The pandemic in a nutshell:
1st half year 2020: Covid? What’s that? A bird flue from Asia? Business trips canceled and working from home for 2 weeks? Love it! My new work mate: hubby. Cooking our own lunches, yeah! So healthy! Face masks are great fashion accessories (made out of silk & real fun colors).
2nd half year 2020: Ehm, this pandemic doesn’t seem to be a short-term thing… damn. Working from home was extended to … forever? Maybe that kitchen chair needs to be replaced by a proper office chair. The back hurts, the neck cracks. The step watch is no longer challenged with 300 steps between kitchen, home office & bed room. Delicious food & cakes (jogging pants remained accordingly). Too much of it (and extra from the neighbors). Not only the scale exploded. Oh dear.
31.12.2020: what a year! We somehow made it. Hope & high expectations for 2021: everything will be back to normal next year! What a fairytale!
4.1.2021: lockdown continues…. Happy new year! Uff… until 6.2021. Summer holidays. Yeah! Vaccine available for everyone (love it or hate it). We all figured out that masks are not just accessories but that they really have a purpose (goodbye silk masks). Free FFP2 masks for everyone >60 years old. You even recognize the Germans with their FFP2 masks abroad. Lol.
10.2021: wave #130 – what a surprise: it’s fall and Covid cases are increasing. What? The pandemic isn’t over yet? Is that a repeat of 2020? Kind of. Not as bad thanks to the available vaccine.
11.2021: hello Omicron! Christmas shopping completed early – you never know what’s shutting down next (and for how long)… lessons learnt from previous year.
1.2022: Booster! Booster! Booster! No or low expectations. Just wondering: how long does a pandemic last? The less news the better! Fingers crossed for the future. Our future. According to The NY Times half of Europe will catch Omicron in the next 6-8 weeks… well, stay healthy! Good luck to all of us 🍀
Back to you, my friend: Covid, who are you?
We (still) don’t know much about you. Spiky & nasty. A murderer. A world traveler. All the way up to the Antarctica research station. Who are you?
Congratulations & happy 2nd anniversary… You showed up in Europe about two years ago. And you have been keeping us busy since. Pretty successfully. In fact, you keep the whole world busy. You got everybody’s attention (you should hear those fights about the tennis player these days who tried to enter Australia…). You are topic #1. Globally. Since 2 (!) years! If you were music or a film you would get awarded! No meeting or conversation is ending without having talked about you. You are famous! And definitely annoying! Covid, you affected almost every aspect of our daily lives.
Who are you?
You already killed a lot of people. Some still don’t believe that you exist (that’s causing the biggest trouble!). You are the reason for the on/off closure of country borders, restaurants, bars, cafes, theaters, hairdressers, spas, schools, Kinder-garden… not cool!
You scare us. Some time ago you started mutating. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Omicron… what’s next? That scares us the most. You are wild and out of control. Yeah, keep challenging us! The whole world is tired of you. Our patience is used up. You give and you take our hopes. Frequently.
(I believe) thanks to you, Mr T. wasn’t elected again. Well, that was kind of cool.
Traveling remains difficult. In fact we should only leave the house for good reasons these days (that’s why we keep discovering new grocery stores in 30km distance one way. Those are happy kilometers. Alternatively we love spending fortunes on soaps and hair gels just because there was no other shop open).
Because of you we had curfews in the past and nowadays restaurants have to close at 10:30pm. Sperrstunde. WTF?
Nobody exactly knows who you are and what to do to get rid of you. At the same time we are struggling finding out how to make friends with you. All we want is to accept and live with you. Really! Promise!
Some of us became survivalists. Some people became creative. Others feel paralyzed. Lonely. Sad.
Dear Covid, because of you we have been working from home since 2 years (if you are lucky to still have a job). Can we ever go back to the office 5 days a week? I don’t think so (but that’s not a bad thing).
Most of us became real good chefs in the kitchen (or nonstop food delivery service users). It was also leading to a couple of additional kilos…
You made us stop and breath for a while. Made us re-think our life style. Or you made most parents nuts.
A lot of us became more interested in news and politics. But also frequently fed up. People even „walk“ in bulks on streets now. Demonstrating against restrictions, limitations and vaccine.
Thanks to you air pollution is reduced. Globally. That’s cool! Also did you speed up the digitalization in the country I currently live in. It was about time! But it caused a new problem: how to recycle too many Amazon cardboard boxes?!
You make us slow down. Which is cool (if there was an end in sight it would be even cooler).
Family & friends have time again to call and talk. Most of us are desperate for talking. For hours on the phone. On a Tuesday night! Our chance to get closer again.
People seem friendlier. Older people talking in the supermarkets. Apologizing if they are in the way with their shopping trolleys.
It would have never come to my mind that a virus can stop the world from moving! Wow!
Covid, who are you?
We are really tired of you! I know people who haven’t seen their families in 2 years! Time to say bye bye! Go away, please. Thanks, Merci, Grazie, xie xie, Dankeschön!
Sincerely, all humans (& cats)
Stuttgart547 