In January 2020, I contracted Covid-19. I was quite poorly with it, but in the grander scheme of things I got off incredibly lightly. The 10 days of household isolation were hard at times, but again it wasn't as if we were the only family going through it at the time. My kids needed lots of reassurance that I was going to be okay (especially since it had only been a couple of months since dad died), but after an initial 48 hours of total bed rest, I was able to do bits and bobs around the house, slowly rebuilding stamina and showing the boys I had come through the worst of it.
Skip forward to June. I got pinged by the NHS app for being a close contact of an unknown person, requiring a further period of isolation. Working from home for 8 days whilst my family went to work or school was a strange experience. It reminded me of the lockdown periods we've had in the UK, yet it wasn't because life outside my house carried on.
4 weeks after this, my youngest child's class bubble closed requiring him to isolate. Since my school broke up earlier than my wife's, I was able to cover the isolation with him and helped him keep up to date with his remote learning and do fun things in the garden or watch movies with him.
Just before my youngest returned to school, my eldest then tested positive on a lateral flow test. If the PCR result was also positive, it would have meant his whole class would have missed out on the last few days of Year 6 - a rite of passage for all primary school leavers. Fortunately, the PCR result came back negative and his isolation (all 2 days of it!) was over.
As you can see, there have been lots of opportunities for isolation practise in the run up to Tokyo 2020, but none more so than what I am currently doing. My wife and children have spent the first 2 weeks of the summer holiday in Poland with my wife's family and I have been flying solo for the last 12 days. (I was unable to go to Poland due to the timing of the trip, the PCR test requirements and its proximity to flying out to Tokyo.)
Isolation can be hard, but I have used this current time as an opportunity to try and prepare mentally for what awaits us in Tokyo. I have worked on a daily routine, included physical and mental exercise daily and done things that I enjoy. Granted, some of these things took place outside of my house but they were all done alone.
When at the Games, I plan on following a similar approach and establish a routine as quickly as possible (within the confines of match appointments). I have found having a structure to the day has made time pass more quickly, but also more enjoyably.
The Playbook makes it explicit that there are very clear measures in place for isolation following positive cases or close contact tracing in Japan. I sincerely hope I don't need to find out HOW organised they are from my own experience!
There IS one more isolation I need to go through though... Upon arrival in Japan, I will be taken to the official's hotel and this will become my home for the next 16 days, only being permitted to leave if I am on official duty as a referee. Referees are not allowed to visit each other's rooms or congregate in the hotel lobby for a coffee. All meals will be room-service only and even short walks in the immediate vicinity of the hotel are not allowed. I just hope the hotel room windows open so we can get some fresh air!
I always thought that being a referee can be a lonely job. Thank goodness for FaceTime, Whatsapp, FB Messenger, MS Teams, Zoom and the many other digital forms we can use to stay in touch with each other. Let's be honest - if there's one thing this pandemic has taught us is how to be creative when we need to communicate!
And finally, in the interests of honesty and openness, I haven't been 100% alone this week - I've had our cat for company, but she hasn't been much of a conversationalist!)
No comments:
Post a Comment