Tuesday brings uncertainty as a Second Wave looks to be washing onto England's shores

 Edited BY


GP Kennedy


Sally - London, UK - not loving 2020 so far 

 After the last few crazy weeks, I have had I am back in London and finally able to sit down and take a breath. But I can’t let my guard down, as the UK is one the verge on a nationwide second lockdown.  Some local lockdowns have already been happening including Manchester, where I was working, and Liverpool, where I was staying at my parents’ house, which was very worrying. 

I just tried to be as safe as I possibly could.  Mask, hand washing, and sanitizing constantly through the working day.  Then clothes straight in the wash and jump in the shower before sitting down or touching James and the baby as soon as I got home from work.

 

 Lockdown inevitably brings all the craziness with it so some people have already started to panic buy again, why, I don’t know as there is no talk of shops shutting down and I think/hope the shops would have learned what they need to stock (toilet roll, flour, hand sanitizer if the last lockdown is anything to go by) to keep the country going.

 

 Boris Johnson and the government have brought in some new ‘rules’ for lockdown including the ‘rule of 6’, no indoor organized sports, restaurants, and bars to have a 10pm curfew and work from home if you can.  

 

 I can’t help think that the rise in cases is to do with schools and universities going back.  People are mixing with others outside their families and although the schools and universities are doing everything they can to make things safe, at the end of the day they people are being put in unsafe situations because the government has told them to do so.

 

 My gut feeling is that this is going to go on for quite a few months more and Christmas will be affected.  When Iris was born we decided to do the first Christmas at my parents' house in Liverpool, then travel to Wales on Boxing Day to spend a few days with James’ family.  The second-year we were going to reverse that, but I honestly can’t see it being safe going straight from one family household into another and no be putting everyone at risk.  It will be very sad if we don’t get to see both our families again before the end of the year and even sadder if we don’t get to see them over Christmas. I saw a logo for 2020 this week that made me laugh.

 

 I am also worried about what a second lockdown will do to our work again.  I have only worked 8 days since March and James hasn’t worked any day yet so we have been living off Universal Credit, which is money from the government.  This amount only just covers what we need and we have used most of our savings so the effects COVID are a lot bigger than just health.

 

 My anxiety levels are starting to rise again but I just need to keep taking deep breaths (from safety behind my face mask)

 

Stay safe

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 44 - Mixed messages lead to protests in Turkey

Image
Edited BY G P Kennedy Gul- Aegean Coast, Turkey  The weather was icy cold last week, when I said I can’t take another day, suddenly that feeling of spring was in the air.   According to the Turkish folk calendar, the first Cemre - imagine a meteor fireball passing by up in the sky, warming the air - fell on Feb 19 and 20. There are two more yet to fall, one on Feb 26 and 27 and the last two in March – also will lead to the New Year Nevruz (Nowruz, Iranian).    They say the first Cemre always falls to the air, the second to the water, and the third to the earth.  Nowadays, because of warmer weather, we are able to have coffee in our garden with our neighbors and have a chat. Otherwise, we were overwhelmed with loneliness.  POLITICAL CRAZINESS  Our ordinary lives can be boring but daily politics is the opposite, there was a controversial event almost every day this week.   This country will make all of us mentally sick. It is ...
Read more

Week 49 - Simon says, 'Count your blessings my fellow Aussies'

Image
Edited BY G P Kennedy Simon - Perth, WA   Hi everyone, hope all is well wherever you are.  So here we are at the end of March in Western Australia, which means over 12 months of the Pandemic.   Across all of the country, the vaccines are being slowly rolled out but we are not hitting our intended targets.   This seems to be a combination of lack of supply and the doses being given by GP’s rather than at vaccination centers. I guess the only thing that stops this from being a real concern is the size of our case numbers.   The vast majority of our small number of cases is from returned overseas travelers who are put in quarantine anyway.   This week sees a small outbreak in Queensland with some community transmission. This has led to a snap three-day lockdown to try and contain it and perform contact tracing.  Going forward it looks like this will happen fairly frequently. We have demonstrated that these short and sharp lockdowns seem...
Read more

Week 15 - Wednesday in Milan explores the 'new normal' for Ellie

Image
Edited BY G P Kennedy Ellie - Milan, Italy    “How are y'all doing?” a friend from Texas asked me recently. I am happy to report that the contagion rate in Italy have been mostly down. Daily rates of new infections have been around 150 for the country.    I have the feeling, though, that this is due not only to scared people who mostly stick to their masks and distancing, but of the possibility to do things outdoors, which is what helps with holding new infections down. There are many unwelcome signs for change, though. For example, hope for getting rid of plastics, and its dispersal in the environment, is definitely given up.    Now that all coffee shops, company cafeterias and restaurants that hope to have clients indoors are required to outfit their spaces with distancing partitions, plastic has drastically increased. But it has also started causing some awkward moments.    I met with a friend for a coffee recently, our first get together after...
Read more