“I’m a millennial, so half of my childhood had little-to-no technology. I feel very old trying to figure out how these things work. Trying to figure out the platforms, to figure out why it is or why people pay to watch a video of me masturbating online when you could pay to just have sex with me directly, so I have a hard time making that content because I feel like I’m ripping people off. I feel like a fraud. I wish I could figure it out and be better.”

“I’ve learned to be [okay] with what I can control and what I cannot,” he says. In fact, he seems to be making the most out of the lockdown. “I always ask myself, and I always would ask my friends: what opportunity do you see it’s bringing? We so easily fall into fear- fear of feeling disconnected, fear of getting it, fear of spreading it. And the people who focus on fear and not able to see the potential usually would be stuck in inaction.”

Headlines of pneumonia in China paled in comparison to entire cities in Australia covered by ash and smoke. Wuhan was an unfamiliar territory, a foreign anomaly to the Western world, something mentioned at the end of the report. Now though, the images of burned koala bears seem a distant happening compared to videos of vacant streets, speaking either to our own short-sightedness or our short memory when faced with a new catastrophe.

“The three top management have been split up, because if one goes down, they could spread it to the other two and then everything goes down.” In an office that fits forty, he says they are now down to six.

The first two weeks of quarantine, Giulia had panic attacks every four days and was constantly anxious. It came to a point where she was unable to discern whether or not the shortness of breath she was experiencing was because of anxiety, or an early symptom of the virus, which of course, only fuelled her anxiety further. “You’re like, ‘Okay, I have trouble breathing. Is it because of my anxiety, or is it because I have the virus? What is going on? Am I contagious? Am I giving this to my parents? What am I doing?’ And it’s just a vicious circle,” she explains.

Niveta is in her fourth year of medicine in a five-year-course. She has experience in hospital wards and is no stranger to their procedures. When I ask her if there is any chance that she will be called back, she drawls the start of her yes. She puts her hand to her head and scratches her temple - keeping it there out of stress? I can’t tell.

“There are a lot of Brazilians in Ireland – I have a theory that in 20 years they’ll have the best football team in the world.”, he quips, before quickly turning serious again. Two of these friends had moved to Ireland in the few weeks prior and were struggling to find both employment and a home.

“It was our favourite country that we went to,” Mary says. The people, the food, and the sights were enough for them to consider moving, but the good pay and the rich expat community in the country made them stay.

“When our president announced that Manila will be put in lockdown, that’s the time I decided to tell my company that I wouldn’t come to work anymore,” Marner says. “Because I’m afraid that I will contract the virus, I will go into quarantine, I will not see Switzer. Who’s going to take care of him?”

If anything, forced isolation seems to have relieved an expectancy and, while not relishing in the situation, Sophia seems cosy. She misses the gym, but she’s walking Sam and Honey (her dogs) twice a day – sometimes three.

This sense of calm and trust in the government and in each other had resulted in things dying down, in taking the necessary steps. Now, she says, they’re watching the rest of the world with equal measures concern and bafflement.