Read on Twitter
Why you should think twice before judging people who aren’t social distancing, a thread:
I live a privileged life. After L5 ended I bought a thing that needed delivering. When the dudes arrived, both in masks and gloves, I offered them some extra cash to assemble it. I made us all tea while they got to work and we chatted.
Joseph told me he was 28, eldest of 5, the only one in his family still working. They live in Alex and his youngest two siblings are still at school. At present he is supporting 8 people. He told me he is very frustrated when people get cross about lack of compliance to the
Lockdown rules and distancing etc because where are people meant to go? How do they distance when 8 people share a small home? He said that until he had attended a Covid briefing at work, he did not understand the specifics of the disease adequately, and neither
Did any of his family. His statement was ‘people think we’re stupid, that we don’t care - but we know exactly what is waiting for us in a clinic or gov hospital, we have known all along. But we don’t know what to do and we don’t have what we need to protect ourselves’. He went
On to say that in his family, the concept of ‘whatever you do, don’t get sick’ was big, and that while there are those who ignore the lockdown regulations anywhere (talking to you, man in suit talking on phone without a mask at Seattle yesterday), the vast majority of people
In his community are desperate, broke, and terrified. We chatted a while more and I arranged for him to come back on Monday to collect some stuff. At the time masks were out of stock so I got bottles of sanitizer, soap, etc. sigh. There is no escaping this pandemic is unequal.
So please, if you are reading this from your home where you CAN keep yourself safe, on your smartphone of PC... nobody is saying we haven’t all suffered. We are all tired and terrified of what comes next. But at the very least, donate some empathy.
Cc @sindivanzyl
