social real life justified the gradual wind down

I have been interested to observe this. Every frequently meeting group in my social life has been psychologically reluctant to stop. It was always been irresistible to go on and achieve their next meet so long as folks generally seem well. There is that mismatch, then, between a thinking group's natural instincts and the advice. Folks have stayed active until last weekend before the move to major shutdown from Mar 16, feeling they owed to each other to try not to drop activities, and there was always a next meet that would still be good to get done if folks were still well. Precautions like separately wrapped food started, and Anglican churches stopping their handshakes and shared wine, but knowing there were not yet many cases, folks all seemed to need the week of build-up of threat awareness, before the govt announcements of Mar 16, to get mentally ready to stop their social activities.

That felt right. It's particularly reasonable for support activities. I found that it aligned me against the armchair opinion on Facebook for a sudden instant "lockdown" on the shockingly authoritarian model seen in some countries like Italy. As a report by Robert Peston raised, heavy handed lockdowns put the elderly at risk of unseen neglect inside their homes, which counters the argument that the authoritarian lockdown makes them safer from the virus. I agreed with the government keeping the country active as long as we were still mostly healthy, and being driven by events re when we had to tip over into shutdown. Because it all matched folks' irresistible common sense day-to-day behaviour in my experience, mine included. That has been the real life practicality of folks' social and support lives, during the descent into this health emergency.

So I'm very glad and morally defend, that ELAS met on Mar 14. It was a good success for the 2 folks with ADHD who came to it: one new, so we achieved support by having it for them. That makes it right that we had it. Then it was reasonable that we supported each other into the shutdown period by an outdoor strolling meet of 1 1/2 hours today, around discussing it. An intermediate stage of wind down before stopping meeting. It met a need, it was supportive, but it was supportive about knowing we can't return to keep doing it for the duration, as the outbreak gets worse.

Maurice Frank
21 Mar 2020