This is strange and quite spooky. Am I risking too much? Is this a dance on a razor blade? Afterall I am talking about my health here and that of my wife too and I belong to one of the riskier groups, according to experts.
Yes, I am talking about Covid-19, and maybe like you, we do not know where we stand. The so-called experts have been changing their minds throughout, ok this is a precedent case, so it makes it difficult. We do feel though that there is a long of scare mongering going on. What is it like in other countries? We listen to the news coming from Spain and England and just like here in Germany, every day, they are announcing figures of being infected with the virus, the amount of people where the disease has broken, out, how many people are in hospital and how many have died. All in all, it is a bit scary, but then again, how would it differ, if they were to announce daily on all TV Programs, newspapers and Radio, how many people died today from violent crimes? In the United States, more than seven people per hour die a violent death. (https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/datasources/nvdrs/index.html).
Every day, nearly 990 people are diagnosed with cancer, and around 450 people die from the disease alone in the UK. (source: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/sites/default/files/state_of_the_nation_april_2019.pdf).
How would you react to that? Of course, there are plenty more causes of death, which I do not care to mention.
During the summer holidays, there was and is an increase of the amount of people getting infected, that were, we were told are not observing the rules, i.e. social distancing and the wearing of masks. I have seen some videos from people that have posted, what the Media have shown publicly. The videos from the videos, showed different scenes as those being experienced from people there and posting online. Like I said, some, not all. What or who do you believe?
We saw demonstrations in different countries, where people are clearly, not believing what the politicians are telling them. Miguel Bose, once a heartthrob singer in Spain, clearly does not believe what the politicians are saying, and has expressed his opinion publicly whilst encouraging the general public to do likewise. This has resulted in his Instagram and other social accounts belonging to him being blocked.
Last May, there were closed borders, so we could not travel. Then a couple of weeks from our yet again planned holiday, there was an outbreak of Covid-19 in some regions of Spain, namely, Catalunya, Aragon, Navarra and the Basque Country. The German and other foreign governments (Foreign Offices) reacted quite swiftly and issued travel warnings to those parts. At least my area was not affected yet. Then the inevitable happened, the German Foreign Office declared the whole of Spain as a risk area and warned of travel, especially in the areas above and Cantabria. What were we to do, with our holiday? Afterall, we were wanting to go to Spain since May.
The general rule of my employer was, as of the then current situation, when I get back, we will have to get tested, stay at home, until the results are there. If they are negative, I then must go to the doctors and get a clean bill of health, with which I need to present together with my test result to the company. The test alone is not enough. The time that is spent at home, will be used as holiday or as minus hours, but we can do overtime in order to cancel them out.
We searched the internet for help, looking at official websites for our region in Spain. We found it weird though, that where we come from, it was at one point, not too long ago, the area with the most new infections in the whole of Germany, however, there were no “Shutdowns”, there was no obligation of the wearing of masks in the streets, just inside locations and public transport. People were still going to work, world-wide deliveries via Trucks etc. were still taking place. We thought that if it is getting worse, why are they not taking further measures? The amount of new cases of outbreaks in our chosen destination, was what we personally regarded as acceptable, when one considers the population of the area. It was much lower than the PCR rate of the whole of Spain. Furthermore, we were able to pinpoint the amount of known cases and deaths in our location. There was a death of a seventy old year lady, but that was back in March. We could find no justification why the German Foreign Ministry and the “Robert Koch Institute” had included Cantabria to one of the hotspots of Spain. We followed the RTVE International, not even they had declared Cantabria as a Hotspot. Even the figures did not suggest it.
As we were travelling with our car, we would have to travel through France, so our attention was drawn there. Paris, Bordeaux and Marseilles were the then hotspots, however the number of infections in France were getting higher at an alarming rate.
In general, people were dying, which is terrible, but what the Media here and abroad fail to inform us, were, are these people dying with or from Covid 19? What was the health of the people like prior to contracting Covid 19? How old were the people? They gave us no transparency. Why?
Is there some sort of complot taking place? Surely the economical state is not targeted to be destroyed. Who wants that? Many things speak against a complot, but it is all about trust, and can we trust them? Is there something being planned, which we do not know about? Speculation upon speculation. I leave that up to you.
So, after considering, all the to me “known facts” and speaking to people leaving in those regions and countries, we did notice, that there was a big majority that thought that a mountain is being made out of a molehill.
Take Spain for example, thousands were being reported infected every day. Then there was that famous clip of RTVE National television, from 13.08.2020, where the new presenter, was speaking to Dr. Luis Benito from the hospital “El Escorial” in Madrid, as the sum of people registered were 654 positive, which was more than 330 more than 24 hours ago. She asked him;
“Dr. Luis Benito, you were there at the beginning of the pandemic in El Escorial, what is the situation like in EL Escorial? Is it worrying? Can it be said that total occupancy has already been established? We hear that there are hospitals are having to dedicate whole floors.”
Dr. Benito replied that he did not know from which hospitals she was referring to. He continued,
“It is true that people are being delivered. However last week there were none and yesterday only three arrivals. So, we are not totally occupied here. Maybe it is that hospital ‘12 October` which is more occupied than ours. We have 1300 beds and only 75 beds are occupied.”
https://youtu.be/wl9h-7MaLws Original tone unfortunately with German subtitles.
There was also a difference to the prod casting from earlier Covid-19 days, we had noticed that no cameras were going inside hospitals, as they did before, showing us those frightening scenes that are still present in our minds of crowded hospitals.
Why? It was the summer holidays, and if you are familiar with Spain, you will know that during this time most hospitals are empty and operating with a skeleton staff. Doctors including GP’s were on holiday. Now if it had been that bad, you would imagine all hands-on deck, wouldn’t you?
The big question was, are we going to go or not? Are we going to wage to spend four weeks in a country that had been declared as a risk area? Are we going to travel through France spending a night in a hotel, where more people are getting infected every day?
Yes, we are! However, being responsible adults, a few things did make it less of a risk for us. Firstly, we are going by car. No sharing a plane with other people, the second big and major pro, was, we are going to our own apartment, no time share, but ours. We were practically going from one home to another. The fact that we were going to a non-typical tourist area from jet packers, was also in our favour, however it is an area where the Spaniards like to go. Our chosen area is a small place on the Atlantic coast, that boasts about 2500 inhabitants, however during the holidays, it can grow to 150.000, but not this year, many people have lost their jobs, businesses and some their holiday homes due to the lockdown. We had also decided to go out of season. We thought that we had the risks minimized and that we should go.
We left Germany, a week later. Arriving at the border with France, we could see that everything was normal. People could drive into Germany, there were no tests areas. The same for France.
Once driving a few hundred kilometers in France, we had passed cars, from England, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Italy and one even from Andorra. We were clearly not alone!
After some eight hours, we reached our Hotel in Poitiers. The car park was full. Measures had been taken, disinfectant dispensers standing there for service at the entrance. The floors had been marked, so that the people knew, that if you are coming in, follow the arrows pointing the way to the reception. Our room had been booked in advance, in fact, we had booked and paid for back in May, but due to lockdown and borders being closed, we managed to change the booking to summer, with just two slightly changes, we had a doubled bed instead of a two singles, and we had to pay the difference to the peak season. We caught the hotel manager at the reception desk when we came in, his English was very good and had no problems in wanting to speak the language. He knew of our story back in May. I asked him I would not mind, paying for a better room. He said that all the rooms have the same quality standard and that they were full up for the night. Noting that I was wounded, by having to share a double bed, the following sentence came right out the first aid bag; “You will not have to pay for the difference.” I thanked him and we made our way to our room. Only two at a time in the lift. The room and bathroom were very clean, but we knew that for previous stays.
We went for a walk and noticed, like Germany, people only wore masks in buildings and on buses. We did notice groups of teenagers hanging around a fast food restaurant, not observing social distancing.
The following morning, we left after noticing that cars from other countries, including Germany were spending the night there.
Entering Spain, again no problem, no medical checks on either side of the border, despite Spain being officially declared as a risky region to travel. No test centers, nothing. We were now entering one of the hotspots of Spain, the Basque region. Although we were paying the Maut with our credit card, avoiding people, the employees of the Maut Station were taking money per hand (no gloves) and giving changed and receipts when required. However, there were also automatic lanes, where you just through your loose change into a basket.
Upon entering our holiday location, there were more people than we expected, it was the last weekend of the holiday season. However, everybody was walking around wearing masks, some even in their own cars. The pavements had been marked, so that you know which side to use. Nobody smoking on the streets, or indeed smoking whilst enjoying refreshments and everybody maintaining social distancing, even on the beach. You always had to wear a mask, apart from on the beach. After 9 o’clock in the evening, nobody was allowed on the beach. Everything had changed, very disciplined. It was a pleasant new encounter for me. The Spaniards that I had come to love in the past, many of them use to be practically in your face, pushing you at times to get past. There were queues for shops, banks (where only three people at one time were allowed) and for the National Lottery. Even the market had been downsized, organized and very manageable. Were we in Spain? Yes! Very comforting. The German Media had somehow omitted this and were or are telling a very different story of accounts.
We visited other areas, not staying long though, as I am not able to walk much. It was the same, our holiday location was not a one off. We have been shopping in other parts and everything is again, well organized and disciplined. We are not behaving like tourists, we are doing the same things as if we were in Germany, with the exception that Spain had taken more measurements to combat the virus than Germany. Fair enough, according to the statistics Germany has less infected people.
The only thing that bothered me, is having to wear a mask, as I find it is difficult to breathe. 100 Euro fine by the way, if you are not wearing one. I have forgotten my mask two three times but remembered only after a few metres and went back to the car or apartment to get it.
However, every day the main theme on the tv is Covid-19, in which regions it is spreading or coming down. We are shown figures of people who had been found positive with Covid-19, by how many people it had broken out, how many were hospitalized and in ICU , not forgetting the numbers that have been cured and how many have died. The hospitals though, at this time frame, in Madrid were only 15% occupied. Again, we were not told, did the people die with or from Covid-19? How old were they? Were they prior to contracting Covid-19 in good health? No transparency. They do not tell us how many autopsies have been made verifying that they had died due to Covid-19.
This weekend on Saturday, we shall be visiting a large City and entering one of its Shopping Malls. I let you know more.
The other day, I had heard that England had added Greece to its list. Two things I would like to express here: Firstly, why do countries in Europe have different lists to each other? Clearly not even here is no unity within the EU! Secondly, with reference to Greece, Greece is not just a mainland, it has many islands, and many of those, do not have problems, so why be on the list?
With each day passing, I am losing more and more trust. What should I believe?
It is Saturday, the time had come for another dance with the Coronavirus. It is not my intention of making it all a joke, but I do have to keep my spirits high. After putting our destination into the Sat Nav. we set out. Our weapons against our foe, were our masks, disinfection and our daily intake of zinc.
We arrived 30 minutes later at the shopping mall in a city with a population of 175.000, the population is not important here, but the density, which happens to be 5.083,68 people per km². Interestingly, in 2016, it was the most intelligent City (Smart City) in the world, for example the street lanterns, turned off automatically, when nobody walked by. 20.000 sensors, were all over the City, including 400 sensors in the asphalt, so that drivers would not drive around looking for a parking space, instead they were guided via GPS and Light signals directing drivers to the next parking space. Data boxes, no bigger than a shoe carton, gathered weather information had informed the City Administration whether the Parks were getting enough rain and whether water springers needed to be turned on. Even the trash bins informed the City, if they had to be emptied.
We entered the shopping Mall, hoping that it would be just as “Smart” as the city. On the entrance doors, information had been posted on the windows, informing the shoppers about wearing masks at all times and the importance of social distancing. Once inside, they had set up a little hygiene station. They had masks, disinfection gel and paper towels, so that you could wipe your trolley clean with disinfection liquid. The flow of people was a one-way direction, with arrows instructing people where to walk, A lane had been made for this purpose. Outside the lane was designated to people who wanted to stop or wait. In all small shops, like for mobile phones etc.… only the same amount of people was allowed in as the number of people working there. The others waited outside patiently observing social distance. People that were enjoying coffee or even having breakfast were also observing the rules. The security guards walking around, were not only looking for shoplifters, but for people not exercising the measures given. Still it did not give you the impression that big brother was watching you.
We walked into a clothes shop, which we always visit, when we are in Spain. Again, had plenty of arrows but no Indians to be seen. We immediately noticed that we had space, not like previous times. I wanted to try on a pair of jeans and walked over to the try on rooms. The entrance was obstructed which made me disappointed, I was not going to buy something, if I did not know if it fits. So, I went to one of the shop assistants. To my astonishment, it was not closed, but obstructed on purpose. All visits had to be controlled, only one person was allowed in every other cubicle, and when you were finished, the cubicle would then be immediately disinfected. By the way I did get those jeans and other things. However, I did ask myself, how come I can try them on and put them back if I wished. Is the Virus, able to survive several hours on fabric? I have been told that on metal, it can survive up to 72 hours.
We then left the shop and made our way down the lane (with arrows) not to the Wizard of Oz, but to the big supermarket. Every ten minutes a pleasant voice would come out the intercom, informing us to wear masks and to use gloves before touching the fruit or vegetables. If there were no gloves there or people not doing so, to immediately inform the shop assistants.
After nearly spending three hours there, we must conclude, that we had a pleasant experience there and recognized the fact, that it was all well-organized.
The news on national television, were still saying how the numbers of infective people are going up, and showed scenes like in Sevilla, where literally over a hundred young people, running away from an area and were doing so, because the police were there, due to them not wearing masks and not observing social distancing. They showed a town that had cancelled their festivities, that however did not bother some people who decided to celebrate none the less. There also seemed to be quite a lot of private parties going on. What about our location, how are the young people behaving here? Not being the youngest, I decided to have a long siesta, after all “when in Rome...” Yes, you got it, I am going to investigate tonight, whilst wearing my mask. The Lone Ranger (without “Silver”) is out and about tonight.
Just after midnight, I went outside, it was nice to hear the breakers, breaking the silence. I walked along the coast to some small bays I know of. I do like the bays, because of the privacy, but there is something to bear in mind. There are no lifeguards there and people do take their small dogs there, it is not a pretty sight, when the dogs decide to crap on the sand, and if the owners are looking, they will clean it up, but the male dogs, after sniffing around the rocks, do tend to lift their legs afterwards. These people get on my nerves, but that is another story, nevertheless, here we are paying more detail to hygiene for obvious reasons, but still this sort of crap(literally) is unfortunately still going on.
Did I see anything? I hear you ask. Yes, there were groups of young people, sitting, hearing music, telling stories, some smoking and drinking. They were genuinely having a good time. The sort of things, that I also did, but with a difference, social distancing and the wearing of masks were not required from me. However here in September 2020, it was required, but was nowhere to be seen. I made my way back home, and I took a cold alcohol-free beer out of the fridge and decided to drink it whilst sitting on my balcony. I stayed seated on my balcony until 1:30 am and whilst I was there, every person that walked by, or coming home did not have a mask on. Before separating, they hugged and kissed each other. So, it does seem that these “new” carefree “Woodstock” generation are doing it differently, they are now burning their masks.
Early mornings, you can observe people walking their dogs and they were all wearing masks, despite hardly anybody being 3 to 5 metres near them. In fact, some people here are so used to wearing masks, that they even have them on, whilst driving, despite being alone in the car.
We visited various beautiful beaches along the Cantabria coast. It really does earn its name
“The Emerald Coast.” We were not the only non-Spanish there. Europe was indeed well represented, especially with campers from Germany, Italy, Great Britain, France, Holland, Poland and Romania. Some were groups of young men, that had come to Surf. Many of these beaches are remote and swimmers do not have the security of having Lifeguards there. There are also no Police around, making sure that social distancing and the obligatory wearing of masks (whilst not on the beach) are being observed. Even on these beaches, people were observing the rules and regulations.
Where are all these infections coming from. We know there are three different types of the Corona Virus, also that people can be infected and not have any symptoms at all. The other day I heard a very interesting statement from a Spanish professor doctor, forgive me I did not catch his name, but he said;
“That when the virus broke out and we were testing people, our methods of testing, were not so advance as today, as we have learned a lot about the virus, we know what to look out for and how to test. That is why, the figures are so high, if we had used the same tests back then, it would have shown that many more people were infected with the virus.”
Media in different countries asked themselves, why has Germany less than us? What are they doing correctly and we wrongly? I do not think, that is not the case, but lies in other complex reasons, as the virus also affects more people than others who have a specific genetical make up! Look at Sweden, many governments and Media criticized them, as they hardly took any measurements to keep their Citizens safe from the virus. A Corona Party, if you like took place and I do not mean the beer! Of course, it is indeed a moral issue, but does it make common sense and is it justifiable to accept that some will die, and some will survive, and others will be okay? Sooner or later it will be over. Many citizens caught the virus, but now, while the rest are talking about a second wave and it could take up to a year, before the worse is over, the Swedish government and health authorities are not encountering the same difficulties as their counterparts.
Our next daylight mission was visiting an area, which is a tourist attraction, however mostly from the Spanish. Here were the Police present, not only for the traffic, but ensuring social distancing and mask wearing was taking place. I was in fact reprimanded from a shop owner, who ask me to cover my nose.
Our last day in Cantabria had arrived, here are the statistics for Cantabria for the 26th September 2020:
Tomorrow we are heading for France, which has had a drastic increasement of infections etc. On the 22.09.2020, Macron announced that he will not shut down schools, when there has been only one case. I do not understand his method here. Before it is officially known that there is one case, that known case has already been in contact with other children.
The day has arrived to travel back to Germany with a stopover in France. A land that is on the daily increase of thousands of Covid-19 infected people. We drove through two highly risk regions, namely the Basque region in Spain and Bordeaux in France. Just before Tours, we stopped for petrol, used the public toilets and had a coffee. We went outside, where my wife was free to smoke a cigarette for the first time in four weeks.
We drove on further to our Campanille Hotel in Saran, just outside Orleans. We arrived early and decided to check in as there were not many people about. We announced ourselves at the reception. The receptionist had a mask on. There was a bottle of disinfection liquid though, but it did look grubby, so we used our own.
After obtaining our key card, we made our room to our little apartment. We sprayed the door handle with disinfection, and every light switch, toilet, shower, sink, taps, even the remote control for the TV. We even sprayed in the air ducts. We tend to maybe go over the top, but from our experience, this hotel is not remarkably clean, but the beds are so good!
We left our room and went for a walk, it was Saturday early evening, people were meeting up to go out. Nobody wore masks, only when going into buildings. No Police around to check. We then went back to apartment and settled down for the night.
We set off early the following day, stopping twice for refreshments and a long-awaited cigarette. We arrived safely early afternoon, only to isolate ourselves from everybody.
On Monday, we rang up the authorities to explain to them, that we had just arrived back from Spain. We were given a Web Code to a Web Site. There will filled in our personal details, and to find out where we can go and get tested. Several Doctors surgeries had been set up us Test Centers during the Midday break of the surgery. We rang up one up, that was near to our home and became an appointment immediately for Midday. We had to bring proof that we were in Spain. All in all, it was quite easy to follow the guidelines, and the immediate appointment to get the test done? Well, was rather impressive, at least for me, as I have never had an immediate appointment before from a doctor’s surgery.
After arriving there, we had noticed, that there were quite a few people standing patiently und within safe distance of each other. I went in, handed in some documentation of proof that we were in Spain. With a swab, they gathered secrete from both sides of my mouth, with another swab, some mucous membrane from my nose. Very pleasant. My eyes start to water just by writing this! We should have the results in two days’ time. We had to fill out a form, filling in the usual personal details and where we were exactly in Spain, even the name of the road we had to write down. How long we were there, what places did we visit. How did we travel to and from Spain and in Spain? Stopovers in any hotels? Were we tested there? Do we have any symptoms?
Now this is where things started to get confusing. What happens next? We were told from the health department, isolate yourselves whilst waiting for yours results. Check. When you get them and should they be Negative, e-mail them to the Council and wait for them to contact you, so that you can then move about freely. My employer is not satisfied just with the results from the Test Centre, but also requires a clean bill of health from your GP additionally. Two days had gone by, no post or E-Mail yet. On the third day of our isolation, my wife rang up the Test Center, our results were there, they were Negative, and we could come and pick them up. Wait a minute, we were told that we cannot leave the house, until we have the all clear from the council. They responded that they have not heard of that before but will ask and get back to us. The answer came almost immediately afterwards, no we can move freely, we do not have to inform the authorities.
We picked up our results, on Thursday late afternoon. Now in order to satisfy my employer, I made an appointment with my local Doctor, and became an appointment for Tuesday afternoon. What a shame, that the appointment was not as quick as the Test appointment. It was just as well that I am working from home, otherwise I would have lost a total of six days pay! What I found interesting was on the Test result itself, it mentioned, that they could not
100 % rule out that I am infected.
My account of events whilst being on holiday in a country, that had been declared unsafe to travel has come to an end. I have included below various photos, for you to see. It just remains for me to ask myself and my readers:
Are the warnings blown out of proportion? Is it just scare mongering, or are they justified? Could it be, that nobody has an idea, and that things are being haphazardly done, so that later there is not any “finger pointing”?
What about public warnings or declarations of risk, for cruises? Firstly, you do have to search on the internet. There is a lot of information about risk and guidelines for the countries you will be visiting: however, what about the medial warning of being on ship for days with other travelers, from where they come from, you just do not know. If you search the internet, like the foreign office website in Germany, there are warnings in place, such as “Participation on cruises are strongly discouraged”, yet not forbidden. We are not strongly discouraged to visit restaurants, however, look at the problem’s restaurants, bars and cafeterias owners are faced with and in some EU countries, are not allowed to be opened after 10:00 pm. Is it possible, after 10:00 pm, to get a meal in one of the restaurants on board ships like “AIDA” or “Symphony of the Seas”?
Now, just before I really will sign off, please bear with me, for just a couple of gems. On the 12.10.2020 here in Germany, we were told that the children, this winter, should take scarfs and gloves and if needed blankets to school. Why? Well the schools are obligated to open all windows in the classroom, for several minutes, a few times a day. Now it is coming up to half-term in Germany, if we come from a risk area in Germany and wish to travel to another region of Germany, we cannot stay in a hotel unless we can provide them with a Negative Test. Now these Tests are not free for citizens like you and I alike. In fact, 180 € has to be paid now for each test. That means a family of three, must fork out 540 €, just to be allowed to go on holiday. However, there are some stupid rules like, you can Travel from Cologne to Mainz, but not from Mainz to Cologne. What I find conveniently interesting, is that this does not apply to business trips, you can move about freely! What do you think about that? Suddenly, the well-known quote of “Lovely jubbly” comes to mind. I often wondered how is it possible for the German foreign Minister Mr. Maas, to travel to Luxemburg (to discuss with other EU Partners, the case of Nawalny and sanctions against the president of Belarus Alexander Lukaschenko), Greece and Cyprus (to discuss what to do with Turkey and its threatening behavior in the east Mediterranean) all within a ten day period, without having to obey the governments quarantine rules.
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