Is Your Life Still Changing For the Virus?

[jenny-livingston]

I’m answering both of your latest questions here.

1) My six degrees of COVID separation are dwindling. Recently, our county had the highest rate of new cases in the state. I live in a semi-rural area, in a very small town, and I’ve known soooo many people who’ve tested positive. Many of my neighbors, several entire families that we know, and a woman who lives just two houses away (who happens to be an avid and outspoken anti-masker) just lost her father to Covid. It’s been both heartbreaking and terrifying. Also, my partner works in an environment where Covid is prevalent. Thankfully, he’s had proper PPE but the threat and risk are definitely present.

2) While all this goes on, it seems like people are more and more lax about it all. I see fewer people wearing masks, our restaurants and businesses are open, even the local movie theaters continue to operate (with, I’m sure, some limitations). Throughout the summer, my little family loosened our restrictions a bit. We were having small social gatherings, always outdoors, and only with a select few people. In the fall, we tightened those restrictions up again. For several months, I did our grocery shopping but I’ve switched back to curbside pickup (which didn’t even exist in my county until this pandemic made it necessary).

In short, yes. As those degrees of separation are peeled back layer by layer, and as things around us change, we definitely reevaluate and change our behaviors.

[paul-met-debbie]

In short: no, not anymore.

We did not have to change much lately because we started of early, in December 2019 when the virus was only active in China. Looking at what happened there, most Western governments thought it would stay in China. We were more cautious and bought some FFP2 masks and hand alcohol that we still value having today, when they are nowhere to be found anymore. It took months before there was any reaction on the public life here, but in March the government started the first official lockdown, which worked pretty well – only to completely let it go starting July again. This of course lead to the second wave starting September, a partial lockdown half October that didn’t work well enough and a full lockdown since half December. This is now starting to have positive effects, but only just. And now there is the covid21 around (the mutation that is much more infectious).

While public measures and so called knowledge gulfed up and down, and as a consequence also the numbers of infections and deaths, we just steadily followed our own plan of self-quarantine since December 2019 up until now. This brought a lot of peace in our minds and house. We will probably go on with it until the virus is no longer circulating. We take all advice into consideration, but follow none of it blindly. Official guidelines are always a compromise between all kinds of interests (social, economical, political) in which the common sense is often watered down considerably and the spiritual/holistic aspect is mostly absent. And in these times of great financial interests and a lot of hurry, even independent and solid medical advice is hard to come by. One simply has to think for one’s own and trust one’s intuition.

So how did our activities appear to change since the end of 2019? We don’t go into other places and don’t let people into our house. We don’t go on holiday, don’t eat out any more, and don’t even get take aways. We don’t visit stores, public buildings, musea. We talk to neighbors, family and friends only outside at a safe distance, with a facemask and for a short while. 5 feet was advertised by the government as safe, so we did 15. Now, it is a bit unclear how to handle the covid21. We will probably have to wear the ffp2 masks more often. Which is a more awkward, because we can only wear those for a short time without getting out of breath. So, these will be short conversations.

Did this really change us, make us less happy? Apparently not, because in summer when measures and limitations were almost absent, we still did not feel the need to change the new ways we had learned. We were actually fine with those. And because we didn’t let go of our quarantine in the summer we don’t have to change much now.
We are so fortunate that we can work from home and have our shopping’s delivered. We live in a little hamlet with a lot of nature around, so we can still walk the dog and enjoy the fresh air. Our house is a little apartment near the center of the town. It has a lot of windows all around. We live on the second floor, so we don’t see the scarce traffic unless we look down. Wherever we look ahead or up, we see sky and trees and clouds and birds, and the sun and the moon. That makes us feel we are always in nature. We have a little loggia (an in-build balcony) where, when weather permits, we can sit outside in the sun and breath the air. We have each other and peace of mind. What more can we want for, that is within our power?

We try not to get infected and not to infect others. That is the only thing we can do to contribute to the solution and to support the brave people out there that risk their lives and good health in the hospitals and care centers. Every morning and evening we light a candle for the well being of those who have been less fortunate than us in this global crisis.

The vaccine might improve things in the long run. It will however not change our present lifestyle for quite some time to come. Not for this year at least. There are too many unknown variables.

So, for the foreseeable future we will be in and near home. We have adopted very well to the situation and feel this is the right way to handle it, for our own good and for the good of all. We have changed some of our ways and complied to the new situation. We take our measures carefully according to our best understanding and intuition and don’t resist what is happening. Our foremost care is about peace of mind. So far, this has worked out pretty well.