How has COVID-19 affected you personally?

[Arizona Docent]

@KevinB Thanks for the advice. For now I am going to keep my ticket and wait and see. The prices were so good when I booked on a sale last fall that I was able to upgrade to business class, which I assume has more flexibility for rebooking without penalties. My plans for the Europe trip (not just Belgium) is outdoor architectural photography, which does not require any indoor visits. In theory I would be fine as long as hotels are available (and preferably restaurants, though if I had to get take out and eat in my room that would be ok). I suppose by summer we will know better and I could always switch countries (right now I fly into Belgium but out of Venice, Italy). Of course I don't want to take unnecessary risks but I also want to support the struggling tourist industry which needs any financial boosts it can get.

 

[taun]

The biggest issue for me is how I cope when everything does finally re-open, I wasn't one for going shopping when it was busy before all this. I got into an argument with a guy shopping as he invaded personal space when at the checkout and told me it was fine because were all wearing masks. I called him a few choice words.

I got up hope last year that I may have got to go watch a game of football, there is hope we may see the last game of the season this year and while I miss it very much I am also not sure how I would react going. I think I will either get an anxiety attack or get overwhelmed that I am back at the football. I know some people have said you don't have to go but for many its like a religion to them they wouldn't dare miss a game.

TBH the handling of the situation here has been dire and just don't expect things to be back to normal in the summer. I am in the second to last group to vaccinated, hoping next month I get confirmation of my vaccination.

 

[KevinB]

@KevinB Thanks for the advice. For now I am going to keep my ticket and wait and see. The prices were so good when I booked on a sale last fall that I was able to upgrade to business class, which I assume has more flexibility for rebooking without penalties. My plans for the Europe trip (not just Belgium) is outdoor architectural photography, which does not require any indoor visits. In theory I would be fine as long as hotels are available (and preferably restaurants, though if I had to get take out and eat in my room that would be ok). I suppose by summer we will know better and I could always switch countries (right now I fly into Belgium but out of Venice, Italy). Of course I don't want to take unnecessary risks but I also want to support the struggling tourist industry which needs any financial boosts it can get.

I hope things will indeed get more clear by summer, but right now I just wouldn't count on any plans in Belgium being able to go ahead in 2021.

Personally I have decided to cancel or scratch all of my plans for 2021, even for all partially or mostly outdoor activities (mostly zoo visits and nature walks). I will likely not be leaving the house (or garden) again for anything non-essential (like doctor or therapist visits or taking one of my chickens to the vet) for the rest of this year. I have taken this decision as a result of the unstable Covid-19 situation and our government's crappy strategies and management. There will especially be no more zoo visits for me in 2021 as a punishment for my own errors of judgement in supporting the call for the reopening of zoos at a time when it was not responsible to do so, and for making use of that reopening twice. I have also decided to ban myself from posting in the ZooChat gallery and from doing fantasy zoo submissions for the rest of the year for this. And I think this is still a very mild punishment for such unforgivable and socially and morally unacceptable errors.

 

[Ned]

In which case your vitamin D levels will crash and your muscles waste away and if you do catch covid you're more likely to end up being a burden on the health services.
Far better to get out in nature, away from the crowds. Take hand gel, wear a mask was your hands, have some quality of life and benefit your mental health.

 

[Andrew Swales]

I hope things will indeed get more clear by summer, but right now I just wouldn't count on any plans in Belgium being able to go ahead in 2021.

Personally I have decided to cancel or scratch all of my plans for 2021, even for all partially or mostly outdoor activities (mostly zoo visits and nature walks). I will likely not be leaving the house (or garden) again for anything non-essential (like doctor or therapist visits or taking one of my chickens to the vet) for the rest of this year. I have taken this decision as a result of the unstable Covid-19 situation and our government's crappy strategies and management. There will especially be no more zoo visits for me in 2021 as a punishment for my own errors of judgement in supporting the call for the reopening of zoos at a time when it was not responsible to do so, and for making use of that reopening twice. I have also decided to ban myself from posting in the ZooChat gallery and from doing fantasy zoo submissions for the rest of the year for this. And I think this is still a very mild punishment for such unforgivable and socially and morally unacceptable errors.

This has been a consistent theme of your posts over the last year - followed by complete changes of direction and downloaded images of your most recent zoo visit.
Sorry - did I say consistent...
Take a moderate, safe and measured personal response. There is nothing any of us can do individually to influence the swings in Government policy, resulting from influential lobbyists.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

My significant other is a doctor and towards the end of last year she was working in an ICU for covid patients.

Sadly she saw many people die of the effects of the Corona virus, the victims were of all ages and deaths were occurring on a daily basis.

A couple of days ago she had the COVID vaccine.

 

[KevinB]

My significant other is a doctor and towards the end of last year she was working in an ICU for covid patients.

Sadly she saw many people die of the effects of the Corona virus, the victims were of all ages and deaths were occurring on a daily basis.

A couple of days ago she had the COVID vaccine.

The things we have heard and seen from Brazil here in Europe were all very disturbing and heartbreaking. My best wishes to everyone over there, I hope you and your loved ones will remain safe, and I hope things will soon get better for you over there.

In which case your vitamin D levels will crash and your muscles waste away and if you do catch covid you're more likely to end up being a burden on the health services.
Far better to get out in nature, away from the crowds. Take hand gel, wear a mask was your hands, have some quality of life and benefit your mental health.

This has been a consistent theme of your posts over the last year - followed by complete changes of direction and downloaded images of your most recent zoo visit.
Sorry - did I say consistent...
Take a moderate, safe and measured personal response. There is nothing any of us can do individually to influence the swings in Government policy, resulting from influential lobbyists.

I have done some more thinking and I have concluded that my response yesterday was immoderate, and the severity of the punishment I imposed on myself was uncalled for, will only contribute to making my mental state and struggles ever worse and will not teach me anything positive.

I do still think I made several errors of judgement in encouraging the early reopening of zoos and in making use of that. I maintain that I could have and should known better and that I should have thought things through far more carefully and with consideration to more factors (especially the more dangerous Covid-19 variants). I continue to doubt very much whether the early reopening of zoos was a wise choice and should have happened in the first place, or should be continued under the current circumstances of an imminent third wave.

I have therefore decided to cancel all my zoo plans (a few more times Planckendael, perhaps Antwerp outdoors, Han and Forestia) for the spring, until at least June 1st, by which time I hope things will have substantially improved, the epidemic will be truly under control and things will be a lot safer. I am going to have to abstain from zoo visits for a few months I'm afraid. But I will be allowing and looking into nature and forest walks as an hopefully safe outdoor alternative to hopefully offer me some exercise and relaxation.

I have also decided I am not going to ban myself from gallery postings and from fantasy zoo submissions. But I haven't yet been able to make a decision on what I should do with the pictures from my two recent visits to Planckendael. There is some nice stuff in there I would love to post, but I believe the two visits were ethically very questionable, and therefore I am undecided whether it would ethically acceptable to post those images.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

The things we have heard and seen from Brazil here in Europe were all very disturbing and heartbreaking. My best wishes to everyone over there, I hope you and your loved ones will remain safe, and I hope things will soon get better for you over there.

Thank you for your kind words @KevinB ! Much appreciated!

Both me and my girlfriend had Coronavirus in March / April of last year. It only gave me a bit of a runny nose and slightly sore eyes but it did impact my significant other pretty badly for a period of two weeks but she recovered well.

I think she was far more impacted emotionally by seeing all those people dying every day and in many cases the inability to do anything as a doctor due to the medical shortages and pressures on the system rather than having COVID.

It seems quite a strange thing to say but despite the pandemic and some worries and frustrations last year was a relatively good and productive year for me.

 

[CMP]

While to some extent I enjoy it better than in person, I feel like I may not be learning as much in school or really having the same experiences. Probably the biggest way Covid has affected me is that I have not been to a zoo for nearly 2 years, and I am unable to really travel more than an hour to state parks. Even so, I am undoubtedly grateful that it has not negatively affected me more, and I send my best regards to those to whom it has.

 

[BerdNerd]

When the pandemic first started in March 2020, at that time, I was living in Hawaii and was an 8th grader about to leave school for a week for spring break. I casually said goodbye to all my friends, thinking I would see them again. When the break finished, they cancelled school for an extra day, But as coronavirus cases began to rise, so did the number of cancelled school days. Then it became two days, four days, a week, a month, until school was cancelled for the rest of the year. When school finished, it was time for me to move to another place, which turned out to be Kansas.

I never did see any of my friends ever again without a proper goodbye, but I managed to snag my best friend’s number before I left. This event left me somewhat depressed for a while, but I recovered eventually.

 

[Jana]

So, today I´ve become responsible for weekly antigen testing for covid19 in our company (our country has currently the highest covid-caused mortality and incidence from the whole world). Will have some fun the next few months, on top of my normal work duties.

 

[KevinB]

Right now I feel anxious, frustrated, hopeless and stressed.

Belgium has entered a third wave, we are looking at tighter restrictions rather than further relaxations, and it remains to be seen whether it is only going to be really bad or a total disaster worse than the previous two waves.

We can completely forget about this spring now, and probably the summer is also largely a lost cause at this point.

Personally I have mostly given up hoping, and I can not nor want to believe in an end to or a way out of this crisis anymore. There are just too many reasons why there is just no way to end or get out of this awful mess.

To be honest, I barely know what to do or where to go from here.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

Right now I feel anxious, frustrated, hopeless and stressed.

Belgium has entered a third wave, we are looking at tighter restrictions rather than further relaxations, and it remains to be seen whether it is only going to be really bad or a total disaster worse than the previous two waves.

We can completely forget about this spring now, and probably the summer is also largely a lost cause at this point.

Personally I have mostly given up hoping, and I can not nor want to believe in an end to or a way out of this crisis anymore. There are just too many reasons why there is just no way to end or get out of this awful mess.

To be honest, I barely know what to do or where to go from here.

"I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece and short. I'm in a world of ****... yes. But I am alive."

Stay strong @KevinB, this too shall pass !

 

[KevinB]

"I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece and short. I'm in a world of ****... yes. But I am alive."

Stay strong @KevinB, this too shall pass !

I think my message this morning was perhaps a little exaggerated and could have been a little less negative without denying my renewed struggles. I've had some time to think, and my day was actually better than I expected. Perhaps I complained a bit too much, as there people who have it much worse than me, who is in a relatively comfortable position. But mental health is also an important concern in this crisis, and it is also not wrong to talk or write about it.

I'm going to try and tune out as much as possible from the new and attempt to find some mental rest and energy this weekend. I am also trying once more to break this cycle of doomscrolling for (mostly) dystopian, negative and worrisome information. Knowing or reading more about the pandemic stuff than I really need to is not going to help me right now.

Yeah the world certainly is, to put it a little more politely, a crappy place right now. But as Churchill once said, "If you're going through hell, keep going. Never, never, never give up". I don't want to give up, but it is hard sometimes.

I really, really want to keep believing and hoping that this shall indeed pass and more normal times will one day return, or that at the very least somewhat better times will come soon enough (as in, within the next few months). It is in my nature to always think of the "ifs" and "buts" and reasons why this might not happen or happen soon, but I will have to fight that to some extent, while remaining careful and vigilant.

In short, I'm scared and stressed, but I want to do something about that, and I don't want to give up hope.

 

[Onychorhynchus coronatus]

I think my message this morning was perhaps a little exaggerated and could have been a little less negative without denying my renewed struggles. I've had some time to think, and my day was actually better than I expected. Perhaps I complained a bit too much, as there people who have it much worse than me, who is in a relatively comfortable position. But mental health is also an important concern in this crisis, and it is also not wrong to talk or write about it.

I'm going to try and tune out as much as possible from the new and attempt to find some mental rest and energy this weekend. I am also trying once more to break this cycle of doomscrolling for (mostly) dystopian, negative and worrisome information. Knowing or reading more about the pandemic stuff than I really need to is not going to help me right now.

Yeah the world certainly is, to put it a little more politely, a crappy place right now. But as Churchill once said, "If you're going through hell, keep going. Never, never, never give up". I don't want to give up, but it is hard sometimes.

I really, really want to keep believing and hoping that this shall indeed pass and more normal times will one day return, or that at the very least somewhat better times will come soon enough (as in, within the next few months). It is in my nature to always think of the "ifs" and "buts" and reasons why this might not happen or happen soon, but I will have to fight that to some extent, while remaining careful and vigilant.

In short, I'm scared and stressed, but I want to do something about that, and I don't want to give up hope.

No problem, it is ok to vent.

These are anxiety provoking times and the continuous lockdowns are fraying everyones nerves and patience at the moment while the news reports / coverage are very depressing indeed and are a sort of media blitzkrieg on mental health.

Yes, exactly, it is very important to have a good and healthy media "ecology" / equilibrium for want of a better word to how we use the internet and social media because it does have an adverse impact on mental health.

There is definitely light at the end of the tunnel though it may be difficult to see at this moment and as I said before this too shall pass so best to keep that in mind and keep hopeful.

Stay strong and keep well !

 

[littleRedPanda]

I thought I would ask this here rather than derail a news thread.
I was wondering what the situation will be in June for going to Jersey from England and Andrew Swales raised the concern about flying.

So, when will people be comfortable flying again, bearing in mind that this virus will keep mutating and possible pose a permanent threat somewhere in the world? Although I would be happy to get a ferry across to continental Europe, I really want to go further which would require flying.

 

[Maguari]

So, when will people be comfortable flying again, bearing in mind that this virus will keep mutating and possible pose a permanent threat somewhere in the world? Although I would be happy to get a ferry across to continental Europe, I really want to go further which would require flying.

My feeling is that I feel much more likely to pick something up from each hour I spend in the supermarket with hundreds of different people moving about and crossing each other's paths at close range than from the same theoretical hour sat on a plane (or indeed, sat at separate tables in a pub/restaurant) with the same few people in 'range' and with far more strongly policed (and policeable) rules. Planes (and airports) themselves certainly don't concern me more than any other public venue.

The bigger issue will be the state of the pandemic in the region the flight is going to, I think - and it could be a couple of months before it really becomes clear where in mainland Europe we are even allowed (by our government) to go before we can look at where we feel comfortable. Islands might have a better chance (not just Jersey, but places like the Canaries and Balearics). That said, looking at Israel's figures, it's suggestive that once a decent percentage of a country have been fully vaccinated, the numbers get a lot better pretty quickly. Even ours where it is mostly just one dose have improved quicker than we really hoped for. I think when the situation in Europe does improve it will be similarly swift - it's just a question of how long it takes to get there.

 

[MRJ]

I thought I would ask this here rather than derail a news thread.
I was wondering what the situation will be in June for going to Jersey from England and Andrew Swales raised the concern about flying.

So, when will people be comfortable flying again, bearing in mind that this virus will keep mutating and possible pose a permanent threat somewhere in the world? Although I would be happy to get a ferry across to continental Europe, I really want to go further which would require flying.

Research I have seen seems to indicate the actual time in the air is reasonably safe. This appears to be because of the design of the ventilation systems of modern jet aircraft. Time in airports less so, but as has been said, probably safer than your average supermarket. I actually think an aircraft would be safer than a ferry.

The real question is whether your intended destination wants to let you in. You would have absolutely no chance of going to Australia, for instance. That will continue to be an issue until the effectiveness of vaccines is established and a vaccine passport implemented. Qantas plans to restart international flights in late October, which in my mind is a reasonable indicator.

 

[Maguari]

The real question is whether your intended destination wants to let you in. You would have absolutely no chance of going to Australia, for instance.

Indeed.

There's an interesting underlying level to this - which is that 'international travel' means different things to different countries, on the basis of scale and proximity. Australia is in a particularly strong position to be able to limit it, occupying as it does a whole continental land mass to itself (rather greedily ). Similarly, in the US most residents are nowhere near an international border.

In Europe, with many more countries packed close together, international travel is much more of a casual thing. Within the Schengen area in particular, international travel is a day-to-day necessity for a lot of people, who often live in (say) France and work in (say) Germany. There's a high number of people with close relatives in another European country that they can usually visit easily. All that has a corresponding effect on people's approach to pure leisure travel. Even here in Fortress UK, we have a common travel area with the Republic of Ireland and a train tunnel linking us to France, and are used to being able to be in any of a dozen other countries in just an hour or two and usually for less than the price of a train to London. Normally, for me, Cologne or Barcelona don't feel any more of a journey away than Edinburgh, or even Cornwall.

Economies are also configured accordingly. An awful lot of European tourism is unevenly spread between countries because Europe (including the bits outside the EU or Schengen area) is used to functioning from a leisure travel point of view more or less as if it were one big country. Spain couldn't hope to fill its huge amount of hotels and beach bars with only Spanish tourists, and German and British holiday spots will struggle with overcrowding if those countries' summer tourists all turn up in the school holidays.

In effect, and in normal times, travel between European countries is much more akin in scale and approach to travel between US or Australian states.

So the summation is that I expect intra-European leisure travel for Brits and other Europeans to be a slightly swifter restarter (though probably not before July or maybe even August) than travel to other regions, with the possible exception of the US given their current speed of vaccine rollout. But I think most of the regular tourist destinations for Brits will be back as an option comfortably before the end of the year - by about October does seem a fair compromise for a place like Australia if things go as expected.

 

[Andrew Swales]

There's an interesting underlying level to this - which is that 'international travel' means different things to different countries, on the basis of scale and proximity. Australia is in a particularly strong position to be able to limit it, occupying as it does a whole continental land mass to itself (rather greedily ). Similarly, in the US most residents are nowhere near an international border.

Australia is in a stronger position to limit international travel, physically at least; but economically it is as dependent on the foreign tourist dollar as most, and more so than many, other countries.

In Europe, with many more countries packed close together, international travel is much more of a casual thing. Within the Schengen area in particular, international travel is a day-to-day necessity for a lot of people, who often live in (say) France and work in (say) Germany. There's a high number of people with close relatives in another European country that they can usually visit easily. All that has a corresponding effect on people's approach to pure leisure travel. Even here in Fortress UK, we have a common travel area with the Republic of Ireland and a train tunnel linking us to France, and are used to being able to be in any of a dozen other countries in just an hour or two and usually for less than the price of a train to London. Normally, for me, Cologne or Barcelona don't feel any more of a journey away than Edinburgh, or even Cornwall.

This is all very true.

Economies are also configured accordingly. An awful lot of European tourism is unevenly spread between countries because Europe (including the bits outside the EU or Schengen area) is used to functioning from a leisure travel point of view more or less as if it were one big country. Spain couldn't hope to fill its huge amount of hotels and beach bars with only Spanish tourists, and German and British holiday spots will struggle with overcrowding if those countries' summer tourists all turn up in the school holidays.

This is very dependent on stupidly low (and un-sustainable) international flight prices.
How can it cost less than £20 to fly to Spain, yet it costs £120 to fill up my car..?

In effect, and in normal times, travel between European countries is much more akin in scale and approach to travel between US or Australian states.

So the summation is that I expect intra-European leisure travel for Brits and other Europeans to be a slightly swifter restarter (though probably not before July or maybe even August) than travel to other regions, with the possible exception of the US given their current speed of vaccine rollout. But I think most of the regular tourist destinations for Brits will be back as an option comfortably before the end of the year - by about October does seem a fair compromise for a place like Australia if things go as expected.

Given the variation in the way the disease is being handled country by country, I would not be so sure...