“A family member was infected within two weeks of COVID-19 arriving on our shores. She has been such an important educator about how she got it, the effects and how she’s feeling. We really need that kind of honesty and vulnerability because I still think people aren’t taking this seriously enough. My biggest fear is around my children getting infected. The rapid spread of the infection is beyond scary, and really reminds us how vulnerable and fragile we are as humans — something we tend to take for granted. The other half is how brutal and destructive we’ve been to Mother Nature and yet, here we are, at her mercy. On a career level, the country going into lockdown added to the pressure and anxiety from a financial perspective. As a mom to toddler twins, I practised isolation before we were instructed to go into lockdown. We also asked our nannies to stay home so as to lessen the risk of them commuting on public transport, as well as to keep them and their families safe. I still have my new Saturday morning radio gig to go to, which means leaving the house. Over and above using masks and sanitisers when I’m out there, it also means taking off the clothes I’d worn and immediately putting them in the washing machine when I arrive home. I also shower before interacting with anyone in the house, especially the kids. I read somewhere that we should all be behaving like we already have the virus — which is true and helps a great deal.
READ MORE: Managing your mental health and well-being amid COVID-19 lockdown
What I Know Now: We need to learn to think as a collective and remember how important every life is. I hope we learn that status has no place in society because right now, all we have is each other and not our salaries, social media pages or cars. None of that matters right now because we are all anxious and have to work together moving forward. In the future, I hope we learn to actually see the other person — practise love, care and kindness for the next person. We also need to learn, very quickly, to respect nature.”
READ MORE: How to be productive while working from home during the lockdown
Read the rest of our cover story insights in the May issue of TRUELOVE. Get your digital copy on either Zinio or Magzter
RETRACTION: We would like to apologise profusely to radio presenter Luthando ‘LootLove’ Shosha for misquoting her in our May cover story. Her correct quote was: “We also asked our nannies to stay home so as to lessen the risk of them commuting on public transport, as well as to keep them and their families safe ” and not “We also asked our nannies to stay with us so as to lessen the risk of commuting on public transport, as well as to keep them and their families safe ” as we had previously reported. We are committed to delivering the highest standard of journalism, and this is an error that we regret. We have since updated the story on all our digital platforms.
