I have been very quiet lately, because I have been playing a very complex modern game - with increasing intensity. I decided that one of the important strategies I needed to follow was to completely shut up, on the holding-your-cards-close-to-your-chest principle. If my opponents got wind of my latest strategy, they might find a way to block me. So I bit my tongue, I stilled my fingers from tap tap tapping away on the keyboard, I bided my time.
I almost thought I'd lost a week ago - the cunning plan had been that we would all meet up in Vienna on 21 December. And then the Austrian government announced that from 20 December all visitors arriving from other countries would need to quarantine for a fortnight. Panic!
But we changed our dates to arrive today, instead of on 20 December. And we have actually all made it! Me, my husband and our children are all together! We greeted them with shots of mouthwash and admonitions to immediately wash their hands, but we restrained ourselves from donning full hazmat clothing to greet them.
Of course, readers, (if there are any), may be wagging their fingers and shaking their heads, and they may be right. There is a risk. But life is risky, and I am so happy we are all here.
Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteOur son came back from Los Angeles at the end of September. We briefly considered having him quarantine in the (comfortable, well-lit) basement, but then shrugged our shoulders and forgot about it. We remain healthy. I imagine and hope that you will also.
Thank you so much George - I'm glad you have your son back with you (assuming that it is pleasant having him home, that is). After posting that, I braced for angry comments about my selfishness. I then realised my concern was an indication that I am sensing intolerance and a desire to enforce rules in the air. My trouble is that I think the virus is going to do more or less what the virus is going to do, no matter what measures our governments take - this came to me after I spent a jolly evening looking up the populations of various countries and their death tolls from the virus and working out what percentage the deaths from coronavirus amounted to and realising that everywhere (except islands genuinely distant from other large populations, e.g. Australia - which has chosen to introduce East German travel rules so that not only can you not get home, but, if you did, they wouldn't let you out again) - places like Brazil that have done practically nothing to protect their people against the virus and others that have brought in lockdowns and almost destroyed their economies (Italy, France, Spain, UK, Switzerland, US in bits) and Sweden, which has gone in for voluntary restrictions, have all ended up with a death toll around 0.1 per cent of the population. It seems that really no difference has been made. It is a very very nasty germ, but I fear we have made a really dreadful mistake in the way we have reacted to it. And I have been increasingly struck by how quickly most people have accepted huge restrictions to their freedom without complaint, some choosing instead to attack those who are a little doubtful about the restrictions. Many people I talk to haven't actually understood that there will be enormous economic consequences. Anyway, nothing we can do except make sure we all have happy christmases and, if we can afford it, be as generous as we can to others in the tough years that I believe are coming.
DeleteIs that right about the death rates zmkc? My reading of WHO figures - which presumably can be trusted - are that there's a huge difference between, say, Australia with 35 deaths per million and Belgium with over 1600 per million. And, I think the jury is still out about the economic consequences, but we'll see. We are living in an experiment and who knows how it will end. I understand your thinking about people accepting huge restrictions on their freedoms but I think for many of us it's an issue of how much for how long not an absolute giving up of everything forever, though I appreciate there can also be the thin end of the wedge potential. It's a weighing up of short term pain for (hopefully) long term gain. Australia's economy has not collapsed as much as they expected, but that may change of course.
DeleteAnyhow, I really hope you had a lovely time with your family.Christmas with your family.
As I say in the comment, Australia, by virtue of its geography, chose a different route, which may or may not prove wise - after the Queensland election, when the state government came clean with the figures, I thought they looked alarmingly high, but we shall see. The death figures may have changed a bit for the rest of the world since I wrote that comment but here is how they stood then, (& I suspect they aren't drastically altered, in percentage terms):
DeletePopulation Deaths with COVID
UK 66,650,000 64,500
US 330,000,000 300,723
Italy 60,462,000 65,011
France 67,000,000 58,391
Spain. 49,754,778 48,013
Belgium 11,500,000 18,054
Sweden 10,100,000 7,667
Hungary 9,660,000 7,237
Switzld 8,655,000 6,185
Brazil 212,559,417 181,835
Moreover Manaus in Brazil, a city of 2.2 million where COVID19 ran unchecked now has herd immunity and had 3,297 deaths, which is higher than .01 per cent, but not dissimilar to Italy, which is also slightly higher, (as is Belgium) in Italy's caseperhaps because the virus hit Europe there first, when too little was understood about how to treat it, in Belgium's case perhaps because it is so extraordinarily densely populated. Given the lack of density in Australia, I do wonder about the policies adopted there. But time will tell now. It's all been done. My only concern at this stage is that the state might not withdraw and give us back freedom as we understood it before the virus.
Ah, so you were focusing on Europe and the US, not the world. I guess that's why I saw it a bit differently.(I'm not sure what you mean about Queensland. Do you know something I don't. I thought they've only had 6 deaths, which in a population of 5mill is minuscule.
DeleteI think some questions could be (and certainly have been) asked about the application of restrictions in rural and regional areas in Australia, but our cities are dense enough, if not world toppers!
It's probably fair enough to worry about freedoms not being returned, but I hope that in liberal democracies some sort of reason will prevail. Time will tell as you say. I may be burying my head in the sand!
Anyhow, I've really enjoyed reading your perspectives on this, so thanks for engaging in conversation.
It was the budgetary figures I was referring to re Queensland:
Deletehttps://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-12-01/queensland-budget-2020-debt-to-reach-130-billion-in-four-years/12919012
Well played, Zoe – and well said. Have a great Christmas.
ReplyDeleteYou too, and I look forward to reading more of your posts in the New Year.
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