There is light at the end of the tunnel, at least as far as my
personal Covid experience is concerned. After a difficult 15 months
or so, I can look to the future with optimism, and start making plans
again. And about bloody time, too! I sincerely hope that this will
be the last piece I write on the subject, but I’m not betting my
home it: there is still way too much uncertainty out there, too many
variants popping up and spreading despite all the efforts of science
and medicine to stop them. We still don’t know for sure where it
came from, or how; the vaccine roll out is going superbly well in
some countries and appallingly in others; vaccine shortages will
continue to plague the effort and there is no consensus on how often
boosters will be needed……
But all things being
equal, my family were fortunate to get through it relatively
unscathed: just to be certain I have a full physical check up soon
with particular emphasis on my lungs (that have been impaired for a
few years now after a resurgence of a childhood bout of whooping
cough) and heart (my blood pressure remains stubbornly uneven and I’m
back on the meds I stopped taking when I retired – and according to
my doctor should not have).
But as far as Covid
is concerned I seem to have come through it, and I’m out the other
side.
------------------------------------------------------
My journey through
all this stuff has been no worse than millions of others, I suppose,
and indeed better than most. We’ve all faced the same problems of
isolation in various lockdowns. My older sister, for instance, close
to 80 and living alone since losing her husband getting on for 8
years ago in a little bungalow on the edge of a small Norfolk
village, without a car, has hardly left the house for the duration.
She used to go on two or three bus outings a week to places like
Kings Lynn and Hunstanton and Fakenham with a group of OAP friends.
Covid has put paid to all of those trips, at least until next week.
Luckily her next door neighbours have kept an eye on her, helped with
shopping and made sure she’s safe – the family include in their
number a paramedic and a ward sister at the biggest hospital in the
area so she could hardly have been in better hands – but she’s
still been effectively stuck in solitary confinement. Thank God she
has a decent garden! My time in a comfortable flat, with my wife and
kids, my dog and cat have been a pleasure compared to that (no matter
how gutty it has been some days).
Unlike many, I’ve
had no work issues as a retiree. My pension income, such as it is,
has remained stable and come through on time every month. I’ve not
had to get used to this new fangled WFH – Working From Home – as
I’d been doing that for some years anyway between project journeys
in my old job, so the tech requirements were familiar and in use
already, to keep in touch with people since I finished work. I’ve
not had to worry about how long my furlough might last and whether
I’d have a job to go back to, as my nephew and sons have. One of
them, self employed, fell through the cracks in the Government’s
raft of aid schemes and was without any income at all for a good part
of last year, which with a family was very tough. Fortunately, so is
he (it’s in his genes) and he got through it – now things are
opening up he’s working his nuts off to get his career back on
track and catch up. Another lost one job and has spent his time
since taking qualifications in a couple of things that are taking his
career in a completely different direction. Both had their down
times, and both got depressed, but again not as bad as many poor
people did. Me? I had off days, climbing the wall days and short
tempered days, of course, but nothing too serious, nor indeed any
more than normal.
My health has
remained overall good. I’ve piled on a few kilos because exercise
has been difficult for much of the year. This has partly been down
to the Covid restrictions, but also because of the accident I had
towards the end of last summer that left me with a badly broken big
toe on one foot and a torn hamstring on the other leg that, combined,
took nearly three months to heal and slowed me right down. I’ve
not ridden my bike since last July, for instance – before the
accident I was doing 100km a week or more. All of that is manageable
though, and now things are opening up I can exercise it off over the
summer.
But I did manage to
contract Covid – definitely once and I believe twice – so I have
a good idea of just how unpleasant even a relatively mild attack can
be. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone!
------------------------------------------------------
The first bout was
in October, just as I had recovered from the accident and was looking
to get out and about a bit. I woke one morning feeling very poorly,
with a bad headache, a bit of a sore throat, and feeling very weak
and tired. My temperature shot up, so I stayed in bed for a few
days. It didn’t seem to get any better or indeed worse, and the
symptoms could have been the flu: I wasn’t sure. I dosed up on
cold remedies and vitamin tablets, ate piles of toast and garlic
bread and drank gallons of warm milk with honey, and felt better
slowly. I wanted to get a test but at the time, the local health
service was breaking under the strain and it proved impossible to get
an appointment. After about three weeks – by now it was November –
a drive-in place opened close to us, so my Beloved and I went off one
Saturday morning, joined the queue and eventually had the big Q-tip
up the nose variety. Not the best way of spending a Saturday
morning, but what the hell. It took a few days to get our results,
and they both came back negative. But I sill felt bloody awful, and
applied to my local GP surgery for a blood test – another three
week wait. I still felt pretty rough, but went along and had a blood
test in due course. It too came back negative – ergo, I had no
trace of Covid.
Come March, I was
feeling more or less normal, though still got tired very quickly and
had huge problems concentrating on anything for more than about 10
minutes. It took me forever to read a even the best books, and my
consumption of online news media shrank to ten minutes or so a day.
As for writing anything – forget it. Nothing would come, no matter
how long I stared at the page. To an extent, that remains the case
today……...this is my first attempt at doing anything since the
middle of March. I convinced myself that I was suffering from Long
Covid, where the symptoms hang around for possibly months (no-one
knows for sure) an medication does not seem to help. Maybe I did –
I’m still unsure.
Which is when I
contracted Covid again. The symptoms were precisely the same as I’d
had before Christmas, if anything not as bad (at least initially) –
I didn’t have to retire to my bed, but that was about all. My
Beloved had come into contact with it through her boss, who called us
on a Friday evening to say she had tested positive. So we all went
off to the local centre, kids and all, for the Q-tip. The results
came back overnight – all positive. Except me. Once more, my test
showed negative, despite my symptoms being exactly the same as the
rest of the family and getting worse. But we all had to quarantine
for two weeks, which meant my now booked vaccination had to be
cancelled as it was due the following week.
By the weekend I
felt terrible, and had started to feel some discomfort breathing –
not all the time, just now and again. We called the doctor, and
insisted on another test, as my blood-oxygen level was also falling.
A paramedic in full contamination gear turned up with his trusty
Q-tip and advised me to closely monitor that pesky blood-oxygen and
if it fell below a set level, call an ambulance. That night it fell
very close to the number, and I spent an hour deep breathing as a
last resort – I did NOT want to be piled into an ambulance and
hauled off to the quite possibly the other end of the country –
there were no guarantees I would come home again. It worked, just.
On the Monday, it
was finally confirmed I had Covid, a positive test. It was a huge
relief – at least now I knew what it was and what I needed to do,
and I did it. Basically, that amounted to bed rest, vitamins, garlic
bread…..all the stuff I’d done previously. I did it happily. I
got through it.
Quite why three out
of my four tests came back negative I have no idea. I suspect the
first two, back in October/November time, were negative due to the
delays in having them. I had been poorly for maybe three weeks
before the first, so with an infection tending to last 14 days I must
have been over the worst of it and so the Q-tip was unable to find
anything up my nose – the virus had effectively run its course and
died off (or whatever happens to it). The blood test was also
delayed by three weeks or so, so perhaps the antibodies too had gone
away – even now there seems to be some argument about how long they
remain in the bloodstream in normal circumstances. Hence the first
“infection” was simply missed. As to the third one, I had a glass
of water just as we were leaving (my family didn’t), so perhaps
that simply washed away sufficient gunk for it not to be picked up on
the swab – I really don’t know. All I know is that 48 hours
later there was a positive fourth test.
----------------------------------------------------------
I’ve now had my
vaccination. Officially, if you go down with the virus and have to
cancel an inoculation, you have to remain Covid-free for three
months before you can re-apply and test negative before you get
another appointment. But a week or so after our quarantine ended, my
Beloved saw an item on the news that seemed to contradict that, so
called to check. The health people happily booked me a new
appointment without all that wait, so on the following weekend, in
mid-April (rather than the expected July) I trundled off to the
clinic for my first Astra Zenneca jab.
When I got there,
they had no AZ vaccine so offered me Johnson & Johnson instead.
As you only need one jab I took it – let’s get it all done. 28
days and you’ll be as near fully protected as you can be, the
doctor assured me. He explained that no matter which vaccine you
get, there is no 100% efficacy, there is always a chance you will get
the illness again, but any vaccine will pretty much guarantee you
will not suffer the worst effects and will not end up on life
support. Fair enough, I’ll take that.
The injection took a
few seconds, I didn’t feel a thing (and I hate injections!) and
best of all I have had absolutely no ill effects. No headaches, no
sore throat, no high temperature – all of which are possible side
effects of the stuff. Not even a small bruise on my arm. He gave me
my vaccination certificate confirming what I’ve had and on what
date, as a vaccination certificate to keep with my passport, so I’m
done and dusted – at least until the scientists decide if and when
boosters are required.
A week or so later,
the government announced that people in my Beloved’s age group can
book for their jabs, so of course she got straight on the phone. She
was told she would have to wait three months because she had just
recovered from Covid, will need a new test etc etc…...basically,
what we had thought originally. She explained that I had just
received J&J after being sick at the same time as her, why was
that. Cue chuckles down the phone and a bland “Oh, that was a
mistake, but it’s done so we can’t do anything. You have to wait
three months.”
So it seems for once
in my life I’ve been a bit lucky.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Of course, the
weather has stopped me doing a lot – like in all of northern
Europe, the Polish spring is exceedingly late this year. But there
was one bright day last week, so I hopped on the Metro and went into
the city for a look round. Some of the lockdown restrictions have
been eased so I was interested to see how the place had changed
during these awful times.
The first thing I
noticed, even before I entered my local station, was the lack of
masks. They’ve been a way of life, normal attire, for so long you
stopped noticing them and indeed took more notice of people not
wearing them. That has all changed, since masks are no longer
mandatory in the open air, so most people have happily abandoned
them. It was odd to see people’s faces, mouths and noses, smiles
and stubble, lipstick and powder, in all their glory after so long.
Much nicer. Some folk, mostly older, were still masking up but
nowhere near as many, and they stuck out like sore thumbs – just
like in the old days.
On the Metro,
however, masking is still mandatory, as the signs on the platforms
and train doors and windows impress upon you from the outset. Spot
fines can still be enforced by the police if you don’t. I played
my usual game of “Spot the Numpty”, aimed at seeing how many
people without masks or with masks not covering mouth and nose are in
my carriage. Even as recently as January and February this year, you
could reckon on probably 20% of people being Numpties, because there
has always been – and remains – a significant portion of the
Polish population that is guided more by Facebook conspiracy
theorists, YouTube fantasists and downright idiots rather than the
science and Government edicts and hence reject the very idea of
wearing a mask (or for that matter being vaccinated). I was pleased
to see that everyone in my carriage, both ways, was properly masked –
better late than never, I guess.
I got off as usual
at Politechnika, and headed off down Marszałkowska
towards the real city centre. Although not yet lunchtime, there were
far fewer people around than of old – I assume that homeworking is
still prevalent, and as I soon saw many places of business are
closed. One place I was pleased to see re-opened was a bar called
the Sexy Duck that my Beloved and I used several times last summer,
before my accident. It’s just by the corner of the street where
she worked, off Plac Konstytucji, and has a good outside terraced
area under umbrellas. It sells excellent craft beers – one called
Dark Duck is my choice, the closest I’ve found yet to a decent pint
of British bitter like Spitfire or Old Speckled Hen, only much
stronger – and some good Italian food at reasonable prices. We had
some good times sitting there watching the world go by in last year’s
summer sun, and were concerned when it closed towards the end of the
year: the shutters on the windows suggested it was for good.
Thankfully not.
Walking on, I did
pass several shops and offices that were definitely closed, with For
Sale and For Rent signs pasted to them. Among them was a big branch
of Santander Bank at which I opened accounts three years ago (and
closed them shortly thereafter), some small food shops, a casino
where an old work colleague of mine, back in 2001, ran up some
significant debts – the place was run by the local mafia – so he
bought himself a gun for self protection (when the project manager
found out, he was put on the next flight out and his apartment
re-assigned to a mate of mine. When he moved in he found the guy’s
farewell present had been to shoot up the apartment: every piece of
furniture, tv, stereo and the walls smashed and peppered with bullet
holes. Scary stuff!) - and the hotel next door.
I turned on to
Jerozolimskie and headed towards the main railway station. Happily
possibly the best English bookshop in the city is still open, so I
popped in and treated myself to a couple of volumes of memoir on two
of my all-time musical heroes, Eric Clapton and Elton John. Happy
with that. But there were more business premises boarded up all along
the road….. There is, however, new stuff, too: I read recently of
a building that had just been topped out making it the new tallest
building in Europe, beating London’s Shard by a couple of metres.
It’s standing right next to the Central Station and frankly is not
that impressive, and it certainly doesn’t look as tall as the
Shard. It’s topped by a radio mast that is itself apparently the
same height as the city’s National Stadium across the river –
which is quite impressive, I guess – and when complete the tower
will house something like 60 floors, including residential and office
space, a hotel, gym and swimming pool, and half way up three floors
of shopping mall. So I guess it will be good when it’s finished.
I crossed to Central
Station to check some travel information in the PKP Intercity Rail
office. Out of interest I wanted to find what foreign destinations I
could buy tickets for – last year I had planned to go to London and
thought it might be fun to go by train – I’ve made the reverse
journey, via Amsterdam and Berlin, a couple of times – but was told
I would have to buy a ticket to Berlin, then separately the London
ticket when I arrived in Berlin…..a touch impractical, so I left
it. But I was told that Poland was negotiating to join the Eurorail
consortium “soon”, so hoped that had changed. Well, the main
ticket hall has been re-furbished – and very nice it is too – but
the PKP Intercity sales office was closed and shuttered, and looked
as though it had been for some time, with no sign of any ongoing
works. Later, I checked a few websites to check the ticket
availability for a couple of sample journeys, including to Zurich via
Vienna, and the London one, and although the services are detailed in
terms of departure times, intermediate stations, duration and
facilities, not one offered tickets for sale. Most odd.
--------------------------------------------------------
I headed for Nowy
Świat, because there is
a good second hand book shop there that last time I visited had a
good selection of English language stuff, and offers a free coffee
and cake if you spend more than 50zl. The shop is still open but the
selection of English stuff was much reduced – only three shelves,
half as many as last time I visited before the pandemic, and most of
it was translations of Polish literature or histories. I was
disappointed, but perhaps as business picks up it will improve. On
the plus side, the guy working there was playing some rather fine Led
Zeppelin music.
Walking up Nowy
Świat to the Old Town I
passed another book shop, that had specialised in academic books (the
University is in various premises scattered around the area) but
seems to have expanded and now offers a very good selection of
English stuff. It’s all scattered around rather haphazardly and
you have to look for it, but there was a surprising amount of good
stuff, fiction and non-fiction. I didn’t buy, but it’s one for
the future.
Again, there seemed
to be a lot of closures, and one place I was disappointed to find
gone was a small cafe, I don’t remember the name, that had an
outside terrace of armchairs and sofas and a good menu of fresh
pastries and quiche, donuts and cakes and delicious coffee. I had
planned to sit there in the sunshine for lunch and read my current
book (an excellent Bill Bryson travelogue) for an hour or so. Ah,
well…..never mind.
The Old Town and
Square was surprisingly empty, and only a few restaurants were open,
so I chose one at random and had a two-course lunch-time special and
coffee for 30zl. It was ok, good value but the chicken in mushroom
sauce was over-cooked and a bit dry. I went home then.
Overall, the city
has changed over the past 18 months or so, and I suspect it may take
some time to recover. But Poles are a resilient people, there is no
doubt of that, so it will in time and it will be interesting to see
how it will differ from before
------------------------------------------------------------
At the weekend I did
a more local hike, to see what changes have happened in my own
suburb. On dog walks I had noticed a number of decent bars that we
had used were closed, and I wanted to see what else had happened
further afield. The weather was not good, the rain had returned and
the temperature dropped again, but what the hell – I needed the
exercise.
It looks as though
some of the closures were indeed temporary, as I had hoped, and doors
were opening again. The biggest surprise to me was the big Tesco
store close to where I lived for my first 4 years in Warsaw – it
was my local store and had a little mall of smaller shops in the
building. I had seen that Tesco is leaving Poland so the store is
slated for closure or takeover. It was depressing to walk in there
and see all but four of the smaller shops closed down, including what
was once a very nice cafe and coffee shop. Tesco itself had reduced
its size with probably 25% of its floor space now closed and
shuttered off. It all looked very dirty and depressing, and even
though it was Saturday mid-afternoon – peak shopping time – the
whole place was half empty: very few customers even in the
supermarket. A shame, and once the closures are completed probably a
couple of thousand more jobs lost (at least until new owners come
in).
A little further on
is the Las Kabacki forest park, so as the rain had eased I decided to
take a look. It’s a place we’ve visited frequently over the
years, and enjoyed the several kilometres of bike and footpaths, plus
the big bonfire field for grilling sausages, steaks and so on, in
past years when the sun shone. It’s always busy, but on this day I
saw very few people – on my way in, two young couples walking and
laughing, wet through, and a middle aged lady on a completely
impractical (at least for the unmade dirt tracks) Dutch bike, red in
the face and struggling. But happily, and surprisingly the bonfire
field was in use, despite the poor weather. Along one side of it
there are perhaps a dozen wooden shelters, open sided and with picnic
tables and benches, and all were in use by what looked like family
groups, cooking up a storm and enjoying a return to something like
normality. The smell of grilling suasages and onions and pickles and
the pop of opening beer cans made me hungry so I headed for home.
Despite the weather,
it was an enjoyable walk. And 12 kilometres or so was exercise I
badly needed. It also showed that things are getting back to
something like normality.
------------------------------------------------------
Which begs the
question: what exactly is normality, in this Covid world? I will not
use the more common term “post-Covid”, because I have no doubt
the virus is here to stay. It’s not going anywhere.
Indeed, to the best
of my knowledge, despite the advances in medical science and care not
a single virus has ever been fully eradicated. Smallpox, measles,
mumps, bubonic plague, typhoid, polio – they’re all still here,
still flaring up from time to time (notably recent polio outbreaks in
war zones like Afghanistan and Yemen) and we have simply learned to
live with them, with medication and regular inoculation where
needed. There are many varieties of flu (and the common cold for
that matter), and annual flu jabs are part and parcel of modern life.
The vaccines we now have for the flu need to be re-engineered every
year to keep track of changes to the virus – like Covid, the
various flu strains mutate regularly. At the moment, there seems to
be no definite consensus as to how often the various anti-Covid
vaccines will need to be refreshed or how frequently boosters will be
needed, but the best guess seems to be it will be an annual process,
as for the flu vaccines. I’m happy with that.
The question seems
to be more about the other measures we’ve become accustomed to over
the past year and a half. Masking for instance…….without a doubt
the most contentious measure. Masks have been around and worn by the
general public for years, especially in the Far East (Japan and South
Korea in particular), and to we Westerners it’s always seemed a
bit, well, dramatic, a bit odd……. Are these things really going
to filter out all the germs and petrol fumes and stuff that plague
city life in Paris and Warsaw, London and New York? And anyway, I’m
not going to wear ‘em because I’ll look a complete idiot……
Which is to miss the
point. The masks aren’t there to prevent the wearer from catching
something, not there to filter out the fumes from our gas-guzzling
buses and taxis and cars and trucks. No, as any resident of Tokyo
or Seoul will tell you – the masks are there to prevent the wearer
from passing anything he may be carrying on to other people: the
filters work the other way. So all the Numpties on the Warsaw Metro,
the Vancouver Transit, London Underground or wherever, were not
making an “I’m safe, there is no virus, I’m not going to catch
it” statement at all – they were simply being stupid and ignoring
the facts (if they even knew them or gave a shit). No surprise,
really: they are probably the same clowns who believe the entire
pandemic is either a Chinese plot (as Trump insists) to destroy the
Western economy, or a scare story dreamed up by the mythical Deep
State and Bill Gates to enable them to implant location tracers into
everybody for some unspecified purpose (ignoring that fact that the
nano-technology that scenario would require is decades away). Both
delusions are prevalent on the internet and have their legions of
gullible believers.
The key unanswered
question on this is how long will we continue to need masking, and in
what circumstances? It seems to me the answer to this will not
become clear until more people have been fully vaccinated, and
agreement reached on how frequently boosters will be needed…….there
is simply not enough data to come to any conclusions on these
questions yet: too many people remain unvaccinated. This should be
no surprise: there are more than 8 billion people to vaccinate, and
even with the program to do so being highest priority, that will take
a number of years to complete.
Already there is
evidence of a kind of vaccine apartheid, where the rich, mainly
white, countries like the US, Canada, the EU, Britain and
Australia/New Zealand are finding it easier to obtain and disseminate
vaccines quicker than poorer countries in Africa, Asia and South
America. There are UN appeals for the wealthy to stop stockpiling
the stuff and pass it on to the Third World nations. As usual, these
appeals are largely falling on deaf ears. How many more lives this
situation is likely to cost is impossible to guess – but the number
is likely to be in the millions in my view. So I suspect masks will
be needed, whether we like it or not, for years to come – countries
will need to decide for themselves when and how to dispense with
them, and even then I would not be surprised if they remained
mandatory at least on public transport, where large numbers of people
are confined to relatively small spaces. for a decade or more. So be
it: I’m not keen on wearing them, if only because I’ve yet to
find one I can wear comfortably without my glasses misting up, but if
that’s what it takes to keep healthy then fine.
What about work?
Offices are re-opening, but it seems that WFH is going to remain an
option for some time. Many companies are now offering a kind of
hybrid process, where you can choose to work in the office part of
the time, and at home the rest. With the technology available, this
is a practical and increasingly common and popular solution. Of
course, there are many jobs where WFH is simply not possible –
construction and manufacturing, for instance, transport and health
care, the entertainment and hospitality sectors – and probably
never will be (at least until Isaac Asimov’s Robots become a
reality). Other companies are looking at ways of moving away from
the model of a massive headquarters building and big branch offices
where large numbers of people are based and have to commute sometimes
long distances to work. The alternative that seems to be gaining
some traction is to develop a network of small, regional sub-offices
scattered around where workers live, all connected by internet or
whatever, in cheaper local office suites, that will allow workers to
feel part of a “company culture” and be able to work with
co-employees as if they were in a bigger place of work. It will be
interesting to see how that develops……but it will not affect me
at all. Any work I do – like writing stuff like this – I can do
quite happily at home or in my little allotment cottage near the
airport, on a train or holiday hotel terrace.
Travel? Well, it
seems to be getting back to how it used to be – Warsaw airport is
now busier and offering more flights on more airlines to more
destinations, but at nowhere near the previous levels. I can’t see
massive growth until there is international agreement on some kind of
Covid passport to be carried by everyone who is fully vaccinated and
wants to travel. The EU is bringing in a scheme where an
e-certificate can be downloaded to your phone as bar coded
information to be read by scanners at the passport desk or whatever
in airports and presumably railway stations, but it only covers the
Schengen and EEA zone countries. Predictably, Britain was invited to
participate but declined…..
Similar schemes are
being developed covering the US and selected partners, Australia and
New Zealnd, Singapore and Hong Kong, and other small city pairs or
country groupings. But something global is clearly needed and
nowhere near agreed or implemented, and travel will remain in the
doldrums until that changes I think. I’ll know more about that
soon: next week I’m off on my first journey outside Warsaw –
indeed, outside the country – for 18 months: a two week visit to
family in Switzerland. As well as looking forward to seeing them,
I’m really looking forward to the airport and flight experiences
themselves, to see how much things have changed for myself. Watch
this space – there will be posts about it all.
---------------------------------------------------------
So there we are.
Covid is still here and will be probably for ever. But with a little
effort, and a lot of luck (and who knows, maybe some intervention
from The Bloke Upstairs) I’ve come through it and out the other
side. With more effort and no doubt luck, and maybe more help from
Him Upstairs, I’ll remain a Covid survivor and can get on with the
rest of my life – hopefully for a long while yet. I bloody well
hope so, anyway, I have a lot of things I want to do, places I want
to go, yet.
I’m still a young
‘un, only 68 for God’s sake!
