I had a long conversation with my brother Robert the other night (need to call David on occasion but called Rob because he had texted me to give him a call - that's my story and I'm sticking to it!) Anyway I digress. We had a conversation about how things are going with COVID there vs. here. I note the differences all the time but don't really document them and as I print this book out annually for posterity (of my kids ever have kids and so forth) I figured I would put the progression here in a timeline.
March of 2020 I was in Italy working and boating to Malta. We had heard of Covid but in vague terms of illness, rapid spread, some caution when traveling. We were give the option to use a medical mask in the airports and in the planes if we so choose. i went and picked one up but honestly didn't use it. I happily went through Paris' crowded Charles De Gaulle airport oblivious to the world. Well, not quite oblivious, but not really too concerned. On our return we flew right back through Paris - still caution to the wind, no mask for me.... and home. Those who returned through Millan were screened for temperatures before getting on planes. Hind sight being what it was some were probably exposed on that layover.
Flying became something you avoided - even for work. You could take a train easier with less restrictions for quarantine at the distant end than you could if you flew. So when we flew for work we made every attempt to use Military air where it was "bubble to bubble" aka base to base to avoid unnecessary exposures. Commercial flying automatically landed you into quarantine for 14 days and testing.
April/May infections were growing in Portugal, Sweden, Poland and eastern block countries. There was a threshold for infection rates of greater than 3% I think it was then you were restricted to local travel only no one really in/out unless it was for work, medical etc.. Most of the heavy restrictions and enforced isolation were in Northern Italy where everyone was hit hard. You were not allowed to travel anywhere near there, if you lived there you were to stay home - period. You only came out for groceries. Isolated restrictions stayed in place until this fall. Your area may have curfews to not be out after x time (because stores were closed after that time and there was no reason to go out).
June, the whole country of Portugal was removed from our "green" list - free to travel. They were now restricted and we could not go there.
July Czechoslovakia was added to the red list, poland was on the watch list
August France went on the red and Belgium was added to the watch list. BUT Poland and Czechoslovakia came off... they were free to travel again.
September Iceland, the UK, Denmark, Belgium and The Netherlands as well as Switzerland and Austria and Croatia were added to the red list BUT Portugal was removed, which is funny because the only way to get there was to fly as France was red... so we would still be faced with a 14 day quarantine if we flew there... so... we opted out still. By the end of the month it was back in the red, so travel there wouldn't have been too smart regardless :)
We opted to drive to Berlin and Poland as we were still "green" even if Poland was on the "watch" list... if it had gone red we simply would have quarantined when we got home. I couldn't DRAG Butch to a red country... He didn't even want to do Berlin but after he went he said he was glad he had gone.
By the first of November it was easier to count the green countries and Germany was no longer one of them... Norway was the LAST hold out and they finally went red on November 11th. This is honetly a lot more fun with a visual, but work email failed to send to my home address. it's not like the pictures were secret squirrel - it was just a fun representation of the spread and the lockdowns.
Now what does lockdown consist of? Well, when you are a red country and you are military you are to stay within the boarders of your host nation - that's OK because Germany is quite large... so really some took advantage of that. We're old, we stayed home once it went red. I still went out and about and went to the antique store, but really, we just stayed home mostly.
Christmas markets were closed. Where they used to have 50 - 100 vendors they were down to 5 or 10 scattered across town centers and platz. Then in the last week they have taken that even further and shut those vendors down completely. AND as of last night I saw that they even shut off the Christmas lights in an effort to keep people at home. German New Years is HUGE. they are not selling fireworks this year... that is unheard of here.. There have always been mask mandates for stores - no mask no entry - really - you will be yelled at if you are doing something wrong here, so you just do it. You an be fined $1,000's of dollars here for not wearing a mask in stores or designated mask areas. Anyway - the latest shutdown even shut home stores down. literally the ONLY things open until the new year are groceries and even some of those are shut down as well. Downtowns are ghost towns and it's a little sad here... (OK a LOT sad here)...
there is an interactive map found here; https://webcritech.jrc.ec.europa.eu/modellingoutput/cv/eu_response/eu_response.htm
But honestly with Germany having a high rate (although you will see there are really "shades" of red" rather than full red)... it's unsure if folks will let us IN from Germany. Then getting back in may be problematic too depending if you are going from a "redder" country to a "less red" country - ha!
First world problems for sure!!
