How Times Change

Shops and restaurants may be slowly opening up, but we have to accept that things may not be as they were for a long time

I can’t believe it was only a few months ago that I wrote in this column about how excited I was that theme parks were set to open for the season. A few weeks later, we were confined to our New York City apartment, with home HEPA filters and ambulance sirens our new constant soundtrack. We watched in disbelief as our friends and family in countries with rising numbers of COVID-19 cases blithely tripped out to the pub, to the cinema, to restaurants, to school, to the office. We began to feel like emissaries from a traumatised future, shouting down video calls, “Get inside!” and “Wear a mask!”, and “It’s coming for you next!”. No one believed us. We felt the same impotent rage as the person who sees clearly while everyone else disregards them in every disaster movie ever made.