It’s Wednesday Jan 6th 2021 and today, as last country in the EU, the first person got vaccinated. A nurse working in a care home got the honour. Today is also the day word got out that lock-down, the unintelligent kind, probably gets extended by at least two weeks. Considering the number of people who still get infected on a daily basis that doesn’t come as a surpise to me. Still, I’m not looking forward to more weeks of keeping Daughter entertained while working and starting my data science course later this month. It will be hectic and not the most fun period for Daughter, the Man and myself.

Somehow people feel less urgency to keep their distance. Most people I speak to have been visiting multiple addresses during the holidays. When you visit multiple people over multiple days, one person can easily infect two or more people. Who then might infect others in their household. Who might have visited others before showing any signs of infections. And the virus spreads happily ever after.

The Man, designated groceries shopper, notices people feel less inclined to keep their distance to others inside the supermarket. Perhaps this is indeed a psychological effect of wearing face masks, giving people a false sense of safety. Others have reported to avoid certain supermarkets at certain hours as they’re overly crowded.

I hear people talk about going to the office, but only a few days a week. I wouldn’t take that risk. Especially not when working together with people in their (early) twenties, who behave their age (drink in life), or their parents (between fifty and sixty). These two groups are overly represented in the infection rates.

As long as people keep doing what they’ve been doing the pas month, we will be in this situation at least until Spring. Or however long it takes for the Sun to start shining and burn the virus from the air with stronger UV radiation.

At some time during Spring or Summer 2020 I played with the idea of renting a place somewhere in Europe for a longer period, so we could at least change surroundings for a while. That idea is back. Go somewhere warmer. Or somewhere where there is snow. Of course that will never happen. But one is allowed to imagine.