risk seeming to find every excuse to go out.
Some, like the local worthy I mentioned at the beginning, played on the borderline. This, I think, has been happening in religious and para-religious matters – a number of single-person pilgrimages, for instance.
Once again, this was not just our experience – police in Paris busted an old-rite Mass with the presence of a number of people and in Cremona, Italy the police tried to stop a Mass that was being said with people present, but did not succeed.
People have been showing on the social media they have had it up to here with the lockdown. Facebook has moved from people showing what they have cooked to sharing photos from 20 years back. Parents with children did show at the beginning their children's art efforts but these have now petered out. In other countries, it has been found that e-learning at a young age does not seem to have worked.
But the most important thing is that we have been safe, very safe, compared to some of our neighbours. For that we are very thankful.
And in a way, we have grown used to some of the restrictions. People have grown used to staying in – well, maybe some people. Our streets are less chaotic, there is less pollution in the air (this is also the experience of other countries, such as India) and even the hospital is seeing less people, just those who really need it, compared to all those who used to treat hospital as just another health centre.
On the other hand, in dysfunctional families, the tension has ratcheted up.
I think the main problem to be faced by the health authorities regards those activities that attract big numbers such as sports, festas and the like. That brings with it the danger of exposure to people who may be carriers. This is what happened after the infamous Atalanta vs Valencia game at San Siro which infected all Bergamo with tragic consequences.
I know other countries are playing around with restarting national leagues in the coming weeks but I would like to wait and see what happens even though the pressure to reopen must be tremendous.
Maybe as a half-way solution, one can consider a proposal made by professor Stefan Flasche epidemiologist and mathematical modeller, of what he calls 'contact clustering'.
The idea is based on another aspect of the lockdown – the loneliness especially of the elderly who have been deprived of their grandchildren, etc. And also toddlers missing out on crucial social skills.
In short, this model is that instead of keeping strictly to socialising within their own households, a couple of families or even a group of friends could agree to form an exclusive social pod.
Everyone in it would still avoid anything but essential contact with outsiders, but within the circle of trust, they could relax and let their guard down. Children could play together, adults might pool home-schooling duties to give themselves time to work and lonely single people could find someone to hang out with.
In the Maltese context, this might work for grandparents and extended families.
A Belgian committee has proposed letting groups of up to 10 people meet socially once a week, as long as it's always the same 10. In Israel, up to three families can share childcare.
It may be hard to properly police this though many have been obeying these unusual lockdown orders. But the longer the lockdown lasts, the greater the risk of desperate people starting to relax the rules off their own bat.
Something tells me this is already happening here.
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