Truthful Tuesday: January 25th, 2021

Frank is our host for Truthful Tuesday.
Having now experienced Covid himself and recovering, his question this week is this:

How closely has COVID-19 impacted you? Do you have first-hand experience, or has anyone in your family or immediate sphere of people you meet or see in person been diagnosed, or is it still something that hasn’t breached that third degree of separation for you?

We have both been vaccinated and boostered, but don’t kid ourselves we are immune.
We are vigilant when we go out, mask up in shops, sanitize wherever there is a ‘station’ inside to do so, avoid crowds whenever possible, and socially distance ourselves from people we meet up with on our walks.
Despite being vaccinated, our neighbour caught Covid last year and brought it home to us just how transmissible the virus is. Her husband tested negative for the duration of her recovery.

We were stunned, and then angry at ourselves for letting down our guard on home ground as I had been chatting to her over the gate two days before.
What followed was a trip to the pharmacy to get home tests and as there were two of us in our household, we were allowed 2 kits holding 7 tests each.
The test itself is quite easy to perform though shoving the swabs far enough up your nose is uncomfortable and makes your eyes water. We now test ourselves regularly. On top of that, we have become even more careful when out or even if people come into the house, as our workman yesterday wore a mask, as did we.
Any socialising we did has now been hit firmly on the head as it is not necessarily the people we know to be wary of, but the people they have been in contact with and whoever they were in contact with before them. It’s a snowball effect, and now that our government have scrapped the majority of Covid restrictions, we can only see things getting worse. However, with plans to discontinue testing anyway (???) no-one is safe and there will be no need for the government to massage the figures as they have been.  No tests, no need to report.

Add to that, our government intends to begin charging potentially as much as £30 per test later in the year rather than provide them free of charge. IMO this is profiteering at the lowest humanitarian level as we can see people unable to afford to buy them and thus go undetected as being infected. The health care in our town is already abysmal, and we are aware of at least three people in our road who were admitted to hospital with something else, contracted Covid whilst there, and died.

It’s not going to go away, and I have no time for the anti vaxxers or protestors saying it’s all a hoax. There are thousands of families who will scream otherwise.
For Hubby and I, we will continue to take precautions to protect ourselves as no-one else is going to. Our home was always welcome to visitors, but thanks to Covid and its variants, now we have closed our doors. It goes against the grain and some may think we are over reacting, but we’re not taking any chances.