Since my last post, a lot of things have been happening. Our government have come up with a plan regarding how to reopen society from the Corona virus. Yesterday marked the first big day in the first of several phases.
Schools, restaurants, bars, libraries and churches have all been permitted to reopen for now. Most stores have also opened up again. Deeming from how many people were out and about, it seems to have been a long time coming.
The local bar around the corner even celebrated the reopening with flags outside and I even saw several people entering the bar when I went down for grocery shopping yesterday. And it wasn’t even noon at that point.
Looking at the world around us, Italy is also starting to loosen their tight restrictions. They’ve really been hit hard, but seems to have gotten it under control in the last couple of weeks.
The US is currently at over 84K deaths. They started tracking the deaths since the beginning of March, which is just over two months ago. That puts it quite into perspective.
The numbers seem to be dropping in hotspots like New York, but rising in others. As more and more states are pushing for reopening society again, we’re only going to see the numbers rise again. Unfortunately. And with over 30 million Americans who have lost their job, it’s not fun living in America right now.
Returning back to Denmark, we’re still a far way off to a normal society. No big gatherings for the rest of the summer and a lot of theme parks still aren’t allowed to reopen. The gyms and nightclubs are looking at august or something like that, before they’re allowed to reopen. That’s a long, long time without going to the gym (I rarely go to a nightclub anymore, though had this happened 10 years ago, it would have been a disaster). Glad I got my mountain-bike, though I really do miss my strength training.
Talked with some of my friends and old colleagues. Some of them are working for the government. They have been told to expect working from home until august. That’s nearly a half year of working from home. While working from home has its perks, it’s taking a toll this way, especially mentally. The setups aren’t perfect and the company culture isn’t always geared for it. Not to mention the technical backbone is lacking in some places.
While I’ve enjoyed working from home, it isn’t perfect. For that I need something else, than my small apartment. A dedicated office at least. Though we all agree we sorely miss the water-cooler banter and grabbing a cup of coffee with a colleague. We make it work, but it isn’t optimal. The only “upside” is that we’re all in the same boat and can relate to it.
I’m looking forward to how we will handle getting everything back to normal. We’re most likely going to see an uptick in infections (and thereby deaths). The big question is just whether we as a society can keep it under control.
This is part of a series of posts I’ve written about the Corona virus and how it have impacted our society. Equal parts news, observations and thoughts. See the rest of the posts here.