Coronavirus Stories - Reaching Out From Isolation

Edited BY G P Kennedy Ian and Minako - Tokyo, Japan  Hello again from scorching Tokyo, we are both well, surviving the maximum temperatures of 35+ degrees in the last fortnight and looking forward to a slightly milder September, though it could also bring some typhoons!    The big news here is that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced his resignation due to health reasons. He has seemed pretty inactive for a long time, his popularity rating is very low and elections are due next year. We will have to wait and see whether his successor will be any better or worse.    Abe hasn't gone yet though. On Friday he announced that vaccinations for the coronavirus would be available for all citizens by the first half of next year. Testing is to be improved and increased and the Health ministry is considering down-grading the disease to a lower ranking as hospitals and health professionals are more experienced and better prepared for dealing with it thus freeing up resou...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Ellie - Milan, Italy   In the land of coffee and good food, things are getting back to normal in terms of human activity. It is increasingly difficult to find free spots in coffee shops on a whim. But we were lucky here to find a table facing the lake this past week    The social changes of social comity design have had their visual impact, too. Besides the utilitarian signage, it's mostly on the vernacular level.    That is, non-professionals determine it. I was struck how this bar has set apart its welcome disinfectant gel on such a dainty handmade lace tablecloth on it's own table, greeting customers at the door.    A combination of vernacular taste and utilitarian necessity has happened here to ward off tables from the street.    They are by appointment only!    And speaking of door, this church has not yet realized how off-putting its signage is, trying to make clear which door is for entry and which ...

Edited BY G P Kennedy Simon - Perth, WA  Hi everyone, hope you are all safe and well. Bit of a quick one this week as I am heading off to work in half an hour.   It’s still the same old situation here in WA which I suppose is a good thing but one week feels very much like the next.    The Pandemic has slowed down somewhat in Victoria but daily deaths have still been around the 20 mark. Someone soon we are due to find out what restrictions and hard borders may or may not be lifted before Christmas.    I have looked into booking us a holiday in WA later this month but there is almost nothing available. Our hard borders mean that everyone is holidaying interstate so I need to get a move on!   Men to boys   Biggest personal news this week was that after a break of nearly six months our Monday Night Gaming Group met up face to face at our house. Since I have been about 12  I have played board games and later table-top role-playing games such as Du...

Edited BY G P Kennedy   Sally and the Baby - Liverpool, this week  So this week has been a week of firsts for me and my family. Whilst the rest of the UK are getting their children ready to go back to schools and universities, we have been getting ourselves ready to go and see my parents.   The last time we saw them was February and since then many things have happened like the baby turning one and my dad having a heart attack, all things that we would usually rally together as a family, but COVID-19 has kept us apart.    Another reason for our visit is that I have my first job, also since February, which is nearer my parents’ house than mine so in the past I have always stayed at there.  We did look at staying in a hotel or Air BnB but then finical cost would cancel out the payment for work. And also my parents are desperate to see the baby, so we decided to stay there.  As it stands in the UK the death toll is 41,499 and the number of cases are slowl...

  Edited BY G P Kennedy   Gul - and her man - Istanbul, Turkey FINAL WEEKS OF SUMMER  Life continues as usual here. August is over, we have come almost to the end of summer, and we all have the same sadness. I wish we could freeze this moment and go to a year later. An uncertain autumn and winter are so scary.    The daily number of new cases in the country is reported as over 1500 every day but we assume it’s x 10. Insufficient testing in this busy summer months increased the cases and asymptomatic carriers are still spreading the virus. We hear news that there are not enough beds in the hospitals at the moment. Also idiot people hide that they are sick; there was not enough work to isolate people before its spread by the authorities. They’ve failed (again). Sadly, five doctors died this week; hundreds of healthcare workers have been infected with the virus. Last strawberries of the summer SCHOOL OR NOT  School year began with distance education but this i...

  Edited BY G P Kennedy Tassy - Karachi, Pakistan   Hello everyone. As excited as I was last week with my short escape to Dubai, this week I’m as despondent. The journey back from Dubai was uneventful in the sense that I knew what to expect with flight protocol and travel. A very excited and happy Mario, my Shih Tzu who we had left behind, greeted me.    The feeling of elation from the week’s trip was very much there for my first day back. The weather was not too hot and it was cloudy so that felt pleasant. This changed from the next day. The wind picked up and my bamboo fence fell over. Along with the fence I lost my beautiful vegetable bearing creepers and my bright bougainvillea that was uprooted.   The wind takes down part of the garden What followed in the next five days was the worst thunderstorm the country has seen in a 100 years!  Karachi in the best of times cannot handle rain. As mentioned a couple of months ago when we had heavy rainfall, our dr...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy   Sally and the baby - London, UK  This time next year, at the moment I can’t even see past this time next week.  I have my first job since February but it is in Manchester, which means that myself, my boyfriend and the baby have to stay in my parents house in Liverpool so I can make a 30 mile drive to work each day instead of a 230 mile one if we stayed London.  This is causing me a lot of anxiety as I want to keep my family and myself safe but also I would like some ‘normality’ back in our lives.     I have spoken to colleagues who have already had a few days at work and they say that TV studios have all safety measures in places so as long as I wear a mask and sanitize and observe social distance rules then it shouldn’t be anymore stressful than a supermarket shop… But then I worry about going home to my parents especially since my dad’s heart attack.   Will we be celebrating Christmas with our family?  Anyway h...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Ellie - Milan, Italy    This time next year... Can I just dream a little? I am not going to be planning anything realistic here but will give myself the license to go wild. No matter what, if this year has had any kind of lesson for us it’s that we can't really plan. I am also superstitions in this respect so don't want to invite bad luck with any firm intentions.    So next time this year, I am planning to survive. I know I said no realistic plans, so I guess this makes it unrealistic? It may be. I'll throw it out there as an option.    This photo is of the staircase leading to our city library. So next year at this time I am hoping to have read at least one book that will not have been picked because they are useful for anything - no work, project or creative purpose.  Next year this time, I hope to have achieved a really big goal that has been dealt with by small baby steps.    Maybe I'll host an artist residenc...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Simon - Perth, Western Australia   Hello all hope you are traveling well.    Well, here we are, the end of August 2021. This time last year we all felt like it was the end of the world.  Luckily a reliable vaccine was found in early January and distributed around the world to everyone in record time thanks to a combined effort from every country around the world. After a few months most places returned to a new normal and everyone started to rebuild the damage COVID-19 had wrought across the globe.    Amazingly the worldwide distribution of a free vaccine for all was just the beginning of a major shift in the way countries dealt with each other.    Profits, share dividends and the exploitation of billions of people soon took a backseat to fair wages, free childcare and a raft of legislation to protect the environment. It was as if the whole world had woken up and realized how close it was to disaster. For once everyone ...

  Edited BY G P Kennedy   Graeme - D-FW, Texas August 2021…it seems an impossibly long way off. As the country with the worst record for dealing with Coronavirus the United States seems to be atypically supplicant before the challenge of beating this thing.    We also have the small matter of a Presidential election happening on November 3, 2020. This election will be hugely consequential in myriad ways and for countless reasons.   On the Coronavirus front it will likely decide whether we, as a nation, simply sit down, deny, and hope/wait for a vaccine that may or may not be coming in 2021. Indeed, from my wide reading on the issue it’s not even a lock that a vaccine will be found to be effective for enough people nor for long enough to justify going into production.     In terms of the bigger picture the coming presidential election is hugely important. I could bang on about polls, demographic trends, gerrymandering, the Supreme Court and a bunch...