Person A and Person B are lone neighbours,
with little if anything ‘in common’,
but dwelling at reasonably ‘co-existent-peace’ with each other
and with the neighbourhood-and-world at large.
Person A occasionally plays old English tunes on a small Recorder,
and last Friday was so doing –
but his front door was open
and suddenly Person B stormed up to the door
shouting ‘stop that noise’, swearing and name-calling,
and went right up close to Person A
such that Person A could feel Person B’s
hot breathing strongly into Person A’s face.
———–
The incident over,
Person A is very worried
that the COVID-19 virus epidemic rules have been breached
and that not only might s/he have contracted the virus
from Person B’s breath
but strictly-speaking
Person B might have contracted the virus somehow;
and that this Situation needed to be reported to the Authorities immediately.
—————–
BUT
It is already Saturday and the GP Surgery is closed;
and apparently so is every other Authority
except the COVID-19 line dial 111.
Person A phones 111 and is advised to go online to them.
However, 111 online is only ‘open’ to people reporting actual symptoms
and can not receive nor even acknowledge
the existence of other COVID-19 ‘threats’.
Person A is aware that the quarantine time for symptoms to appear
is from Day 2 to Day 14.
But Person A is worried
that s/he will have to wait
until at least 0800 Monday morning
to telephone the GP surgery –
and there is no other contact possible –
during which time the killer-virus
would be gaining stronger-holds
in its progress.
———
Come Monday and Person A telephones the Surgery –
where automatic read-outs set in to ‘waste’ further minutes –
and where Reception seeks to reject the call
on ‘grounds’ that
the caller has no actual Coronavirus symptoms …
Interim public-awaring break 1459 – 1503 Monday 11 May 2020.