Whether the COVID-19 outbreak has left you solitary, stressed, skint or just plain scared, one thing’s for sure: our relationship with society has fundamentally changed over the past few long but short weeks.

We here at Make Me A Plan have been keen to use our planning flair to support plankind through this most bizarre of times.

To this end, we begin our philosophical tome with a reminder to STAY AT HOME and meet, or exceed the safety measures mandated by the Government, which can be found at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-information-for-the-public

This fortnight, I’ve put together five points to ponder during your lockdown life.

Epidemiology for beginners

Not to be confused with epidemics, which are specific, sharply increasing outbreaks of a particular disease, where it can be stated unequivocally that the upwards curve is not controllable by current means. Epidemiology is the study of the spread of disease and associated measurables and control mechanisms.

If you were sitting in a typical board or sales meeting rather than trying to understand what you should be home-schooling your kids with/having a Marmite relationship with solitude/deducing new and different ways of convincing your olds what staying at home actually means/insert lockdown life activity here, epidemiology would be the key performance indicator section of the meeting.

Bread and butter for scientists, stats geeks and strategists such as ourselves and the bit everyone else checks their phones during because generally, the FASCINATING inter-relationship between the macro and the micro is of zero attraction to most people.

Assume the worst and make the best of it

Dear reader. Whilst the various chambers of my beating heart would love to believe that the Government has done everything to retard the COVID-19 crisis, my gut instinct is that going above and beyond the current safety measures presents two obvious advantages: if, for example, you actually stay at home and make do with what you have, the rate of the virus spread will be slowed.

The second advantage is that if the Government subsequently extends the lockdown or makes controls on movement more stringent, you’ve already got used to what that’s like.

When does cheap cost dear?

I admit, petrol being at its lowest price for decades is tantalising. However, do you prefer

a) Leaving your house to save approximately £9 on filling up your average car

b) Not dying or causing other people to die

If I offered you nine quid to kill my mum, you’d think I was seriously deranged.

May I remind you that COVID-19 can only be spread by you leaving the house.

Delivering on results

So, we’re all at least two metres apart and much further than that from our normal routines. Home deliveries have been seized upon by concerning numbers of people as a safe alternative to going out to the shops.

Now, I don’t doubt that companies and customers are well-intentioned and of course there is a small number of isolated, vulnerable people for whom personal deliveries are an essential lifeline.

Anyone else buying anything that isn’t expressly needed in order to survive, is directly contributing to the spread of the virus and prolonging lockdown and long-term damage to the economy.

See also point 3. If you are paying someone to visit dozens, if not hundreds of houses, how clear is your conscience?

Maths is beautiful

So sayeth mathematicians and philosophers since time immemorial.

The most beautiful aspect of COVID-19 computations is that numbers of infections and deaths will slow, plateau, even plummet in line with the percentage of the population which upholds the actually staying at home thing.

For every person who has felt that they don’t have a say or as we pseuds term it, doesn’t have agency in this fast-paced 21^st century world, well now is your time to be a hero.

Shut your doors now, to open them sooner, United Plandom.

Stay tuned to the Make Me A Plan Crew’s daily social media updates with helpful hints to promote wellbeing as Britain navigates through the COVID-19 crisis.

Our core theme blogs will also be focusing on socially distant teamwork during curious times – and keep your eyes peeled for some very special invitational guest bloggers gracing these pages very soon.

Next fortnight, I’ll be musing On Drugs. Please get in touch with any particular aspects of this topic you’d like me to write about.

In the meantime,

Happy Planning