The Fourteenth Day: 5 April 2020

The Fourteenth Day: 5 April 2020 (47,806 confirmed infected, 4,934 died, in total)

"Better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again." – Queen Elizabeth II

It was only the fourth time that Her Majesty made such kind of address since her coronation in 1953. The address was not long. There was nothing much more than expressing her gratitude to those at frontline and at home, and encouraging British people to stand this difficult time. But one could really feel warm and draw a sense of strength, especially when she mentioned her first broadcasting in 1940 during the Second World War, which reminded me about her age – an elder sage, being at her 90s, being the Monarch, stood out and gave courage and hope to her national. This per se is a glory of the country, and of the humankind.

5 April 2020: The Queen spoke to her people from the Windsor Castle at 8pm this evening.

Very good sunshine today. For our daily exercise, we took our boy and his bicycle to the nearest park. No more than twenty people are there, some jogging, some walking dogs, and everyone was keeping distance carefully.

Sonne, my wife, played flute on the lawn; our son Dan was cycling around us. For just one moment, I had an illusion that our normal life had come back.

But soon I fell back to reality. We went to a supermarket to get some food supplies. Eggs were back in stock (although limited to one dozen for each customer), but shelves for flour, pasta, tissue paper and hand wash were still empty.

Later in the evening we got the bad news: Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, was admitted to hospital and would stay overnight there. This is not a good signal: he must could not battle the virus by himself.

The Queen had said is true: we may have more still to endure.

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