The Virus Diaries: Am I a covidiot?
Seeing people ignoring government guidelines to go have fun on a beach is infuriating. And I’m sooo jealous. There are a lot of people around the world making terrible, life-threatening choices and there is an intense social and legal backlash.
Socially speaking, I recommend not engaging directly with anyone. If you’re certain someone is breaking the law, please call the police and let them decide and/or deal with it. One of the dangers of being disabled is being a target of righteous yet misdirected rage. Every disabled person who’s not actually paralysed from the waist or higher has had someone yell at them for parking in a disabled spot, sometimes in an incredibly scary and upsetting way. Someone on my fibromyalgia support group went shopping during the special disabled-only hours and was yelled at due to not “looking” disabled (I can virtually guarantee she is overweight too—firstly because she has fibromyalgia, and secondly because people see “fat” and assume “lazy” and “selfish”). She also had her two kids with her because she’s a single parent and they are too young to stay at home.
So. Please don’t yell at someone who you think is breaking the rules. You don’t know their story.
Last night I spent a long time looking at the ACT Health guidelines, trying to figure out if our family of four could stand outside the grandparents’ windows to talk to them. I still don’t know. I know there’s a two-person rule for non-essential outings, and I know to social distance during said meeting… but I don’t know if that means we can visit grandparents in the same city. Did I break the law by taking my two kids to visit my mum’s backyard, or is it okay because they were exercising and I was picking up masks?
What about when I was filming the reading of Farting My ABCs, and I took the kids to a variety of pretty locations nearby that I thought would be isolated (I realised belatedly that we should have stayed off paths so it was easier to stay clear of other people walking or riding bikes)? Definitely not essential, and not technically exercise (although it was a lot of exercise for me because walking 50m is a big deal)… but I thought it was okay at the time. I’d better not do anything like that again.
Are we allowed to drive to odd (isolated) locations (in our own state) to exercise? Ugh, I don’t know.
I guess not? Because if everyone did it the entire outside world would be far too crowded. So we’re meant to stick “in our neighbourhood” even on permitted exercise breaks.
Resource of the day: For what it’s worth, ACT Health.
Recommended donation of the day: Salvos. I’ve heard some bad things about Salvos refusing to help some people for “Christian” (that is, anti-LGBTIQA+) reasons but I’m afraid I don’t know anything for sure. But they’re a big organisation with pre-existing connections to a lot of poor or struggling people, so that’s useful at the moment.
Personal action of the day: Sort your pantry and put anything you don’t want anymore out on the street with a ‘free’ sign for others to take.
Recommended hoarding item of the day: Good running/walking shoes. (I wrote this entry before deciding to stop recommending things to buy.)
Felicity Banks 
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