This summer has seen mother nature banish us to our bedrooms.

It’s been the summer of staying indoors – whether you’re in Australia sheltering from violent storms and avoiding the worst air quality in the world, or abroad, stuck in your hotel room, cruise ship cabin or apartment trying not to infect or be infected with coronavirus.

It’s impossible to tell if this mass banishment indoors is just a temporary thing – a strange confluence of events (weather patterns, rapid spread of mysterious virus) – or whether this is the new normal. As the world out there feels increasingly unsafe and unpredictable, are we going to spend more and more time inside?

Already as a society we’re showing a preference for the indoors life. From the comfort of our couch we order in UberEats or Deliveroo rather than go out to a restaurant, we stream movies at home rather than go to the cinema, we talk to our friends on group chat rather than meeting up at the pub, we meet people through dating apps rather than on the dancefloors or at bars, and we’ll exercise at home – following a YouTube tutorial such as the highly popular Yoga with Adrienne – rather than attend a class.

In overcrowded, hot cities such as Cairo, leaving your apartment for anything from a haircut to a blood test has become such a hassle that a micro economy has sprung up in delivering goods and services. For a few dollars someone will come to your house and wax your bikini line or deliver you the paper and a coffee.

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One man told the New York Times: “There is no incentive to go outside. Just one hour outside is enough to ruin anyone’s day.”

It’s probably a good thing we’re getting more and more habituated to spending time at home, as increasingly we are finding ourselves confined there, but not by choice.

Right now tens of millions of people in China are either in self-imposed or forced quarantine, thousands are stuck in their cabins on infected cruise ships, and others have been quarantined in detention centres, air force bases and disused mining camps.

In Australia, appalling air quality from the bushfires meant schools kept their students indoors at lunch and recess, and parents were not letting their kids play outside.

Friends who are runners have complained they couldn’t exercise outside during the haze, and everything from music festivals to fun runs were cancelled due to fires and poor air quality.

Eastern New South Wales got another taste of cabin fever when 550mm of rain fell across parts of NSW last weekend. Sydney recorded its heaviest rain in three decades and was battered by gale-force winds.

On Sunday, the worst day of the storm, I was trapped at a friend’s house in North Bondi. I had stuff to do, people to meet, food to buy!! – but leaving seemed … dangerous.

Rain came in over the golf course across the road in vast, thick sheets. I saw no one on the street all day, except for a lone man with a dog. Both appeared to be walking sideways.

The pair disappeared over the hill, towards the cliffs, presumably never to be heard from again.

On the balcony, the gales knocked over and smashed large terracotta pots, the rain came in sideways – in both directions - colliding then being picked up by the wind and swirled in the air in a mini-tornado. All I could do was sit on the couch and watch it in horror as the ceiling leaked in the bedroom, ruining the carpet, and the wind sounded like someone badly imitating a ghost. Woooooo … woooooooooo …

Ordering UberEats was out of the question. It would be cruel, possibly psychotic, to insist that some young person on a pushbike and zero hours contract deliver a burrito while dodging flying debris and falling trees. (Although restaurants will argue that they need to keep making money during bad weather.)

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Socialising was also cancelled. Instead I kept in touch with friends throughout the day via text (boredom was the main gripe), and passively, through watching each other’s Instagram stories of sodden carpets, scared pets and knocked-up pantry dinners.

Expect more of it – these weather “events” are becoming more extreme and frequent across the world.

Just this week, Storm Dennis and a few days earlier Ciara hit the UK with “snow showers combine(d) with strong winds”. Up to 10cm of snow was forecast in higher areas, hardly ideal weather to be out and about.

People are coping in different ways with being trapped indoors.

One man confined in China has run 50km around his living room.

“I have not been outside for many days, today I cannot bear sitting down any more!” the amateur marathon runner posted last week.

Meanwhile an Australian couple quarantined in their cabin on a cruise ship for 14 days “kept the party flowing by getting a drone to deliver wine (pinot noir) straight to their cabin”.

Having been quarantined myself, in 2012 for whooping cough, I can tell you it’s no fun.

After being sent home from the doctor and told not to leave the house for two weeks, I had to isolate myself. I couldn’t go into work (apologies Microsoft!), my flatmate had to move in with her girlfriend until the contagion had passed, and I switched my entire life – everything from socialising to grocery shopping – online.

If I didn’t die of whooping cough, I thought I would die of boredom.

I was going stir crazy sitting inside staring at the walls, not to mention lonely. Little did I know, I had glimpsed the future.

Brigid Delaney is a Guardian Australia columnist





