Another update from Madrid on the crisis…

Jason O’Toole, as noted before, well known to this parish, or collective or… well, whatever we all are, has another piece this week in the Irish Daily Mirror on life in Madrid under their lockdown. It is a disturbing picture which brings home the realities of life for many across the continent. And it is one that is yet more constrained than the situation in Ireland.

l’m sure many of you are beginning to relate to how I’m almost going stir-crazy as I fast approach my first month of a total lockdown in Spain.
But Ireland, mercifully, isn’t experiencing the same level of fear you get from being in a country where huge numbers are dropping like flies.
The death toll here is 12,418 and 130,759 cases.
Since March 14, I’ve only been permi tted to go food shopping or to the pharmacy. There’s no luxury of being allowed to get some fresh air.
But going outside is the last thing on your mind considering there were800-plus deaths every day last week.
It’s been diffic ult to buy food online with websites busy or crashing.
I was lucky to get a home delivery after a week of trying non-stop, but it arrived with many essential items missing, which defeats the purpose.

And he notes how terrifying a visit to the shops was, his first in many weeks. Also:

Irish people should count their blessings if they are able to continue exercising outside for the duration of this horrendous pandemic.
As someone who likes to run five times a week, I feel like a hamster trapped in a cage without his wheel.
But I didn’t have any sympathy for the jogger I watched being dragged, screaming and shouting into a police car when the lockdown first began.

With the military visible on the streets in Spain, this is not a lockdown but more like Martial law.

And as with many of us there are huge stresses:

Those brave souls working in pharmacies held a minute’s silence last Wednesday for eight colleagues who’ve died so far, with another 276 in quarantine.
The original 15-day lockdown here has been extended to April 25 with the Spanish PM admitting it could be even longer still.
I fear we won’t taste freedom again until at least June.
I can imagine many people will be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder when this ordeal is all over. It’s so mentally strenuous that I find it hard to read and my mind wanders when I try to watch TV.

And he argues that in some ways, and I think I know precisely what he means, ‘[he/we are]in a nightmarish version of Groundhog Day. I hope for all our sakes a vaccine is discovered soon.’

I’ve relatives too in Spain, close to Granada, and everything Jason says is spot-on with regard to their experience. Difficult times.