Its been a year since the pandemic has hit Belgium. A year has passed and a lot of mistakes were made by the governments of this tiny country. Masks for starters. In 2019 they destroyed the stock of masks because it was cheaper to destroy them than to find out if they were still useful and to store them elsewhere. The first lockdown was effective in the sense that when we reopened in May, the infections were below 100 a day. In September they decided to release some restrictions further while infections were rising and they did nothing until the end of October to go in lockdown light. Public life was put on hold again, while schools and companies were still open.
It was lockdown light, because the lobby groups of companies didn’t want a lockdown similar to the march-may. So all businesses except restaurants, bars, gyms, etc… anything that has to do with social life of people were closed. I understood the reason, but couldn’t comprehend why they didn’t close the schools and non essential industries as well. At that time, we were at between 10.000 and 20.000 infections a day. It was like the powers that be decided that the workplace was safe, even though infections spread there if measures weren’t taken and some didn’t.
By then it was painfully obvious that the governments decided that the economy was more important than the health of its citizens.
Now with the vaccinations are under way, it is again a mess similar to the mask shortages last year. The timetable for people to get vaccinated is chaotic because of the shortages. We are behind on that timetable. So, now they have shown us the map to reopening combined with the vaccination campaign, one has to wonder what the real damage will be of the pandemic. It has already taken a huge toll on people everywhere. Both physically and mentally.
Why are there shortages?
Well because big pharma has put patents on the vaccines only they can produce it, which in turn means they can charge governments what they want. Last year they promised to not make profit of it, but I doubt anyone really
believed them. Some of these vaccines were made with public funds so why they get to put their greedy hands on it to make money out of it can only be described as capitalism. If the patents are released publicly, anyone could produce them and we be much faster out of this pandemic than at the cure rate. Now the underdeveloped countries have to wait in line so the western countries could get their vaccines first. Even though there are so many people that even those companies can’t keep up. US president Biden had a good idea. Let pharma companies work together to produce vaccines and it goes way faster.
The original timeline was to vaccinate the elderly in January, the medical staff in February, March the risqué patients and then the rest of the population starting in may. Now because of the problems with the companies not delivering enough vaccines, we don’t know when the general population will get vaccinated?? Let alone the youth.
But hey, so long as companies could still produce profits all is well in the world, it seems. I did miss practice at the gym and krav maga. But not enough to risk my health and those around me. I have friends that I haven’t seen in months or in a year. I don’t blame them. I get it. I respect their point of view. One plus side is that singles have it harder since they couldn’t go out and date. I haven’t done that since September 2019. Dating was never my thing.
I dont know if I will go to a Bar on the first of may or later. I think I will wait for it until infections has gone down or when I’m vaccinated. The same goes for my Krav Maga training or fitness. Fitness I might do because the risk is lower there than with Krav Maga.
I have a trip planned in June to Saint Petersburg And I wonder if unwilling be able to go. I wonder what they will do with people wanting to travel but aren’t vaccinated yet? Will they allow them in or not? If they say no, I will have to wait. It will suck, but I will respect their decision to do so.
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