The Corona Virus, Covid-19 and 2020.. as we all know these three terms have changed our lives forever. Just think, this time last year the terms ‘social distancing’, ‘self isolation’ and the whole concept of face masks being an everyday fashion accessory that you can personalize was far from everyone’s minds. But here we are in 2020, looking at our changed future. But what really is the Corona Virus, why has it effected our 2020 so much and how can we take advantage of this situation.
According to the World Health Organisation, the Corona Virus is a brand new virus which is part of a strand of other viruses which attacks the Respiratory (or breathing) System. The unique aspect of this virus is that its’ severity varies, from an effected person not showing any symptoms to a person unfortunately passing away from the disease. The main reason that the virus has caused most of our society to shutdown at times is due to this inconsistency in the severity of these symptoms. Along with this, the virus also can be easily transmitted and is able to travel through bodily fluids, meaning through thing such as coughs or sneezes of an infected individual.
As most of you would know, the disability community has been immensely effected by these changes. This impact has expanded from the changing in how we interact with our carers to some of us needing to self isolate for months at a time. Personally, although my disability, Cerebral Palsy, doesn’t affect my immune system I do have severe asthma it’s for this reason, and the fact that my carers have some clients with low immunity, that I spent about a month earlier in the year staying at home and having minimal carers come in. Being the manager of my care team, which I am also personally close to, some of my concern during this time was to ensure that my carers could remain financially steady. To overcome this challenge we thought up idea such as using my care team to complete tasks such as assisting me working on my fitness and helping me organise my clothes and house.
Along with these things, both my carers and I thought up ways to get out of the house but still remaining socially distant and safe. As we slowly became used to this new way of life we developed ways to continue our usual activities. These included doing as many outside activities as possible and at times using my care hours for my carers to collect items for me while I remained safe at home. Personally, I have found that adapting to this new way of life has been good for developing my creativity and adaptivity.
In terms of my life outside of my care routine and disability, I have been pretty lucky to already be mostly working from home as well as being an avid user of various social media platforms. I didn’t really feel like my ability to network with people changed a lot at all. Even with events such as catching up with people I organised to meet people in outdoor and spaced out seating or by video chat.
Overall, although we all have been shaken up by the outbreak of the Corona Virus this year, i feel that there’s ways to adapt to it and find the benefits of it as well such as developing our abilities to problem solve. I also feel that this is a great time to think about others including our carers. So discuss with others how we can all band together and turn this situation into a positive one.