Mikel Arteta may now be recovering from the coronavirus, but him and his family are still in lockdown to avoid passing the dreaded disease onto others around them, until they are given the all-clear and it is known that the victims that have recovered cannot be reinfected once they go back to normal life.
Arteta also spoke about his concern on a personal level, about how he has not been able to look for comfort in the arms of his wives and his kids, simply because having coronavirus means you have to shun all human contact. He believes that as long as this killer disease stays with us it will change everyone’s normal urges to seek solace or celebrate by hugging each other, something that is very difficult to do at a distance of two metres, especially with family members that you love. He told RTE: “I have three kids with a lot of energy! They are 10, seven and four so you can imagine! I am a very positive person and I try to take the moment to say ‘OK, what can we take from this? What’s the lesson here and what’s the opportunity for us?’
“For 17 years, I haven’t had the opportunity to wake up with my kids and spend a lot of time, dedicate my time and listen to them. You know, do their homework with them and the same with my missus.
“So this is a great opportunity. There are no excuses. We are in the household together and we are really enjoying those moments as well.
“I think we are all realising how much we need each other. We are in a world here where everything is social media, everything is a WhatsApp text.
“But how important is touching each other, feeling each other and hugging each other? I miss that a lot with a lot of people that I love.
“I cannot do it now and I am sure that will transform a little bit of how people behave with their close ones.”
That certainly is a double edged sword. Arteta finally gets forced to spend a lot of time with his family, but for the whole time has to avoid close personal contact with everyone. It must be heartbreaking to be so close to your child or lover and not be simply be able to comfort them or be comforted by physical contact.
I guess until we have a true vaccine (or everyone catches it and becomes immune) then us humans with simply have to learn how to avoid each other for the forseeable future.
This is probably one of the worst results of this dreadful coronavirus…