Covid Guilt

Pack of toilet rolls tucked under my left arm, I exit the supermarket and make my way to the travellator.

It’s when I’m heading downwards towards the exit that I first notice.

A woman in her thirties glares at me. She makes eye contact then looks away. Given that she, like most of us, wears a face mask, it is difficult to be certain, but I feel judged in that split second.

As I step from the moving belt at the bottom, an old chap looks at me. He looks angry.

That’s when it hits me.

I’m carrying a large package of toilet paper!

An eight pack of quality Quilton, to be precise. Double length, three ply softness.

Hell!

Do they believe that I’m one of those people who panics during lockdowns because of Covid? One of those dimwits who needlessly stock up on industrial size quantities of toilet rolls, despite the fact that supermarkets have never closed to the public during any lockdown in my country?

Or, worse, one of those idiots who, in extreme cases, get into scuffles in a Supermarket aisle, screaming as they try to wrest a pack of toilet rolls from a similarly hysterical rival customer (the video later appears on social media, where comments are universally savage - and where nobody ever admits that they too are hoarding toilet paper).

I want to yell that I am innocent.

‘No, wait, really. You just don’t understand! We are just running low at the house and I’m doing what I would always do at this stage – buying some toilet paper’, I imagine myself imploring.

Another part of the brain cautions, however.

‘Hang on. You don’t know that these people are judging you. Maybe they just think you look fit. You are dressed in sports gear, after all. Or is she wondering if you are handsome behind that tie dye mask? And maybe the grumpy old bastard is just that - a grumpy old bastard’.

I understand there and then that I am suffering from Covid Guilt.

‘Covid Guilt: the fear that one’s behavior during the current pandemic will be associated with the behavior of a vocal and stupid minority’ (yep, my own definition).

Covid Guilt is that feeling you get when you want to cough in public during a tense lockdown. You initially hold back, thinking for sure people around you will think you have the dreaded virus.

You don’t want people thinking that you’re being irresponsible, being out while sick and spreading the disease. But you suddenly start sneezing anyway.

You can hold back no longer and start to cough uncontrollably, albeit for a short time. People give you a wide berth and glare at you like you are a serial killer.

‘No, wait’, you want to say. ‘You don’t understand. I’m fully vaccinated, for Christ’s sake! I’ve always had allergies and sometimes cough and sneeze …’.

There was a time when one could have a sneeze, a cough and buy toilet paper without being judged.

Halcyon days, gone forever.

The days, not so long ago, when ordinary people had never heard of concepts like ‘social distancing’, of ‘contact tracing’ (or, where I live, of the QR app for check-ins). A time when mainly only bank robbers and orthodox Muslim females wore masks in public.

But living with the variants of covid19 is the ‘new normal’. Many of us are judging each other. Society is polarizing, anger is growing.

(I know this because I judge people too. But I digress).

I’ve felt the guilt when out exercising during harder lockdowns. I’m wearing a mask when I’m near people, as directed, I’m taking it off when nobody is around, as permitted. Yet I feel inexplicably furtive.

I’ve definitely been judged by that mask wearing person who is suddenly nearly on top of me as we meet on a blind corner.

‘I was wearing a mask! I was being responsible. I just didn’t know you were coming!’ I feel like saying.

But I say nothing.

But something has gradually shifted in me over the past 18 months.

My initial guilt morphed into bewilderment at the strange beliefs of a small but vocal minority of citizens.

Ah no, 5G is not causing coronavirus.

Then I became increasingly intolerant of this vocal minority.

An example is the dozens of cars at the loud party up the street on the first night of the latest strict lockdown, where visitors were temporarily forbidden in homes.

Yep, I reported that one. That was me. Sorry, but you were being irresponsible, self-entitled idiots.

Then there are those who walk around shopping centres at the height of lockdowns/outbreaks not wearing the masks as mandated.

Dickheads.

There are the simpletons of all ages who wear masks around their chins or have their noses fully exposed!

How is that going to help anybody??

And those who bang against you at the checkout in stores, oblivious to the filthy looks that you then give them for invading your precious space!

Or the people who think that they are being clever for exploiting a loophole or grey area by walking in crowded areas whilst drinking or munging down on fast food.

They look smug to me. I can see their beady little eyes, the arrogant shits.

‘But I’m eating/drinking. I’m allowed to have the mask off for that’, I imagine them saying.

Yeah, right. Tell that to COVID19. I’m sure the disease will leave you alone or all those vulnerable people you are potentially – and selfishly – exposing to a miserable illness and even death. Take some personal responsibility.

Fuckwits.

Above all, there are those who protest against the restrictions and the disease in defiance of health advice and the law. Many don’t wear masks, making it not only easy to spread illness and thereby make the lockdown longer, but also easy for police to identify them! I’m fairly certain that protesting against the disease will not help it become less real.

I don’t just feel anger. I still feel some Covid Guilt. It’s not because I am a wonderful, thoughtful person. It is more that I’m a bit judgmental myself, so I understand if somebody judges me.

I judge other people who don’t understand the need for some tough rules while we gradually overcome this new health crisis. Call me elitist, but I don’t want to be lumped in with those who are keeping this tricky disease more active than it needs to be.

I always thought that I was a quiet rebel until recently. I’ve been known to steal one or two apples from a tree when passing an apple orchard in the country, for instance, rationalizing that it would not hurt anyone.

But there is a time for using one’s ‘commonsense’. It is a concept which seems in short supply at the moment. Yes, I’m know - ‘back in my day, things were better’ sort of thing.

Stop falling for conspiracy theories and spreading misinformation, people. Just because some shock-jock or cable TV channel claims something doesn’t mean it is true. Just because an old school friend who struggled to pass high school shares a post on social media doesn’t mean it is true (in fact, when you cross reference the evidence from more reputable sources, most of the time it will be a polar opposite of the truth).

You’re not somehow smarter than all the scientists or the majority who are doing the right thing.

You’re gullible, quite frankly. And often cowardly in your anonymous trolling on social media.

Do you really believe that political leaders from all nations, who can’t agree on anything else, are somehow ‘in on’ a global conspiracy to fool us? And for what possible motives?

Listen to the science. Respect that some people have spent much of their lives studying and preparing for pandemics. Guess what? They know more than you about this stuff!

The evidence speaks for itself nearly two years into the pandemic.

Get vaccinated when it is available to you. Get a booster when you can. Social distance where possible. Wear a mask if you need - and wear it properly.

Just be sensible.

Then I can walk out of a Supermarket, toilet paper under my arm, cough a bit and hold my head high.

Hell, I may not even need to wear a mask sometime in the next few years.

Do it and stop looking for conspiracies.

Just stop being a bunch of dickheads.