An Eleventh View from The Apocalypse
Despite the (reasonably) hot weather the Covid spikes
continue to spike – hardly a surprise when you see people crowded onto trains
& on the beach. Fundamentally though very little has changed. There has
been some breakthroughs with therapeutics which is good. Anything that brings
down the mortality rate is a good thing in my book! But the virus is still out
there doing its job – infecting people and spreading. ‘Normality’ isn’t anytime
soon unfortunately.
I was actually visiting my nearby (20 minute walk) big
supermarket and bumped into someone I knew from work. She’d retired in December
and had planned lots of travel for her and her partner. They’re big walkers –
the Austrian Alps for preference – but have had to put pretty much everything
on hold until things clear up. Until recently they couldn’t even meet up (as
they live in separate houses) and had to sustain their relationship chatting at
different ends of their driveways. NOT good. Nearly everyone I saw was wearing
a mask though which was good. It’s mandated now in pretty much all
public/indoor places and it’s very rare you see someone NOT wearing a mask – at
least inside a shop. Still plenty of people walking around outside without one –
including me. People are very good keeping their distance though, although
generally anyone under 18 seems to think things like this don’t apply to them
or that they’re basically immortal so it doesn’t matter. Hopefully they don’t
end up taking an extra special present to Grandma….!
Nothing very much happening here. It’s been pretty warm (low
80’s F) which is a nice change although were expecting rain most of next week.
It does mean that I’ve had the time to work on my painting skills
(non-existent) on some exterior woodwork that needed some TLC. Still gaming
(ONI in the afternoon and Last Stand – part of an old Warhammer 40K game – in the
evenings with my regular gaming partner) and still reading about 2 books a week
which means my review pile is stubbornly staying locked at 10 books. I’ll see
if I can reduce that by slipping in a few hefty buggers to, at least occasionally,
drop below the replacement rate.
Apart from that I am, along with the rest of the world,
waiting for a vaccine so I can get my life back. OK, it won’t be HUGELY
different from what I’m doing now but at least I’ll have CHOICES! I spoke to my
Mum a few days ago (clocking in) and everyone is fine. Likewise my gaming
buddies are all well. All good news. I think I’ll go into ‘town’ around the end
of the month to see if my fave book shop survived the zombie hordes. I do hope
so. I guess I’ll find out soon enough. Be safe, stay safe – see you on the flip
side!
4 comments:
things are about the same here but we have much less population density than you... i still go for bike rides w/o a mask, but avoid stores and people... Oregon has about 370 or so victims; not many in our county (columbia) and those over near Astoria, 40 miles away... i keep seeing a great variety of estimates about a viable vaccine; from November to four years out, so who knows (what lurks in the hearts of men)... the Shadow knows, hahahha
Good news that people are following mask rules!
Our governor is an idiot (and huge trump ass-kisser) so he has threatened to sue any mayors/cities/health officials who issue mask mandates/ So stores are taking it upon themselves to require masks inside, which is a relief. As you said, outside people do not wear them all the time, but are good about keeping distance. Our governor also said that policy makers should decide when schools open, and not health officials. I want to punch him! Luckily the superintendent of the school district I work in gives no fucks about what the governor thinks, and she stated as of Friday, we will be completely remote for the first quarter of the year. Such a relief!
@ Mudpuddle: I'm guessing that a useful and proven vaccine won't be around until at least this time next year. Even with all the advancements in the last 10 years or so it still takes time to run trials and get good results. Once the vaccine or vaccines are ready and mass produced things will start getting back to some kind of normality. It won't be overnight though. I'm guessing that risk groups and front line services will be vaccinated first. It'll take months & months to get everyone.
@ Sarah: Luckily the whole school thing is one thing I don't need to worry about - at least not for my own kids. It does seem a bit crazy though. Kids are KNOWN super-spreaders of all kinds of bugs (as any parent knows) and COVID won't be any different. They may be at low (not zero) risk from the virus itself but they can sure give it innocently to others who might not be able to cope as much. As with all these initiatives as long as contact tracing is robust the risk is much lower of a new spike. But that's a WHOLE other issue. I think a really good first step is to stop politicising it!!
It is pretty much the same here except we have an alarming amount of cases. Even if that rate slows down, I won't trust it, because it happened before and then all came back as "opening" began. Happy to know you and yours are well.
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