When COVID-19 leaves nothing to do

It would not be far-fetched to hazard that millions of people must be asking Googleguru for what to do with their time now that ‘social distancing’ and ‘self-quarantine’ — undoubted early front-runners for ‘phrase of the year’ — have led to homes staying occupied for more hours of the day than ever before.

People used to only restricted hours of leisure are now confronted with yawning gaps in their calendars as commutes, meetings, after-hours gatherings and community activity options have been Covid-ed out of bounds for the time being.

The plight of spouses, parents and children is particularly piteous as the contagion has mandated more hours of mutual and exclusive interaction than has been their habit. The only creatures overjoyed about this extended period of home incarceration must be pets.


The wealth of online advice on how to cope with this contingency is impressive. It ranges from reminding stay-at-homers to keep windows open for cross-ventilation to telling them to chat on phone and video with family and friends, read, watch online movies, exercise at home — and ask delivery persons to keep orders outside the door.

Of course, if those people also opt for social distancing and self-quarantine, many will have to reacquaint (or introduce) themselves to their kitchens and indulge in a useful and rare pastime — cooking.