Like many people I am worried about the rapid spread of the coronavirus. I now even know some people who have tested positive for it. Thankfully they are strong, physically fit and under fifty - so a full recovery is expected.
The behavioural changes which have arisen because of Covid-19 are equally worrying.
On Thursday past I sat in a small cafe with my Irish News. Placing my glasses on the newspaper along with a small hand sanitiser. A quick visit to the loo and when I returned the sanitiser was gone. Not my backpack with laptop, not my coat, not the newspaper or glasses but a 50p hand sanitizer! It made me smile.
Later in the day I visited a supermarket and shelves which should have been heaving with fruit and vegetables were empty. This was less funny.
What are people doing stock piling perishable goods? Fear and irrationality have superseded common sense. Stockpiling food is selfish, wasteful and unnecessary. We are not going to starve to death over the coronavirus. At the moment there is more chance of being killed in the stampede to buy pasta, cleansing wipes or toilet paper.
I respectfully suggest that as a message to food hoarders supermarket chains should display photos of starving Sudanese children at checkouts, if only to remind these self centred individuals what actual starvation looks like.
The media is not helping and the public are becoming confused.
Politicians are not helping either.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, apparently concerned by emerging figures showing the impact of community contagion, announced that all schools and colleges in the Republic of Ireland would close immediately.
Less than twenty four hours later, first minister Arlene Foster and deputy first minister Michelle O’Neill, backed up by their junior ministers and health minister Robin Swann, said schools and colleges in Northern Ireland would not close - despite the announcement in the Republic.
It seemed to defy logic that Ireland as an island would not have a joined up response to what is a borderless crisis.
Dithering policy makers will not not shield us from the spread of coronavirus. The medical and scientific expertise cannot be different in the two parts of the same small island. Therefore it was bizarre in the extreme to watch Sinn Féin ministers so slavishly following advice perhaps better suited to Britain than Ireland.
Later that evening on both Twitter and Facebook the stance of the Northern Ireland Executive Office was going down like a lead balloon with the general public, educationalists and more importantly with Sinn Féin representatives in border regions.
One Sinn Féin councillor in Fermanagh posted: “I expect this stance to be reversed very soon”. And reversed it was within twenty four hours by none other the Sinn Féin leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill.
Sinn Féin’s earlier stance simply looked stupid.
But an interesting online intervention came later from the former DUP MP for South Belfast Emma Little-Pengelly - now special adviser to the first minister Arlene Foster.
Ms Little-Pengelly posted on Facebook a reference to the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar basically saying that by doing what he did on Wednesday evening he made no attempt to consult or attempt to get a joined up approach with the Northern Ireland Executive in relation to coronavirus.
If true, and there is no reason to doubt the veracity of her claim, then the taoiseach and the Irish government have some explaining to do. Is this another example of having a zombie government in Leinster House?
The Irish government and the Northern Ireland Executive need to get a handle on their approach to the spread of Covid-19 across the island. They must also look at sharing information and medical expertise. Even examine the possibility of sharing facilities such as hospitals.
President Higgins quoting an old Irish proverb said: “It is in the shelter of each other than people live”. Now we have a chance to prove it.
