Living and working in Covid times - Fear and precaution, livelihood vs health

The pandemic has changed everything we knew as a routine. Nothing has changed outwardly but everything has changed subtly. How much of the change is sustainable or how much of it is only a reaction for the short time only time will tell. This is same that happens when you attend someone funeral, you come back all knowledgeable about life and death, however within a short time you get back to your old self. In the meantime we need to get busy living or get busy dying

I have quarantined myself since yesterday when I heard that one of my colleague has been tested positive for corona. I did not spend time with him in the past or even had a meeting. I spoke to him for a couple of minutes with all the protection which was suggested. My mask was on all the time. I did not stand close to him and I kept on sanitising my hand. But since the time I realised that he has it , I have been feeling unwell. Now the issue is I don't know if this is real or psychosomatic. My symptoms right now are a little flushed hand and feet, a bit of constipation and acidity, and a little blockage of nose. By the way I am acidic and have blocked nose most of the time. So truly I have symptom of a little warm hands and feet which is new. However I am not taking chances. I have locked myself in my study. Nobody is coming in and going out. My food is kept on a table and I take them when people have moved out. The work continues and I feel strong.

You might be very scared of a disease and when you hear from the world you feel that if it happens to you it will be catastrophe but when the signs are close and you fear that you have it .. the whole emotion is rather underwhelming. Your mind gets into a mode of self preservation and then you normalise the disease. I don't have it till now ( or rather I am not showing any symptoms) but even then my mind has normalised it.

 The next thoughts are about you family. I was planning to get my mom, she stays alone and I thought that during this time it is better to get her so that we can face the pandemic together. But now I have suspended the plan and informed her of the development. Also I need to think of how to save the family for contracting it (if I have it offcourse which is another matter)

There is also an element what people, your neighbour , your children's friend will say once they find out. Will they talk about you kindly, will there be acceptance that you have been very careful, will they ask their kids not play with you .. what will be the repercussions. The questions are endless but I am going ahead of myself. 

Now the situation after 24 hours of being cooped in a room .. every little action is full of effort and lot of thought is needed. I think its a good time to do vipassna atleast on the weekend because on a normal day there a many calls to attend and mails to reply to. So on a normal day it doesn't seem like a great deal but on weekends it might be heavy and that too after seven days cooped up in a room. I am trying to now improve my immunity by having vit c but then its never too late to work on the immunity .. or it? How do you know that your immunity is up? are you ever ready to take on a such a challenge physically mentally? No way to know

The pandemic is far from peaking it is still going to new number and new geographies. I think we will have a successful vaccine by October but that means this year is a washout because we will need atleast a quarter to inoculate everyone in high density location. What we need as a group is to be safe till then. However its very difficult to continue to be inside home for more than 6 months which means all of us living in crowded places and working in regular offices are in grave danger of getting this desease. The natural corollary of this is that we need two separate instructions to deal with this crisis. One is avoidance and other one is dealing with it when you get it. Till now we are all taking about protection what we need is also discussion on what to do when we get this desease. It should be clear to everyone so that the patient knows what needs to be done and also the larger family also knows what to do if someone in the family get it