Coronavirus Stories - Reaching Out From Isolation

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   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...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Today we pitch a curveball, or bowl a google - depending on your preferred bat and ball sport. We look at what the future might hold for us all as we look back on Tassy's trip last week to Dubai. Tassy - Karachi, Pakistan Travel in the time of COVID-19  I feel guilty saying this, but the week that just went by was simply fabulous. I made it to my old hometown, to the city where I grew up and have been visiting every year for all my life. Dubai.  I consider myself quite a seasoned traveler and have been traveling to at least 3 or 4 places a year. This was the longest I hadn’t been on a plane. 10 months.    I was looking to get out of my self imposed quarantined life in Karachi, and have a mini escape. My husband had some work in Dubai and I thought that would be the best opportunity to simply have a break. The journey itself was arduous. The airline had the requirement of each passenger to have a COVID test done by a designated laboratory b...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Tassy - Karachi, Pakistan  The week began with a number of changes. The Government announced that everything would be open with immediate effect! The move resulted in jubilation for most people, and increased wariness from skeptics like me. A number of people actually believe that the Corona virus has been eradicated like small pox! Mask wearing had not been strictly observed all this time for the majority and now even the few who have been wearing them will be less strict. It really makes me shudder.    During my walk with my friend on the seaside promenade, we noticed numbers of people who had thronged to the beach, all maskless. Previously this area had been cordoned  off for pedestrians and cyclists to use. We cut short our walk to return home as we felt uncomfortable with the huge congregation, and my friend and I decided that that would be our last walk there. Funnily enough while most people around the world have used the time of th...

 Edited BY G P Kennedy Gul - Istanbul, Turkey  After a week-long religious holiday, the coast has become quiet again. We do all the same things, swimming, reading, walking, eating.. My nieces and brother in law went back to Istanbul, my sister’s turn next week. She’ll be going to her home after more than two months holidaying with us. I’ll miss her cooking and friendship for sure.    Turkey is reopening further but corona numbers are going up. With almost 1500 new daily cases everyday, the situation is getting worse in some cities.    There were many news reports this week that people were flocking to public parks and beaches and ignoring social distancing. It’s crazy how the situation is running out of hand in some places. It’s not easy in a way, because everyone wants to be out, enjoy the summer. But I don’t fall for the right wing politicians ‘blame others’ attitudes. There has never been an adequate testing in this country and the businesses reopened to...