21st Century Plague: Rise and Fall (?) of a Global Pandemic

[Trollheart]

This is, sadly, something everyone knows about. I can't, and don't intend to, as is my usual modus operandi, attempt to display my superior knowledge of the subject (mostly, it has to be said, gained through reading other people's works) or tell you much you don't already know. Everyone has lived through the Covid-19 pandemic, and continues to do so. Many have, very sadly, lost loved ones or friends or relations, or had or knows of someone who has had a bad case of the Coronavirus, and many families are, to put it in the words of President-elect at the time Joe Biden, looking at an empty chair at the table. No single event in human history, since probably the Second World War, has changed our lives so dramatically and so drastically. It could be compared, perhaps, to the 9/11 terror attacks on New York, but when all is said and done, though thousands lost their lives tragically and should never be forgotten or brushed aside, and though the way the world worked changed fundamentally after the attacks, it continued on, in some form. Nobody ever forgot, but we went on with life.

In contrast, the Covid-19 pandemic literally brought the world to a standstill. With lockdowns and travel bans, industry itself ground to a halt and people spent often months inside their houses, unable to leave due to government health regulations. Mental health suffered, and daily we watched the figures on both cases and deaths spiral out of control. We were, to put it bluntly, terrified. And finally a vaccine was found, soon joined by others, and we could think in terms of being able to manage, if not defeat, the virus. Of course, after the main waves came new variants, and we're still living with those today. But nobody who lived through that initial first year of the pandemic will forget it, or be able to. It's an insidious influence that's touched us all, whether we've been lucky enough to avoid serious illness or deaths in our families, or whether we've watched those we love succumb to the virus. It's been, almost to quote Star Trek Voyager, a year of Hell.

But then, it's been two years of Hell, and now heading for the third. With sort of no real indication that it will ever be gone. Variants keep popping up, mostly due to those who, for various and mostly unfounded reasons refuse to take the vaccine, allowing it to propagate and develop and mutate, deftly trying to counter our vaccines. We may be living with Coronavirus in one shape or another for a very long time, maybe even forever. It may, in time, become so commonplace that we no longer fear it, our vaccines completely effective against it as are the ones against measles and polio, and we may listen with boredom to the announcement of yet a new variant having been discovered, safe in the knowledge that we are protected.

Or we may not.

Perhaps there's a killer strain of the virus out there, just waiting for its chance to mutate into something that will skillfully avoid all our vaccines, and bring more death and misery to us. But I get ahead of myself. Nobody knows the future, and we have to hope that eventually the virus will be brought under some sort of control, where we have a vaccine or vaccines that can handle any new variant and stop it dead in its tracks. Perhaps we will get Covid booster shots the same way we now get flu shots. Perhaps our kids (well, yours: I ain't having any!) will read the history books and wonder how we could get so worked up over a virus which is by their time so easily controlled, the same way we roll our eyes at how previous generations feared smallpox, or tuberculosis, or the Black Death.

Perhaps. Let's hope so.

But that's in the future, and in this journal I want to look to the past. Not the distant past, as I often do, but only three years (at the time of writing) back, to 2019, when the virus initially known only as the Coronavirus first began to make its presence known. While I usually/always write journals about subjects that interest me, subjects I wish to share with others, this one is different. This is almost the journal that had to be written. Yes, we're all sick of social distancing and washing hands, and variant this and variant that, but I still think it's important that some sort of an attempt at an actual record of the worst natural global disaster to hit planet Earth in over a hundred years should be made, and so I'm making it.

We probably all know where we were the day the first case(s) was or were announced in our country, or state, and we've all watched the news reports and (I hope) followed the health advice in order to keep ourselves and those dear to us safe. So I can't tell you much you don't already know, and I won't really try. Although this will be essentially the usual history of this or that, in this case the pandemic that swept across the world in the first years of the third decade of the twenty-first century, it will take more the form of a diary, an actual journal for once, using the most common format that pertains to that word. An account, a retelling of how Covid began and how it came into our very houses, how the world shook and trembled, how deaths skyrocketed and how eventually we began to get it somewhat under control.

But the men and women who do that, apart from the tireless scientists, doctors and other medical professionals, researchers, experimenters and pharmaceutical companies, are the governments of the world. In order for the virus to be contained as best we could manage, those in authority had to order us to remain behind closed doors for a specific time. They had to relay the advice of the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) on social distancing, mask wearing and hand washing, as well as other points of health and safety. Most countries did this, with varying degrees of competence resulting in varying degrees of success, but some ignored their responsibility to their citizens, willfully going against the advice and putting their people in danger. Some of these were countries you might expect to go that way, the autocracy that is Russia, the right-wing South American countries, especially Brazil, and, to a slightly lesser extent, Britain.

But the country whose government has, unfortunately, gone so far out of its way to demonise this virus and "take a stand" against "vaccine terrorism" is the United States. It's due to them, mostly, or to the ones who refuse to mask up and get vaccinated, that these variants continue not only to appear but to thrive, for as long as there is a breeding ground for this virus it will continue to exist, it will threaten our lives and those of the ones we love, and it will never be gone, never cease to be a threat.

The resistance to Covid-19, the blind, stupid, ignorant and deliberate attempt to pretend it wasn't there centre of course on the last years of the Trump administration, and so we will also be examining that in some detail. Under a president who cared more about getting re-elected - and failed to do so - than protecting the people he swore to serve, right-wing conspiracy nuts such as QAnon have sprung up (or rather, sprung out, as they were always there, just previously lurking like vampires in the shadows, afraid to come out into the light) and fascist militias such as the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys have risen to unprecedented levels of power and acceptance, as the dark, ugly side of America, hidden from view mostly for the last decade or so, showed itself in all its twisted horror as the final months, weeks and days of the Trump administration wound sulkily and angrily down.

I welcome any comments, stories you may have, corrections or offers of cash incentives as usual. I can only relate my own experience and that of those I read about - I certainly have amassed a few books on the subject to help me with my research, though oddly enough there do not seem to be that many, so I will be mostly relying on the timeline provided by Wiki - but those of you who have another view, who have seen things unfold on the ground where you are, who know the things that may not be printed in books, who have lived through it perhaps in the most tumultuous era of the most divided country since the Civil Rights era, are welcome to share your stories here.

Just make sure you all have your shots before you come in, and nobody gets in without a mask.

[Trollheart]

Chapter I: Dark Genie: Pandora's Box Opens

I: Once Upon a Time in Wuhan

Timeline: mid-November - Dec 31 2019

Various factors make it all but impossible to know exactly when and why and how the Covid-19 virus first escaped. The fact that it began without question in China, one of the countries most noted for its suppression of the media and the truth, and always ready to make itself look good at any cost, means we will probably never know the real story. The original idea was that the virus had been carried on horseshoe bats and that it jumped from animals to humans, in a process called zoonosis. However, it's also theorised that there may have been an intermediate species which interacted with the bats and then passed the strain on to humans. Nobody knows for sure and investigations into the origin of Covid are ongoing. Recently, the team from the WHO (not quite sure what Roger Daltrey and Pete Townsend have to do with... oh) revised their conclusion that the virus could not have escaped from a laboratory, citing pressure from the Chinese government, and now supporting that theory as possible, even "likely". Nobody though is suggesting it was a deliberate act, rather a tragic accident possibly due to inadequate safety procedures.

What we do know without question is that the virus quickly contaminated the tiny town of Wuhan, which is a word everyone is familiar with today, but which before this nobody even knew existed. From there it quickly spread till all of China was infected.

Covid, the COronaVIrus Disease, or Coronavirus 2019, is a SARS virus (SARS: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and related to the almost-pandemic which threatened the world in 2002/2003. Its scientific name is SARS-CoV-2, and it has also been described as a Novel Coronavirus, I guess because at the time it was a new strain. Mostly though it's just referred to around the world now as Covid-19 or more often just Covid, though President Trump, while in power, tried to stoke anti-Chinese feeling in the USA by calling it "the China Plague" and, completely inaccurately and stupidly, the "Hong Kong Flu", presumably to pull at the memories of those of us who remember the cartoon kung-fu practicing dog, Hong Kong Phooey. Yeah.

So nobody can say with absolute certainty how the virus started. That's where the conspiracy nuts come in. Well, you'd expect that wouldn't you? Nuts gonna conspiracy. But usually that's all they are: nuts who are largely ignored, often ridiculed and seldom believed by anyone but fellow nuts. But Trump changed all that. When QAnon came out into the open, it should have been sent scurrying back into the shadows with its tail between its legs to the sound of jeers and scornful laughter. But when the then-President of the United States starts retweeting these completely baseless, false and made-up so-called theories, unfortunately, people take notice. And so rumours began about Covid being, I don't know, developed in secret labs by the Chinese with the help of Hunter and Joe Biden and ZOG and a cabal of blood-drinking, paedophile Hollywood A-Listers and George Soros and insert whatever conspiracy figure you like.

And people started believing.

Which is why we are where we are now. But I'll be going deeper into all that later. Right now I'm just using it to illustrate the fact that what seems to have been a natural occurrence, tragic yes but involving no human agenda, has now been bumped up to be a massive worldwide conspiracy, resulting in over half of America refusing to take the vaccine shot, and actively - and very stupidly and with zero success - fighting against the virus, or I should say fighting with the virus, as their intransigence and "refusal to comply" has exacerbated what was already a terrible situation, and it's not likely to get any better any soon.

Unaware of this, uncaring since it is in fact not sentient and doesn't give two shits whether we believe in it or not, Covid ran rampant across China. Beginning, at best guess (due to the Chinese government's typical denials and refusal to provide records and details) in the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, in Hubei Province, several people have been offered as  the actual "patient zero", but nobody can confirm this. Market sellers or people working in the Wuhan Virology Laboratory, accountants... there's no real way to figure it out, and in the end it matters little. The horse has bolted and we're all being trampled by it, while madly trying to hammer back the stable door onto creaking hinges, as other horses - new variants - also make their escape.

It's also been reported that, while whomever was the actual patient zero (we can at least be all but certain it was a Chinese resident) there are good reasons to believe that Covid had already made its way to such far-flung shores as Brazil, France and Italy by late November (the first actual case only being reported, or caught, in the first days of December in China). By December 8, one week after the first case had been reported, over forty people had been confirmed as positive with the new Coronavirus. By the end of December, as more patients began pouring in to the Wuhan Central Hospital and experts in infectious diseases were called in, the Chinese CDC was advised of the seriousness of the situation.

On December 30, mistakenly believing they were dealing with cases of "infectious pneumonia", all linked to the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission sent a series of directives, one of which was to have tragic and far-reaching consequences, not only for China but for the rest of the world. It forbade doctors from spreading information about the medical treatment being given, without official authorisation. In effect, China can be accused of hushing up and covering up the whole thing, which I suppose in fairness you might expect from just about any country. Nobody wants to be seen as the springboard for a worldwide pandemic, and again to be fair, nobody wants to spread panic unnecessarily. But again, this is China, where information is tightly controlled and the government takes responsibility for nothing unless it is to their advantage.

By the next day the Chinese public were being advised to watch for symptoms of "flu" and "high fever", and to seek hospital admission in this case. People were advised to wear face masks in public, not the first time China had had to do this, so it was something they were used to and probably didn't cause the kind of immediate panic such an instruction would engender over this side of the world.

So far, no deaths had been reported.

Outside of Hubei, Hong Kong was the first to respond, placing thermal sensors at their ports and airports to monitor the body temperature of incoming passengers, and also advising the wearing of face masks. They also provided detailed information on how to wash hands properly. Anyone who had been in Wuhan fourteen days before the outbreak and who presented with symptoms of this "fever" would be put into isolation. The WHO office in China relayed the information on to its counterpart in the South Pacific, which in turn advised the CDC. Taiwan began tightening security measures on flights or ships from Wuhan.

As we all celebrated the arrival of 2020, nobody had the faintest clue what we were heading into. Those few of us who kept up with the news (myself not among them) had some vague idea of a virus outbreak in China somewhere, but that was thousands of miles away, and could never affect us, could it? We were safe.

[Trollheart]

II: Secrets and Lies

Timeline: January 1 - 14 2020

The first days of 2020 saw the Chinese government finally break their silence and advise the American CDC about the outbreak. It was now characterised as such, with 47 patients believed to be affected, eleven seriously ill, and over 100 "close contacts", a phrase unheard till then but which the whole world would soon come to recognise and fear, all being monitored. The National Institute of Viral Disease Control Prevention was busily ruling out several variants of influenza, as the disease had first been suspected being, and certain other common respiratory viruses. Genetic testing and sequencing revealed the virus to be a strain of coronavirus, which they named 2019-nCov. Having alerted the USA to the bare bones of the outbreak, the Chinese National Health Commission issued instructions prohibiting the release of any information on the virus. The shutters, having lifted the tiniest bit, were slamming back down again, and while the world would soon learn the true meaning of the word lockdown, China was executing its own informational one. No data got out of the country, nobody else was advised, no warnings were sent and no information shared. China's pathological need to control everything about its people and its country would help to undo the entire globe.

And the new year was yet only three days old.

There was, however, one "whistleblower" in the country, and he did what he could to try to alert everyone. Naturally, he was repressed, punished and threatened for daring to speak the truth and look beyond party loyalty.

Dr. Li Wenliang

An ophthalmologist by profession, Li had worked at the Eye Centre of Xiamen University until 2014, when he transferred to the Wuhan Central Hospital. On December 30 2019 he shared information his colleagues had that seemed to indicate the virus was a SARS-coronavirus, and pretty immediately he was summoned by the hospital board, accused of spreading "false information", after which the police arrested him as part of their investigation into his claims, censured him and warned him to retract his statement and make no more on pain of actual charges being brought against him. Having done so, on his return to the hospital Li contracted the virus himself, and on January 31, 23 days after falling ill, he published details of his interview with, and threat by the police on social media. The post quickly went viral, as people began to ask why the hospital had tried to silence him?

He was not the only one to be reprimanded, but the Chinese Supreme Court took a more sympathetic view, noting that  "It might have been a fortunate thing if the public had believed the 'rumors' then and started to wear masks and carry out sanitization measures, and avoid the wild animal market."

In other words, the Supreme Court was either defending the whistle-blowers or possibly reprimanding the hospital, and through it, the party for trying to silence voices that were trying to alert China to the seriousness of the developing situation. Tragically, as Li returned to work and contracted the virus, he fell very ill and had to be hospitalised. He died on February 6, less than a month after contracting Covid. Chinese state media tried to cover their arses, pretending he was still alive when his heartbeat had already stopped, finally admitting that he was dead eight hours later.

The Pandemic is filled with the work of heroes, most of whom remain unsung and unknown, a few of which have received the honour they deserve. A phrase developed over the last two years: not all superheroes wear capes. It's true: mostly they wear white or blue coats, masks and face shields, hi-viz jackets and other uniforms of the front-line staff who gave their lives on the line, and in some countries continue to do so, for the people they try to save. If Dr. Li was the first true victim, the first of millions of deaths from Covid-19, his death would be a harbinger for a pattern that would replicate itself across the globe as medical health professionals, care workers and staff in hospitals braved the dangers of the Pandemic in order to provide comfort and care to those who needed it most at such a time. So many would lose their lives that it would become nothing short of a scandal, fingers pointing to governments who skimped on essential protective equipment for their medical and healthcare staff.

Dr. Li's death was not in vain, nor was he alone in succumbing early to the virus. Six more doctors died by June, and the internet was alive with expressions of sympathy for Li, and anger at the intransigence and arrogance of the Wuhan Hospital and the Chinese government, neither of whom offered any apology for how the doctor was treated, though they did pay tribute to him. A protest campaign began to gather momentum across China under the hashtag #WeWantFreedomOfSpeech, with two million views accumulated before the ever-repressive censor removed it. But like they say, once something goes up on the internet it's there forever, and removing the hashtag did nothing to dampen the demand of Chinese people - and those outside the country too - for the truth behind the Coronavirus and its dangers. Academicians began to speak out, and a small protest was held in New York's Central Park.

Finally, in April, Li was honoured as a Chinese martyr, the highest honour the country can award. Fortune magazine awarded him top spot in a list of World's Greatest Leaders: 25 Heroes of the Pandemic.

Back to January though. On January 4 the United Nations activated their incident response team, the World Health Organisation (WHO) stood ready and the US CDC offered to send representatives to Wuhan to investigate the outbreak. Given the state of relations between the two countries, to say nothing of President Trump's ultra-militant stance against China's trade agreements, this was never likely to be an offer that would be accepted. Across the mainland, Hong Kong geared up for tight restrictions, its own University's Centre for Infection warning that it was "highly likely" the virus was jumping from human to human. With Chinese New Year just over the horizon, they worried about a sudden surge in cases as people mixed and mingled. Though many might wear masks, not enough was known about the virus yet to indicate that this would be enough protection.

On that same day, Singapore was notified of its first possible case, a three-year-old girl from China who had been in Wuhan. On January 7 the CDC in America issued their first travel notice, warning (but not banning) people against travelling to Wuhan city. The next day South Korea seemed to have identified their first case, a middle-aged woman, again from China and again from Wuhan. She was placed in isolation and underwent observation.

The Virus Claims its First Victim

January 8 marked the first death - or at least, the first recorded/reported death - from the virus that was to take millions and make tens of millions sick over the next two years. A man who was a regular at the Huanan Market, and who also had what we came to be used to hearing of as "underlying medical conditions" - in his case, chronic liver disease - died of heart failure and pneumonia. The agent of his death was traced as the Coronavirus, at this time still called 2019-nCov, known by medical professionals to be a coronavirus but still seen as a "mystery virus" by the world at large. In some circles it earned the name of the "Wuhan Virus" (a variant of which name would later be jumped on by the Trump administration and widened to take in all of China) and was also known generally and referred to as the novel coronavirus.

At this point it should be noted that, Dr. Li and his six associates aside, no other healthcare provider had been infected, or at least, reported as being so. But the Chinese must have known: if Dr. Li had contracted it from a patient, then surely the virus was jumping from one human body to another? Easy to be Captain Hindsight of course: at this point in our lives we were all pretty much blissfully unaware of the threat posed by the virus, and how soon, in relative terms, it would be crossing our own borders and knocking at our doors.

On January 10 Dr. Li contracted the virus and immediately isolated himself, hoping to save his family, though his parents caught it too. They recovered and survived while he was not so lucky. As close contacts began to be monitored, rising to 700 in all, what we would grow to see as usual began to happen: hospital ICUs in Wuhan began to fill up and overflow, with patients being turned away as there was no capacity to look after them. The WHO, acting on information released by the Chinese government, advised that there was no evidence that the virus travelled from person to person. This may have been caution, an educated guess or an outright lie, there's no way to know. But one thing is certain: China was not in any way sharing all it knew, and people would die as a result.

But let's be clear here. I'm not condoning what they did, in fact I'm condemning them for it. They concealed information, downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak and threatened those who were ready to tell the truth. All horrible, reprehensible actions, and all very much in line with what we would expect of China. And as I said in the above paragraph, because of this, people died, and many more would die. But can we really put our hands on our hearts and say that had this broken out in another country that they would not have done the same? Russia? They certainly would have buried the information, and probably literally anyone who spoke of it or even tried to lift a whistle, never mind blow one. North Korea? Would surely have even denied such a thing could occur in their country and would never take responsibility for what they had let loose on the world. And America? Well, possibly under any other administration - Clinton, Obama, Biden, hell, even the Bushes, either one - you would hope, at least, that they would have done the right thing.

But we don't have to speculate about how the Trump administration would have handled it, because we saw it. When the virus finally arrived in America, Trump and his party played it down, all but pretended it didn't exist, then that it was going away. They ignored science and demonised those who spoke the language of health and safety, and eventually weaponised the pandemic against their own countrymen. So no, had this broken out in the USA at the time it did, with the Oval Office occupied by who it was then, I know for almost a fact that it would have been hushed up, shoved under the carpet, denied and ignored. Britain, run by a sort of Trump-lite, probably would have followed a similar path.

Sure, there are some countries you would imagine might have been more forthcoming, though really, in such a situation there's no telling what politicians might do. They always consider their career, their re-election prospects and their future first, and that of the country second, so it might have been the same no matter where this virus broke out. So while we can definitely condemn and castigate China for its lack of responsibility and its failure in its duty of care to the wider world, we can't be surprised and we can't say it would not have happened anywhere else.

At any rate, it did happen and by now the virus seemed to have spread for the first time outside China, as a woman in Thailand was reported to be displaying the same symptoms. But so far, this was still Asia, and a long way away from us here in Europe, the UK and America. It still seemed like "their" problem.

It wouldn't take long before it was everyone's problem.

[Trollheart]

III: Calling Out Around the World: The Virus Goes On Tour

On January 15 2020 what the world had feared came to pass: the virus appeared in the west. The first case turned up in the USA, in Washington, where a patient who had travelled from Wuhan to Washington was found to be suffering from the symptoms and was isolated. The very next day Japan reported their first case, a man from China who, though he had not been to the market, was believed to have been a close contact of someone who was. However by this time cases had levelled off in Wuhan and the stringent restrictions were lifted. Meanwhile Thailand reported another case and in China a second death was recorded, and America began screening passengers coming in from Wuhan, although as yet no travel ban was put in place.

On January 18 a team of specialist epidemiologists arrived in Wuhan from Beijing to investigate the virus, meanwhile the city held a "super-spreader event" (another phrase 2020 brought us, and one with which we were to become tragically acquainted) for the Chinese New Year celebrations. Whether this was in defiance of the rising number of cases, in support of the official government position that there was no outbreak to worry about, or just plain ignorance and stupidity, we will never know. The official statement from the mayor remarked "The reason why the Baibuting community continued to host the banquet this year was based on the previous judgment that the spread of the epidemic was limited between humans, so there was not enough warning."But it certainly helped move the virus around, and Covid had a very happy Chinese new year. President Donald Trump, advised at this point of the situation by his Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, did not seem bothered about it. I suppose, to be fair to him and America, nobody really did. We would all learn to our costs not to be so sure of ourselves, but that was down the line.

On January 19 China woke to the scary news that the virus had been detected in people outside of Wuhan, as both Guangdong and Beijing reported cases, and one more person died, bringing the total at that point to three, with an estimated 201 cases in the country overall. The next day, as two medical staff became infected, the Chinese National Health Commission confirmed that human-to-human transmission was taking place. This was major news, and bad news too. Now it was confirmed that the virus could be passed on from person to person, the race began to create a vaccine. The first to undertake research into this was the National Institute of Health in the USA.

Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea were all now reporting cases, all of these believed related to a dinner held in a hotel in Singapore where one of the attendees was from Wuhan. Thus the virus made its way across Asia, and promptly began infecting more people. There's nothing a virus likes to do (well, they're not sentient but you know what I mean) more than propagate, spread and mutate as it infects, and this one was well on the way to being a major threat to Asia as well as America. It couldn't be long before the rest of the world felt its clammy touch, and it wouldn't be. Realising at last that they could no longer keep a lid on this, and that if they tried, they would be seen to be wilfully negligent and possibly complicit in the deaths that would surely follow, the Chinese came clean and shared their information with the world. A little late, but better late than never I guess. This was January 21. The next day the city of Wuhan was put under quarantine, but by now it was estimated that up to five million people could have travelled out of the city.

While the US embassy in China raised the Health Alert Level to 2, President Trump again shrugged it off. "It's one person coming in from China," he said, "and we have it under control. It's—going to be just fine."

Of course, it was going to be anything but fine. More bad news was on the way. Mostly, for the first year or so, all we would get about the virus would be bad news, some of it very bad. This news told us that people who had the virus could be asymptomatic (not have or not notice symptoms) for several days before it showed, which of course meant people who thought they were perfectly healthy could be out and about and spreading the virus unknowingly before getting sick themselves. Then, those who had been infected, without knowing it, would infect others and so on. A vicious circle of infection that would be hard to stop, since nobody knew they were infected until it was too late.

We were now introduced to a new acronym, one which was to echo down the next two years across the world: PPE. PPE stands for Personal Protective Equipment, and covers gowns, masks, gloves, face shields, all the paraphernalia necessary for medical professionals to provide themselves protection from the virus, and to prevent it being passed on in the event they have been infected. On January 24 the US reported its second case while France experienced its first, the first case to be detected in Europe. The entire province of Hubei, where Wuhan is located, was put into quarantine. The next day the virus reached Australia. As the last week of January began, cases began to pile up. The USA now had five, South Korea had three, Thailand and Hong Kong reported eight. Dean of the University of Hong Kong, Gabriel Leung, predicted that the amount of cases was in fact about ten times what was being reported, reckoning that there could be up to 100,000 cases in China alone.

Canada was next to fall, then Sri Lanka and Cambodia, while Germany recorded its first case January 27, while a scare in neighbouring Austria turned out to be a false alarm. Samoa, the first country to implement mandatory quarantine for Chinese travellers, detained six people who had been stopped from entering the country. The Director-General of the WHO went to China to discuss the situation with the Chinese government. Brazil and Ecuador reported "possible" cases, as did Finland, Armenia, Georgia and the United Arab Emirates. Air Canada became the first airline to suspend all flights to China. Peter Navarro, Director of Trade and Manufacturing in the Trump administration, began to sound alarm bells, warning that the virus could infect millions of Americans and recommending all travel to China be stopped. China's cases now numbered around 6,000.

And the virus hadn't even got started yet.

As January wound down, the WHO declared the coronavirus a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern", advising all countries to prepare for a possible pandemic. India, the Philippines and Italy confirmed their first cases, while Vietnam now had three, while in the US the first case of person-to-person transmission, marking their sixth case overall, was reported. Azar, the CDC's Robert Redfield and National Institute of Health director Anthony Faucci, the last a name which would become synonymous with the virus, for two very different reasons, declared that a ban on travel into the USA from China should be implemented.

On January 31 the first cases were reported in the United Kingdom, Russia, Sweden and Spain. By the end of the month a total of twenty-seven countries spread across five continents had cases of the novel coronavirus.

[Trollheart]

IV: Death as a Way of Life

February brought worse news, as the first death outside of China was announced, a man from China who was resident in the Philippines, and who had been connected with the now-infamous market in Wuhan. He was, in fact, a close contact of the country's first case. The next day Hong Kong also announced their first death from the virus. So far, all deaths had been linked to Wuhan, including one who had been on an evacuation flight to take them home. On February 5 a cruise liner called Diamond Princess reported ten cases, but there were over 3,500 passengers and crew on the liner, which was near Yokohama when it was quarantined. The next day Dr. Li Wengliang, as mentioned above, died from the virus, having tried to warn of the dangers and having been arrested and censured for telling the truth. He was later proclaimed a Chinese martyr.

There were now over 10,000 cases in China, 31 in Europe, 120 in Asia, 2 in the UK and 11 in the USA including one person who died, giving the United States its first nasty taste of death from Covid-19. This death was particularly worrying as it led the CDC to conclude it was due to what was termed "community transmission", (another term that would define 2020/21) meaning the virus was being spread from one person to another by close contact. Also worrying was that the woman infected died at home, suddenly becoming ill, staying at home rather than going to hospital or visiting her doctor, recovering then relapsing and finally dying over a period of a few weeks. She had not left the country. By now the total cases on the Diamond Princess, which had always been expected to increase, stood at 86.

On February 8 it was confirmed for the first time that aerosol was a factor in transmitting the virus, so that it could be carried in human sputum, breath, sneezes and so forth. China now stood at a staggering 40,000 plus cases, with over 800 deaths, by far the largest total, though not surprisingly so. On February 11 the WHO named the disease as Covid-19 (CoronaVirus Disease 2019) and officially designated the virus itself as SARS-CoV-2. The same day, Japan confirmed its first death from the virus. Two days later, France reported the first death in Europe. The woman was a Chinese tourist, but soon that would change; once the virus had a hold, the people of China, who I suppose could be seen as its unwitting transport system, were jettisoned and the virus struck out on its own, hitting every country and every continent regardless of its relation, or lack of, to China.

This would not stop President Trump from repeatedly referring to Covid as "the China Plague", nor violence being directed at Asian people, seen to be the cause of the virus by those whose brain a hungry zombie would starve trying to get nourishment from.

February 16 saw the number of cases on Diamond Princess rise to 355. This was now almost ten percent of the cruiser's complement. In addition, Japan had 59 cases of its own. One day later, the cruiser had another 100 cases confirmed. You could see where this was going. February 19 saw the offloading of passengers (with the total now at nearly 650 infected) to be returned to their country of origin. The next day the first two deaths from the ship were registered. Eventually there would be twelve deaths in all. The first death in Italy, which would become one of the biggest hot-spots for the outbreak,  was confirmed February 21.

In the USA, the Trump administration continued to drag its feet and shrug, hoping that by ignoring it the virus would go away. I suppose at least they didn't try to shoot at it! Only three states were able to test for the virus: California, Illinois and Nebraska. New Zealand, Israel, Iran and Lebanon joined the club nobody wanted to belong to, but all would eventually be members of, as each recorded their first cases. On February 22 Italy became the European country with the largest case number, 79, and two deaths. One single day later it became the country with the third largest number of cases in the world, as its cases climbed to 152. Afghanistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Algeria, Brazil, Austria, Croatia, Switzerland and Oman joined the party, and with no travel restrictions yet put in place - other than from China - people began importing the virus into their own countries.

Italy and Iran saw people return to Denmark and Estonia respectively, creating the first cases in both countries, while an Iranian man moved back to Canada, opening up Quebec to the disease for the first time. An Israeli travelling to Italy and an Iraqi travelling to Iran helped move things along for the virus. Iran now had 245 cases  while Italy reported 655. Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman were all victims of Iranians visiting, while Norway had the dubious distinction of having both an Italian and an Iranian spread the virus there. The Netherlands and Nigeria can also trace their first infections to an Italian tourist, the latter becoming the first sub-Saharan African country to fall prey to the virus. Northern Ireland was infected for the first time, again this being due to an Italian who transited through Dublin, so we were next on the list.

Iran had 388 cases and Italy 888 as February drew to a close. South Korea remained number two in the rankings, well behind China, with over 2,000 cases to its 80,000, and on the last day of February, this being a leap year, Ireland was hit with its first case. It had only been a matter of time. Other countries to report their first cases on this day included Ecuador, Luxembourg and Qatar.



This is a regular section I'm going to be featuring, where I examine, in hindsight, what could or should have been done in the run-up to, and indeed after, full blown pandemic status of the virus. It's acknowledged by me that this is all said with the benefit of knowing what we know now, but still, there are some valid points I feel.

As I read this now, I'm increasingly struck by how almost comic the events of January and February 2020 were. Not in a look-at-that-guy-falling-over type of way, of course, but in terms of how the hell could we not see it, sort of thing. The idea of borders not being closed, or at least properly monitored, as the outbreak became an epidemic in China and then spread to a full pandemic across the world, is hard to get my head around, even though I was there as it happened. The thought of people crossing and recrossing national boundaries, going from country to country like blind and dumb supersonic snails or slugs, leaving the sticky trail of the infection behind them wherever they went, kind of boggles the mind. No country was restricted to travel to, other than China and a few smaller ones who took quick action which may have saved them from the worst. Europe basically shrugged, America laughed and Africa, at this point, probably barely knew what all the fuss was about with the white folks. Probably the only continent taking this seriously as they should was Asia.

But then we do have the benefit of hindsight, and we can see what happened when nations did begin closing borders, restricting air travel and locking down. Airlines, if they had to cut back on flights, would and did start to lose money, with a resultant slow trickle-down of loss of employment. Holiday destinations would and did suffer, and the idea of industry being slowed, much less stopping altogether as it had to eventually, surely filled everyone with dread, as it should. To say nothing of the civil unrest such measures would, and did, bring. Besides, at this point the competent authority, the main voice of health advice was the WHO, and though they had declared SARS-CoV-2 a PHEIC, it had not yet, according to them, reached the stage where it could be called a pandemic.

Generally speaking, governments do not like making decisions, or perhaps I should say they don't like to take responsibility for the decisions they may be forced to make. Politicians, as I already noted, are all about their next term, how to survive, how to continue, how to get elected again, or to a higher office. They don't like doing things that upset potential voters, and mostly try if possible either to avoid doing them, or if not possible, look for someone else onto whose shoulders they can pass the blame. And with Coronavirus, there was a ready-made scapegoat waiting, so they would do nothing until the WHO told or urgently advised them to do so. Then they could just claim - as would be the truth, if slightly simplified - that they were simply following the advice of the people who knew best what had to be done.

Surely governments across the world, certainly in Europe at least, which has turned out to be one of the major sources of deaths and cases, could have come together and made a decision, without waiting for the word from the WHO? But I suppose then they could be accused - by the opposition parties, always ready to score points even in a humanitarian worldwide emergency, and by their own people, those all-important voters - of moving too fast, of panicking, of not listening to the advice of the WHO. Speaking of panic, no government would want to engender such in their populace, which is probably another reason why they played the whole thing down as much as possible, most countries taking the line that it was "someone else's problem" and unlikely to reach their shores. Even if it did, they assured their jittery voters, they would contain it. It would never get as bad in Germany, France, Italy (um), Switzerland, the UK, the USA as it was in China.

Never.

Someone, I believe it may have been President Trump's mouthpiece, spokeswoman for the White House Press Kelly-Anne Conway, sneered that Coronavirus would never enter the United States. There spoke either a liar, someone who was desperate to calm the public at any cost, or someone who did not in any way understand  how this virus worked. Perhaps all three. In any case, as we know now, and America certainly knows to its tragic cost, she couldn't have been more wrong.

To be fair, at this point nobody still knew quite what Coronavirus was. Nobody knew with any certainty where it had originated - we still don't - and for a long time there was no vaccine, so much of the efforts of medical staff and scientists went into trying to contain rather than neutralise the virus, and inevitably many mistakes were made. Conflicting public health advice, from the WHO and CDC to our own HSE (Health Service Executive) would confuse and anger people, telling them this thing then that, countermanding information it had put out a few days later, leaving everyone looking at each other and wondering what they were supposed to do? We were all winging it, we understood that: nobody in our generation had ever lived through or dealt with anything like this before. Still, we expected our men and women in white coats to know what they were doing, to tell us what we needed to do, and to keep us safe.

But nobody could.

Belligerence by the leadership of certain countries didn't help. It's been well documented (but I'll of course be going over it again in detail) how America responded, or rather didn't, but they weren't alone in trying to wish away or laugh at the virus. Brazil, Russia, many Eastern European countries, the UK to some degree, all seemed to think that it was being blown out of proportion - or conveyed this to their people, possibly to make them look strong and unafraid - and rather like Dickens' Mr. Podsnap tried to wave the thing dismissively away as if it were of no account. By dint of this, a basic idea developed that those leaders who adopted what we could call the Podsnappery line were seen as strong leaders, refusing to bow down to fear and join in the slowly-growing panic that was gripping the world, and those that reacted to the virus with caution and tried to protect their people, who listened to the science and understood how serious things were, could be looked on as weak, easily-led and easily-duped, and not representing the good of their people.

The world was slowly beginning to split, as people chose their side. It would only get worse as the months went on.

[Trollheart]

V: Don't Panic!

Timeline: March 2020

At this point it becomes a redundant exercise noting what new country reported cases or deaths, as eventually, and quite quickly after this, there wouldn't be one left in the world that hadn't been touched by the virus, though some would fare better than others, mostly due to decisive and quick action taken while other nations dithered or refused to face reality. So from now on I'll only be noting significant points, deaths and developments. Suffice to say that by now, a map of the world showed more red than it didn't, red being the colour used for areas with a high number of cases.

Note: As I begin to read and research from the book Coronavirus: 2020 Vision. The Road to Freedom Day: The Complete Diary and Events of the COVID-19 Pandemic by Keith Wright, written in 2020 obviously, it's both shocking and comforting to note that his comment near the beginning of the book has thankfully proven to be completely wrong, and that his prediction has not come through. I'm sure he is as delighted as all of us that when he wrote "Our hope is for a vaccine, yet this is impossible for many months, probably years, if at all. Sadly, the world has been unable to develop a vaccine for any of the previous coronavirus such as SARS, (or even the common cold, which is part of the coronavirus family), so it would be remarkable if they manage to do so with this one" and further that  "I start this diary uncertain whether I will be alive to finish it or sustain it if I become one of the coronavirus victims. Will I be too ill to continue? Will I die? Things change day-to-day, and suddenly the future is more uncertain than ever before in my lifetime", he appears to have been happily wrong.

So far as I can see, Mr. Wright is still posting on Twitter as of today, so he did not die. I can only hope his family are all with us and well, and as he and the world know by now, though we have a long way (and probably a lot more variants) to go before we have Covid under control, we do at least now have not one, but multiple vaccines, so his gloomy prediction for the future has turned out to be wrong, and again I'm sure he's delighted and relieved that it's so.

However this does serve to illustrate, in very stark and real terms, the fear, actually the terror that Covid inspired in us. I once wrote that people living through the onslaught of the Black Death in fourteenth-century Europe must have felt like the world was coming to an end, and I remember too my sister saying to me at one point that she wondered this too. And so did I. All around us, people were dying at a phenomenal and terrifying rate, and until the vaccine came on the scene there was no respite. Medical science could not save us. Religion (not that I believed) could not save us. Money, power, an arrogant attitude or blind fear could not save us. Nobody and nothing could. The human race appeared to be dying, and there looked to be nothing we could do about it.

And I don't have to say to  you (unless you're for some reason reading this twenty or more years in the future) this is how it was: we all know how it was. We all lived through it. We're still living through it, though what we're living through now is a different thing than what we coped with from early 2020 until the advent of the first vaccine. This is an event that has touched everyone, helped to bring the world together and helped to tear it apart, and reminded us all how small and insignificant the human species is. Without the knowledge or dedication to have created a vaccine, most of us might be dead or seriously ill by now. Only through the barrier of the vaccines have we been able to slow and slightly repulse the virus, though there are still paths open to it thanks to the ignorance and stupidity of millions of people who refuse to get vaccinated, out of fear, uncertainty, belligerence or political viewpoint.

I'm no fan of our government, but hell, credit where credit is due, for now. While Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister, was going on TV talking about people being able to continue to lead normal lives and, worse, advising people it was fine to shake hands (it would very soon transpire this was one of the worst things you could do, one of the easiest and fastest paths for the virus to transfer from one person to another) the Irish government took the very difficult but very necessary decision to shut down the Saint Patrick's Day Parade for 2020.

I'm sure nobody needs to be told what this is, or how important to Ireland, both in a cultural and an economic sense, it is to us. March 17 is for some reason I've never understood celebrated as what we know as "Paddy's Day", when Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, is celebrated. There are parades - the main one in Dublin but others throughout the country - and a general party atmosphere prevails. It's a bank holiday; nobody works (other than publicans, bus drivers, police, taxis... you know what? A lot of people work but officially it's a day off for most people) and everyone gets drunk, usually too much so. Fights break out, people get hurt, very Irish. Beer acquires a green tint, and revellers too start to look a little "Irish" after they've consumed perhaps one too many pints of the "black stuff", sorry I mean the "green stuff."

Not only do we have fun but people from all over the world come to us. Americans love it. Spanish and Germans love it. Africans love it. Hell, on Paddy's Day everyone is Irish, no matter your skin colour, country of origin or how well you know the words to "The Green Fields of France." Everyone is accepted, everyone is welcomed. It's a party, and everyone's invited. It's especially a party for the exchequer, with all those tourists coming in, all that lovely foreign money filling up tills all over the Emerald Isle, all that excise duty and VAT... everyone wins. It's also another opportunity to show Ireland off to the world, and try to erase the often-held view of our country as one of conflict and division between north and south. I'm pretty sure they even celebrate Paddy's Day up the North.

So you can see what a big deal it was to call this off. And many were against it. But had the government not made the right call, the 2020 Saint Patrick's Day Parades could have been one of the world's first "super-spreader" events, sending people from multiple nations home with the disease, a nice reminder of Ireland, to say nothing of speeding the infection rate - and surely, without at the time any vaccine in sight, the death rate - in our own country. Ireland could have become a byword for overindulgence, drunken ignorance of medical advice, and fatal irresponsibility. Instead, the Irish government were hailed as forward-thinking, self-sacrificing and wise, which to be fair they were: they knew they'd lose millions in tourist revenue, and that many event organisers would lose their shirts, given that the announcement was only made less than two weeks before the day, but public health and safety came first (and surely they hoped that when the public went to the polls again they would remember how their government has protected them at its own expense) and this was the call they made.

Johnson was probably sneering to himself that we Irish were being weak fools, overreacting and deserved to lose all that money. He wouldn't be sneering for long.

It should also be noted that, at the time the Irish Government made its momentous (and not at all popular, it must be said) decision, there was one single case confirmed in Ireland. Many countries, I feel, might have shrugged and said we were hardly touched by the virus, it would be all right, no need to panic. But our boys said no: there's only one case now, but if we go ahead with the parades, how many will we have by the end of March? It just didn't bear thinking about. Britain, at this point, completely downplaying the seriousness of the outbreak, had 51 cases. Although not yet announced as their official strategy, we would later find out that Johnson's government, based on the medical advice they were getting (or hearing what they wanted to hear) was to go for "herd immunity", basically the idea of letting the virus tear through the population until enough had been infected that natural immunity was achieved.

Of course, this would result in thousands of deaths, but unconfirmed reports, always denied, speak of the Prime Minister shrugging "if some grannies have to die so be it" and to "let the bodies pile up." They would, despite the government's change of policy. Despite calming words from Johnson, something seemed to snap in the British people at that moment and there was panic buying, though nobody knows why everyone suddenly wanted so many toilet rolls! Mind you, the same would happen here when the madness arrived. Johnson did advocate the medical advice of frequently washing hands, which would become a recurrent theme throughout the pandemic, and is still of course something we are very careful to do.

March 6 brought news of a second cruise liner, the Grand Princess, owned by the same line as the first one, Princess Cruises, reporting 21 cases on board. In Hawaii, their first case there was traced back to a person who had been a passenger on this cruiser. Meanwhile it seemed even God* couldn't protect his representatives on Earth from Covid, as Vatican City recorded its first case. The first death in Africa occurred when Egypt registered its first fatality, a German man, on March 8. In France, members of the Assembly were dropping like flies, the fifth deputy falling ill on March 9, while the next day Italy and South Korea swapped places as second and third highest number of cases, as Italy passed the 10,000 case mark, with over 600 deaths, while South Korea had just over 7,500 cases and a "mere" 50-odd deaths.

In Britain, you had to think that God* was having some sort of dark joke as, of all people, the Health Minister contracted the virus. This despite the fact that Johnson continued to appear at local and national sports and other events, blatantly shaking hands and acting as if there was nothing to be concerned about. The US passed a grim milestone of 1,000 cases, though it would be the first of many, many such markers as the year unfolded.

The WHO finally declared the emergency to be a pandemic, which at this point just about anyone could have worked out for themselves, but at least it was officially labelled as such, meaning, I guess, that more stringent protective measures could be put in place, or at least governments could be advised to do so, and stronger efforts could be expended at trying to contain the disease. Iran began to close on Italy in a race in which nobody wanted pole position, as cases there pushed past 9,000, but Italy was not giving up its place so easily, with now 12,500 cases itself. The first person to die of the disease was reported in Ireland. In the USA, Basketball became the first major sport to suffer as two players on one of its teams fell ill and the entire NBA season was suspended, with the Grand Prix in Australia next falling as people began to belatedly realise that with a global pandemic on their hands, perhaps crowding together at sporting events was not the best response.

Meanwhile, in Britain, Arsenal (football club) manager Mikel Arteta tested positive but the hugely popular (and profitable) Cheltenham Derby went ahead, with horse racing fans pouring in from all over Britain and Europe, and further afield. No precautions of any kind were taken, or advised, this despite Johnson seeming to confuse everyone by stating on public television that Britain was facing "the worst public health crisis for a generation." This was, of course, bulls[COLOR="Black"]h[/COLOR]it. Nobody alive had ever seen such a pandemic, not in one generation, or two, or three. In fact, discounting the Spanish Flu outbreak of 1919 - which is still not as bad as Covid - you've got to go back to that old reliable, the Black Death, for anything even approaching the worldwide infection and death toll Covid has wrought upon us, and that's seven hundred years back.

Mixed signals and confusing directions would help spread the virus, as successive governments - our own included - would give us contradictory information. First we were told masks weren't so great, then they could save our lives, then they couldn't save our lives but they could save the lives of others if we wore them, and so on. A catalogue of errors, a dark comedy of blundering and U-turns and step backs and changes in policy, not all of which could be blamed on the changing advice from the medical world, the WHO and the CDC. It's quite possible that many of the deaths in various countries came about because the people were told to do one thing, then the advice changed, and nobody really knew what to do to protect themselves. There really was only one way to assure the safety of as many people as possible, and by now some countries were beginning to realise it was a measure which, though unpalatable and a final resort, could no longer be avoided.

* If you believe(d) in him, which I don't.

[Trollheart]

VI: Lockdown: The World Stops Turning

Never in the whole history of humankind has the entire world stopped at the same time, with people told not to go to work, factories and offices shut, citizens locking themselves in behind closed doors, venturing out only for essential shopping and exercise. Never before had we been encouraged, ordered in fact, to stay at home, stay safe. Never before had the roads been so clear, the streets been so quiet, the parks so deserted. Italy, unsurprisingly, given it was now not only the concentration point of the highest number of cases in Europe, but second globally, was the first to institute lockdown orders onMarch 8, and Ireland would follow soon, on March 12. Spain began lockdown from March 14 while France was in complete lockdown by March 17. Most other European countries would instigate this tactic of defence against the spread of the virus, but some countries remained stubbornly resistant to it.

In America, President Trump fought against the locking down of individual states. The USA is somewhat of a political oddity, in that policy can be made by state governors independent of, or even in opposition to that of the White House. It's amazing to me. Here, the government says "we're going on lockdown" and we all do. We have to. Laois or Carlow or Kerry or Sligo can't say no we don't agree, we're staying open. They don't have that kind of autonomy. Counties have in fact very little power, and none to resist or defy the government. They can butt heads with them a little, on issues on which they feel they need to, or their constituents expect them to, but it's all decided within the framework of the Irish government. The UK is the same. In fact, I believe America is unique in being able to separate what they call state control from federal authority. In the USA, Texas can decide not to follow the rules, or California can give the President the finger, and this is what was happening.

With a Republican - and highly unpopular - President in the Oval Office, and America already deeply divided, that president minimising, all but ignoring or denying the pandemic, states began to make their own arrangements to protect their citizens, with resistance drawn along the line of blue/red defiance. In other words, when a Republican president who seemed to be - and was - acting not in the country's interest and ignoring the science, putting his people at risk of disease and death to further his own political standing and agenda for re-election said no lockdown, the "blue" states - those run by Democrat governors - ignored him and instituted lockdowns anyway. As President, he could not overrule this disobedience legally, though he would try, or encourage others to try, through other means.

Britain, meanwhile, was sticking to - and now announcing - its policy of herd immunity. While Trump's administration was also considering this but had come to no official position on it, since the President didn't think the virus even worth talking about, Johnson's government came right out and said it, terrifying many of the older and more vulnerable Britons, who knew they were about to be served up as cannon fodder, sacrifices to be offered to the gods of Covid in the hope the younger, healthier ones would be spared. It was almost a deal with the devil. For Johnson, that bill would quickly become due, in a very personal way.

My own personal experiences of lockdown were these: first, being a sort of hermit myself, with no friends or social life to speak of and my sister to look after, it made not that much difference to me. The main change was that I soon had to switch to doing the weekly shop at a very early hour. I typically get up at 11:25, and before anyone gasps or sneers, I usually hit the pillow about 4:00 AM. Karen, my sister, is looked after in the morning by carers, for those who don't already know, and they arrive at midday, so there's not a lot of point my being up before that; I'd risk waking her with any noise I might make, and the chances are that I'd probably just fall asleep again anyway. Remember, 4 AM to 11 AM (roughly) is seven hours, the same as if you went to bed at midnight and got up at 7. So it's not like I'm sleeping longer, just a different cycle, which over the years I've got used to and find hard to break.

Anyway, to minimise traffic and avoid queues Tescos set up special hours for those who were disabled, old or caring for someone to do their shopping in relative safety. These hours were from initially 7 AM to 9, but then, with typical changeability, the opening hours went from 7 AM to 8, so you only had the hour. This early shopping was necessary, because at the height of the pandemic, before the lockdown, queues were huge for Tescos, stretching right through the shopping centre, and you could literally be waiting for hours to get in. On the "special" time slot, there was no queue and you just walked in. This however meant I had to get up early, as I say: originally 6:30 for a 7:00 arrival, then changed to an hour later, but still meant I had to be rising at 7:30, four hours earlier than I had been used to. But it was necessary.

Other than that one shopping expedition, I didn't go outside the house. At all. If I was forced to leave I would take a taxi, as conditions on the local transport were still up in the air as bus drivers fought against having to enforce the likes of social distancing or mask wearing, believing - probably with cause - that it was not part of their job to be "policing" their passengers, and having in any case little or no authority to ban anyone from boarding the bus if they did not comply with the directives. Taxis were more expensive, but simpler in the long run. I began trying to make arrangements with the local taxi firms to have my cats' monthly food and medication collected from the vet's in Fairview (about a half hour away by bus, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes by taxi) and restricted my shopping to the one day, and the one place.

Everything had to be sprayed down each morning before the carers came in, and though I did not wear a mask around Karen - who cannot wear one herself - feeling that I was doing my best to protect both myself and her when I rarely went out - I made sure to wear one whenever I went past the door. Hands were washed multiple times a day, to the point where my skin began to flake and get very sore from the repeated application of sanitiser and water, and hand cream or moisturiser would help but it still hurt. Dry, cracked fingers and knuckles was the order of the day. One thing lockdown did help with was that there were no more unsolicited knocks at the door. Nobody rang our bell, smilingly asking if we wanted to switch electricity vendors, or change our broadband supplier, or help headless children in Africa or whatever. No junk mail (hardly any mail at all) and no unwanted callers.

Outside, it was as if the world had died. Quiet, but not a peaceful quiet. The quiet of dread, of anticipated horror. The kind of silence I imagined you got just before a big battle, or before that meeting where your company's future might be discussed and decided. No sounds of traffic. No children playing. No ice cream van tinkling. No voices. No laughter. No music. It was as if the world was holding its breath, afraid to let it out. For future lockdowns we would be a bit more blase, but this time we all feared the worst. It was, after all, something entirely and frighteningly new to us. Kids, who initially no doubt thought the idea of schools closing a great one, found to their chagrin and annoyance that they were not allowed play outside; they had to remain indoors, and that was no fun! Might as well be in school! Parents, too, risked being driven mad by their bored children, many gamely trying to provide some sort of home-school education for them as the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months.

A famous video in Ireland (you can see it above) shows a deserted Grafton Street, usually one of the busiest shopping areas in Dublin, eerily quiet as a fox walks along the pavement. This showed how few people were abroad (obviously there was one: the one taking the video, but it shows no other human as the camera pans and follows after the seemingly-oblivious animal) that a creature which usually shuns human company could come out into the open, walk along one of the city's premier shopping streets, and not encounter a living soul. That fox almost epitomised and symbolised the loneliness of Ireland, the retreat of mankind from its streets, the removal of the human presence from the world. It was almost as if the animals were about to take over, leaving us trembling and scared behind our doors and windows, looking out and wondering if the world would ever be ours again?

As lockdowns spread, the world began to slow, and then grind to a shuddering halt. With nobody in the factories, nothing was being manufactured. Even if it had been, there were no truck drivers or airline pilots or ship captains to take them to their destination, all transport having by now ceased. Supplies began to run low, and again for some reason toilet paper was a commodity everyone had to have. I remember going into Tescos and remarking that it was like a supermarket in Russia or something: no milk, no bread, no cheese, no eggs. Very little of anything, and what there was, really oddly, was NOT rationed. Tesco could easily have said "one or two per customer", but they didn't, perhaps not wishing to hurt their already fragile bottom line, and so ignorant and greedy people were able to snap up the bulk of everything. I remember seeing one woman pushing a trolley that was literally filled with nothing other than packets of rice. She must have had hundreds of them in there. She probably still has half of them today.

This belligerent  bulk and panic buying is one reason I was glad I was able to take advantage of the special shopping hours. Anything that did come in had just been put out on the shelves, and so I was able to get most of what I needed, things that would surely have long been sold out had I to wait for "normal" shopping hours. More than once I was stopped on the way in, told this was only for the old and disabled. I then told the guard I was a carer and was let pass. He never asked for any proof, which led me to believe that some of the very young people I would see from time to time there at what should have been specially set aside shopping hours for the vulnerable looked very young to be carers! But no identification was asked for, so there was no way to know. The irony being of course that, assuming they were not carers at fifteen or sixteen, some of those people may have been infecting others without knowing, or indeed caring about it.

Essential items for a world threatened by a pandemic soon sold out. Surgical gloves could not be got for love nor money, masks were out of stock, sanitiser for the hands was like gold dust. People tried making their own versions of the latter. Anywhere there happened to be old stock of anything in demand, the price suddenly sky-rocketed: it was a seller's market, and the pharmacies were not about to lose the opportunity to make a buck. Symptoms of the disease were also vague: a high fever, aches and pains, cough. Not much more was known, but suffice to say, and I'm sure you felt it too, every time you got a bad cough your heart sunk to your knees. I recall having a very bad, hacking cough just prior to this all blowing up, and wondering if it had anything to do with an infection, but it passed luckily.

In April the thing I feared happened. Karen got sick. Not with Covid, but her pain was so bad that hospital was unavoidable. At first they wouldn't even let me go in the ambulance with her, but when I explained that she couldn't speak or make herself understood without me, they made an exception. It was like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, arriving at the hospital and seeing all the people in suits and masks, tents set up outside for treatment of Covid patients. The hospital, like all others in Ireland and like every other establishment in the country other than those on the "essentials" list (shops, vets, doctors' surgeries etc) was on lockdown, and I was sent home once she was admitted. I spent four terrified days at home on my own, hoping against hope that she would be all right. In the end, luckily, she was, and she returned to our locked-down house little the worse for wear. That trip to the hospital was my first, and really only direct experience of the fear and chaos that had gripped Ireland, and of course the world in general.

The idea of being able to literally walk right across the road without waiting for traffic lights or check for traffic was invigorating in an odd way. I don't think I'd ever seen roads so completely empty before. It wouldn't be this way for our second lockdown, but for now everyone was staying off the road. Fear gripped the country, fear gripped the world, and fear can have a very powerful and paralysing effect.

Until, inevitably, it wears off.

And that's when the real trouble begins.

[Trollheart]

Around this time (early March) China, where the whole thing had kicked off, seemed to have reached critical mass and was now holding steady at around 80,000 cases. It was still the largest number of cases and deaths in the world (though it would soon be surpassed) but given that case numbers were hardly increasing at all, the government now began to turn worldwide quarantine policy on its head, and began screening any travellers into the country, in case foreigners were bringing new cases into China. Quite a turnaround, really, in less than five months. Meanwhile we began preparing for a full lockdown, with all bars and restaurants told to close permanently from midnight on March 15. Allah wasn't protecting his people either, as the Grand Ayatollah of Iran, Hashem Bathaie Golpayenagi, died from the virus. Ireland's cases topped 200.

People continued to ignore or resist health advice, putting personal and religious freedoms ahead of their safety and that of others. In Malaysia, a religious festival where thousands gathered saw a spike of over 125 cases, bringing the country's total to over 500. Celebrities began to be hit: Tom Hanks, Idris Elba and Rita Wilson were all confirmed as positive for Coronavirus. While Spain, Italy and Ireland shut down - a mandated lockdown; no suggestions or advice, just do it - the UK took a more nuanced, some might say cowardly approach that might absolve them of the blame which would later be attached to countries who had forced their citizens to stay indoors and out of work for their own safety.

Johnson told his people they "should" stay at home, wash their hands, work from home if possible, and avoid pubs, restaurants and night clubs, while still allowing those facilities to remain open. Schools were not closed, and nobody was forced to stay at home, leading to a great percentage of the British public either shrugging and going in to work anyway, or being told by their bosses there was no support for them working from home and they had better haul their backsides into work or be fired. Once again, leadership was weak and most people were thinking in terms of their pocket and not their health, especially employers, who seemed to look upon the whole "stay-at-home" thing as unnecessary and over the top.

Further confusing things, the British government closed all theatres and cinemas, and advised anyone who had a cough or a high temperature to stay at home - isolation, another word we would become horribly intimate with - away from everyone. If this happened in a setting of more than two people, then everyone had to isolate. The virus had now been generally confirmed to be attacking two types of people: the old and those with what were termed "underlying medical conditions", which as you can imagine scared the shit out of me, with Karen having MS. Initial reports of the deaths in Ireland confirmed this; almost every time we read of one it was someone in their eighties or nineties, and/or who had an existing condition. That's how it was,  until suddenly it wasn't.

New issues began to come to the fore, particularly for Britain, later for Ireland and the USA. The first was the scarcity of ICU beds. Intensive Care Units had traditionally only been needed for the very sick, or for those recovering from a major operation. It's in the name: when you're there you get intensive care - round-the-clock surveillance, meds as you need them, constant observation and the best the hospital can offer. Coma patients might be in ICU, car crash victims, those suffering from cancer. Generally speaking, they tended not to be used as much as "normal" wards, with most people admitted into hospital there for a short time or maybe a long stay, but nothing that would require that sort of care, at least not constantly. Covid changed all that.

Because it attacks the respiratory system, the lungs, those contracting it find it hard to breathe. Therefore they must be provided oxygen through what are known as ventilators, and this cannot stop while the person is sick. There's no such thing as moving a critically-ill person with Covid to another ward and out of ICU. They would die, and in fact, sadly, so many people would die in ICU wards across the world that they would begin to resemble battlezones, as if these were soldiers fighting in some horrible war they could not win, and kept dying. But more of that later. Right now, I just want to use this as a way to illustrate - if it needs to be - how desperate hospitals were for ICU beds.

And ventilators.

Not a terrible amount of point having an ICU ward without ventilators, and supply of these was running out as demand rose exponentially and to a level never before expected, or provided for. This would soon become a crisis, as companies in other industries would be asked to turn their manufacturing efforts towards making more ventilators as the world cried out for oxygen. And then there was the other side of the ICU equation. What about the people who needed intensive care, but who did not have Covid? What about the heart attack patients, the cancer patients, those with other respiratory conditions? How would they be looked after if their beds, as it were, were occupied by people suffering from Covid?

Interestingly, Boris Johnson had just been handed a memo from Oxford Imperial College, bemoaning the response of his government to the pandemic so far, and warning that if things did not change, if proper action was not taken, up to half a million people could be expected to die from the disease.

Finally, months after allowing people to travel from country to country spreading the virus, a worldwide travel ban was put in place. Sport suffered another setback as the Euro 2020 Football Tournament, which involves, or can involve, most of Europe, was postponed, not cancelled, but would not take place until the following year. Even in lockdown, Ireland's cases kept multiplying, giving us by the middle of March a total of nearly 400, with, thankfully, only two deaths at this point. Italy, leading the field, was heading for the 40,000 mark with cases and now had almost as many deaths from Covid as had perished in the 9/11 attacks on America. Speaking of the Land of the Free, they were climbing towards 10,000 cases with 150 deaths. Trump continued to ignore the emergency. He played a lot of golf.

On March 18 schools closed in Scotland and Wales, but not in England. People began to worry about losing their jobs as businesses, shops and offices closed, nobody able to say for sure when they would be able to open again, nobody certain of getting their job back if and when they did. The stock markets began to crash, as the world hurtled towards an economic depression, just to add fuel to the already-blazing fire. On March 19, though following the example of Scotland and Wales - albeit later - in closing schools, Johnson confidently declared that "London will never be locked down." I think a lot of people in the UK now realised this man is an idiot, a dangerous one, and that they couldn't trust a thing he said. Still, he was in power and there was no way around that, so they had to bite the bullet and do as they were told.

Around this point President Trump started talking about the benefits of Hydroxychloroquine, which seems to be some sort of drug used to treat malaria. He also considered the possibility of people drinking bleach to "clean out the virus". However we won't be going into his possibly insane response to the pandemic here, as we will be going country-by-country in later chapters and you can bet that America will take up a few! For now, it seemed Italy had risen to the top of the dungheap and been awarded the first prize gold medal nobody wanted: deaths in Italy now outstripped even those of China, though for now it had only half the amount of cases, around 40,000. Despite being ostensibly on lockdown since early in the month, it was revealed that a visiting doctor from China saw people walking around, going into shops, eating in restaurants in Milan, and could not believe it. One reason for the high volume of cases in Italy was advanced as their population being so old, with the second-oldest population in the world. As the majority of people succumbing to the virus were over 70, that certainly made sense. The other point might have been to have actually observed the fucking lockdown, guys!

Speaking of which, Johnson finally grasped the nettle and ordered businesses to close. No suggestions, no advice, no requests, it's a Nike thing. Just do it. He still seemed to think that Britain could beat the virus in three months. I get the feeling (though at the time I wasn't following British response to the pandemic, having enough to do to keep monitoring our own) that he thought this was his chance to be Churchillian, to treat the threat of the pandemic as a kind of twenty-first century blitz and rally the people behind him against the menace. The problem there is that the virus is not a sentient thing, not a country, not a state, not a dictator, not even an idea. It didn't care what mentality the British had, because it was and is incapable of caring. It has no free will, or will of any kind. It's a bunch of cells that destroys other cells and replicates itself, and that's all it does. It doesn't stop to consider how good or bad you are, whether you've followed the advice or willfully ignored it. It doesn't care. It never did. It never could. So Churchillian speeches and a "stiff upper lip" meant nothing to it.

At this point, it would be unfair and inaccurate to say Italy stood alone, but it was the top hot-spot for the virus, and its hospital systems were collapsing in on themselves. News reports from that country made it look as if there had been some natural disaster or a thousand bombs had gone off all over the city. It looked like a warzone. Terrified of the escalating crisis, the government tightened up restrictions, confining all people to their houses regardless. The most scary thing about this scene, as we watched it on Tv and listened, as it were, to the silence, saw the ghostly, empty streets haunted by only the spectre of the Coronavirus and with no living human to be seen, was that it was something which would, inevitably, and quite soon, be heading in our own direction. As Kent Brockman once said about "giant alien ants", one thing was sure: there was no stopping it. The virus would soon be here.

[Trollheart]

Chapter II: My Country, Wrong or Right -
Individual Nations Respond to the Pandemic

I've spent a good deal of time outlining what happened at the start of this pandemic, how it grew from a few infected Chinese in some town nobody heard of or cared about (let's be brutally honest) to an event of concern and finally to a worldwide panic as a danger we had never experienced in our lives (SARS? Hardly touched us. Foot and Mouth? We got through it. Bird Flu? Pah!) descended on our comfortable way of life and gleefully began ripping it apart like a pride of lions chasing gazelle across the Serengeti, or something. This was something completely new to us, which might to some extent explain why we were all so slow to react to it. I personally feel - as I felt at the time - that we were all kind of in denial. Nobody wanted to believe this was going to be as bad as it got, and so nobody did. We all adopted the equivalent position of someone sitting on the floor, hands over their ears screaming no no no!

But we couldn't stop it, and our denials were useless. It was coming, and we had no choice but to try to prepare ourselves as best we could to weather the storm.

In this next chapter I'm going to look at how individual countries reacted to the news. How they prepared, how they informed, or didn't, their citizenry, what help if any they offered and how many countries basically self-isolated while others tried to assist their neighbours. The pandemic has, as I said earlier, brought both the best and the worst out of humanity, and here I'll be looking at how that attitude was distributed across the countries of the world. As we're pretty much only talking about the outbreak here, I won't be cataloguing each country's total response to the pandemic, but just the first few months, usually comprising their first lockdown (if they had any), and generally up to a half-arbitrary date of June 2020.

In the case of the USA I'll be doing it by state, as some states never did anything about the virus, while others locked down. Some, such as Texas and Florida, actually made the situation worse by legislating against mask and vaccine mandates, and encouraging their people to resist the efforts by the CDC and the government to protect them. We'll be looking at those, probably in alphabetical order, or we may do it by blue/red states, or even just do the ones first that had lockdowns. Haven't quite decided that yet.

I won't of course be doing every country, but will be concentrating, inasmuch as I can, on those that had the biggest cases, those which entered lockdown first, those which had the most deaths and of course those who ignored, or tried to ignore it. This won't be done alphabetically, but I think I will try to do it chronologically, as cases grew and deaths began to be reported. That being said, I am going to start with the three countries - or at least, with respect to smaller nations, the three significant countries - who decided to implement lockdowns first.

[Trollheart]

Before I start, a few notes, which pertain to asterisks shown in the data sheets to follow:

* Refers to the first lockdown, if there were subsequent ones

** At time of writing here refers literally to when I wrote this, not when I posted it. Sadly, as cases continue to mount, even with vaccines, this figure may already have increased by the time I post this, never mind by the time you get around to reading it. The same caveat applies to vaccine uptake and current status.

*** Each country is scored, by me, on a scale of 1 to 100. 1 is a country whose people and/or government not only did not listen to the advice but went against it and which is now in a worse state because of it (and probably has the highest cases/deaths and lowest vaccine uptake) while 100 is a shining example of how to get through this with as little deaths as possible.

++ refers only to the party in power when the pandemic hit, ie from 2020, if the government changed during that time.

+++ Reaction level is based on how the public, generally, reacted to the lockdown. Were they supportive, resistant? Did they abide by it? Did it spark protests and/or violence? The level goes from 1 to 10, with 10 being total agreement and compliance and 1 being total anarchy and revolt.

Current Status: This is on a sliding scale and indicated by a letter, with a country "back to normal", in as much as any can be after two years of this pandemic, going into three, with industry back up and running, schools open, travel re-established and the population all or mostly vaccinated being ranked as A, down to a country still battling the ravages of Covid, probably not still under lockdown (as I don't think anywhere is now) but definitely struggling to recover. Letter not yet decided, possibly D or E.

Score is out of 100, and takes into account both the amount of cases/deaths, what the initial response was from government, and how the country is now.

[Trollheart]

Country: Italy
Continent: Europe (Western)
Governing Party:++ Coalition of M5M and Lega
Political affiliation: Unitary (don't ask me: I've tried to figure it out - is this a left, right leaning or centrist, or other government? Dunno).
Main crisis leaders: Guiseppe Conte, Prime Minister
Status of country: Republic
Cases (at time of lockdown):* 9,172
Deaths (at time of lockdown) 463
Cases (at time of writing):** Over 18 million
Deaths (at time of writing): over 168,000
Date of first lockdown: March 9 2020
Duration: 70 days
Lockdown type: Full
Number of lockdowns (to date): Two
Result of lockdown(s): Initially pretty useless till they were finally enforced. By then, of course, that horse was already galloping across the fields and out of sight. Nobody took it seriously. Italy resembled a warzone. Eventually the government was forced to implement the strictest lockdown outside of China.
Reaction level: +++ 8
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 80 - 90 %
Current status (at time of writing): A
Score:*** 60

There's probably a case, unfortunately, to point to Italy as a prime example of the belief that lockdowns don't work. The first major country to instigate such measures, they still ended up racing to the top of the charts, so to speak, overtaking even China in the number of deaths in the country and easily taking second place with amount of cases until the USA caught up and overtook everyone. But the story of the road taken to the Italian lockdown might explain that in some part. It began in February, which you would think was pretty early, and it was; however the staggered approach may have been a problem. As everyone knows by now, and can remember, the main trouble spot in Italy was the area of Lombardy, in the northwest. Cases were spiking here and hospitals were coming under increasing pressure.

Like something out of a dystopian science fiction novel, the Italian government under Giuseppe Conte proclaimed Red Zones and Yellow Zones in the north of the country. Red Zones were under quarantine, and there were penalties for moving from them to the safer Yellow Zones, though there was no restriction within the actual Red Zones. This looks to me (and I haven't fully researched it) like all the government were doing was putting a bunch of people together who might have been, or  might going to be infected, and keeping them away from everyone else. Of course, that's the very idea of a quarantine, but while this would save anyone outside of, say, Lombardy or Veneto's Red Zones from being infected, it didn't do much to help those inside the zones who were, or would be. The Italian military were called in to patrol the Red Zones, and these people must have felt a little like they were being forced into or contained within a ghetto.

Within the Red Zones, schools were closed, public events cancelled and church services curtailed. For an intensely religious and Catholic country such as Italy, the very heart of the Catholic Church, that must have hurt. Train and bus services were halted, and even outside of the Red Zones, within these municipalities, sporting events were now called off too. The closing days of the Carnival of Venice were cancelled, and anyone exhibiting symptoms of Covid was told not to go to hospital but to phone a special emergency number. Famous tourists attractions such as the Milan Cathedral and St. Mark's Basilica in Venice closed. Italy was heading towards full lockdown.

The Ocean Viking, carrying migrants to the country, was quarantined for two weeks in Sicily, and people began panic buying, emptying the shelves at the local supermarkets. Tom Cruise's latest Mission: Impossible instalment fulfilled the promise of its own title, and was cancelled, having been filming in Venice. Those who could, worked from home. Schools and universities began to close, as did the courts. In the Red Zone, under medical advice, people no longer shook hands or kissed each other on the cheek, which for Italians was surely as hard as not being able to go to mass, but would become common practice as we learned how Covid spread through droplets and human skin contact. At the same time, a report by the DW.Com website said that very few people in the Red Zones wore or believed they needed to wear masks. This might partially have been due to the scarcity, and thus the higher price, of such items.

Despite being supposedly quarantined though, it seemed, according to the same report, that police officers who were meant to be enforcing the thing were letting just about anyone through, if they had "a good story". Clearly, at this early point in the unfolding story of the virus, few people were taking it seriously enough; almost everyone thought the government was being heavy-handed and bemoaned the closing of public events and the lack of football. With the churches all closed, funerals were a problem, as would become the case certainly throughout Europe if not the world; one resident noted with horror that a victim of the virus could not have their funeral and their coffin had to be carried directly to the cemetery.

The tourist industry took a big hit as some events were cancelled and ones previously booked were now unable to gain permission to go ahead. Fairs, exhibitions, expositions, all were cancelled or postponed. On March 4 all schools and universities in Italy were ordered to close, and all sporting events to take place behind closed doors (without spectators) until April 3. March 8 the measures in the Red Zones were dramatically tightened and the next day all of Italy went on complete lockdown. It was the first national lockdown in Europe.

The sad thing was that it kind of wouldn't matter: the damage had been done. At the time the lockdown was imposed Italy had a total of 9,172 cases and 463 deaths. The very day after the cases pushed through the 10,000 mark and deaths rose to over 600. By the end of the first week after lockdown cases figures had doubled to over 20,000 and deaths had more than tripled to over 2,000. Perhaps if the people in the Red Zones had taken things seriously enough and not wandered from zone to zone as if this was some annoying inconvenience instead of their lives they were risking, and the lives of others, case numbers might have been easier to control. I know, I know: Captain Hindsight. But when you read the accounts of Italians living in the quarantined zones now, over a year later, you just feel like shaking them and saying "wake the fuck up! Your country is about to become all but a national cemetery!"

There were riots in the prisons as conjugal visits were prohibited, and several prisoners in various jails died. Others took advantage of the confusion to escape, apparently. Realising that people who can't work because everything is closed down by their orders, the government introduced the world's first "pandemic payments" system, which they called the Curia. It consisted of  "funds to strengthen the Italian health care system and civil protection (€3.2 billion); measures to preserve jobs and support income of laid-off workers and self-employed (€10.3 billion); other measures to support businesses, including tax deferrals and postponement of utility bill payments in most affected municipalities (€6.4 billion); as well as measures to support credit supply (€5.1 billion)."

Many other countries would find they would have to follow suit. A grim development on March 19 saw the army come out on the streets, not to maintain order or enforce lockdown, but to get the bodies of the dead to the crematoria. There were just too many to be handled by normal means: by now Italy was the country with the most deaths from the virus in the world, surpassing even China with 3,405, and dealing with over 40,000 cases. The next day, exercise was strictly limited to one person alone rather than groups and only within a short distance of one's own home. Industry began to shut down across Italy, and heavy fines - and even threatened prison sentences (which sort of made little sense, as the prisons were in a hell of a state, but they probably meant after the lockdown) - were imposed on anyone breaking the lockdown regulations. This was deadly serious, and there would be no more tipping the wink to a guard and slipping out of your house to visit a mate, or go for a walk. The only thing walking the Italian streets now was Death. (Yes, yes, very poetic, Trollheart, give it a rest...)

On April 1 the lockdown was officially extended to April 13, with all ports and airports closed on April 8, and two days later Conte extended the lockdown into May, with a hopeful gradual restart set for May 4. By now the country's death toll had climbed almost to 20,000, with cases now reaching a record 150,000. Only the USA surpassed this, with over half a million cases and a comparable number of deaths to Italy. Worldwide, the coronavirus was responsible for close to 107,000 deaths with 2 million cases. Italy's medical community was being hit hard, with the death of 100 doctors announced. 

Schools were to stay closed until September, but industry could begin a slow comeback from May 18, with people allowed to move freely, but only within their own region. On June 3 the first lockdown officially ended. By now the country had suffered over 30,000 deaths and had in excess of 220,000 cases. A second lockdown would begin in October as the second wave of the virus hit.

[Trollheart]

Country: Spain
Continent: Europe
Governing Party:++ PSOE (Spanish Socialists' Workers Party)
Political affiliation: Democratic/Socialist
Main crisis leaders:++ Pedro Sánchez
Status of country: Kingdom
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 5,232
Deaths (at time of lockdown) + 1,000
Cases (at time of writing):** 12,890,002
Deaths (at time of writing): 108.259
Date of first lockdown: March 15 2020
Duration: 98 days
Lockdown type: Gradual, from "state of alarm" (March 13) to full lockdown (March 15) to gradual re-opening of services through de-escalation in certain areas and for certain services.
Number of lockdowns (to date): 2
Result of lockdown(s): First one lifted too soon, as once this was done the infection rate skyrocketed, making Spain the country in Europe with the highest total of cases.
Reaction level:+++ 6
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 79%
Current status (at time of writing): Back to normal, as it were
Score:*** 64

Spain was another country whose name would become synonymous with Covid, and find its tourist industry decimated by the sheer volume of cases it would deal with over the next two years. Initially slow to restrict travel from China, the government believed this to be "xenophobic and reactionary", possibly in part because the measure was called for by the opposition. Unlike Italy though, Spain's first case did not occur on the mainland but in the Canary Islands, when a German tourist was tested and came back positive for the virus on January 31. The second was also on an island, this time Palma de Mallorca, and this time a British tourist who had had contact with a French infected person. This was February 9, and three days later Barcelona cancelled its lucrative  Mobile World Congress. The following day Spain recorded its first death.

The spectre of the horror unfolding to the northeast in Italy came with a vengeance to Spain on February 24, when a doctor from Lombardy who had been on holiday in Tenerife tested positive. The hotel he had been staying at was placed under lockdown. This was the first real action Spain took in relation to lockdowns, although it was very local and specific. Over the next week, Italians in Spain began testing positive and the caseload went up. By the end of the month there were 58 cases in Spain, one of which was responsible for the first case in Ecuador, a woman returning from holiday in Spain bringing the virus to the South American country. On March 8, as the government dithered and the opposition fumed, a planned march for International Women's Day went ahead and a big football game was not called off. After this, Spain's figures doubled, with 1,231 cases and 32 deaths the very next day (not that much in one day I mean, just that the previous day cases had stood at 616 and deaths at 17, so basically, whether it was to do with the two events - which surely it must have been - there were another 615 cases and another 15 deaths announced).

Regional governors such as the Catalan began suspending events, but still there was no lockdown nor any travel restrictions. Schools shut down from March 12, but again this seems to have been an independent decision by the establishments, not an order received from the government. This came, more or less, the next day in the announcement of a "state of alarm" (basically a watered-down version of a state of emergency; I suppose to some extent you could call it a state of mild worry?) and then at last a national lockdown from March 15 was imposed. By now Spain was heading for the 10,000 mark in cases and had recorded over 300 deaths. Like Italy before it, Spain announced a support package for those who would be out of work due to the lockdown, theirs comprising 200 billion Euro. A moratorium was put on mortgage payments, signed into law by the King of Spain, Juan Carlos, and efforts begun to research to find a vaccine.

On March 22 the lockdown was extended into April, and, a grim reminder of how many deaths there were - over 1,000 now - one of the ice rinks in Madrid was converted into a temporary morgue. This was a sight we would see in other countries too, a harrowing visual representation of the threat the virus posed, and a reminder to those who dismissed Covid as "a small flu." As more and more medical staff were found to be positive and unable to work, and the hospitals and care homes began to creak at the seams, a horrible discovery was made. Old people left abandoned in retirement homes, left, presumably, to die while their so-called carers saved their own skins. Like I said, the pandemic showed us the best and the worst of humanity, and this was certainly a bitter example of the latter.

Spain's head of the Centre for Health Emergencies, Fernando Simon, tested positive on March 30. Simon was the face of the daily coronavirus briefings, so I imagine it would be as if Dr. Faucci had caught the virus. At this point there were over 64,000 cases in Spain, and over 4,000 deaths. The lockdown was again extended, this time to the end of April. Finally, from the beginning of April cases began to slow down, and the peak of the first wave seemed to have been reached. As case numbers dropped, Spain began partially re-opening, from April 13, with a phased de-escalation in four sections resulting in the country coming fully out of lockdown on midsummer's day, June 21. Case numbers had risen to over 220,000 and deaths to over 25,000. For a country whose government confidently predicted that there would only be a "handful" of cases - not deaths now, cases - this was a stunning shock and probably seen as hubris by the Spanish government. Mind you, as we'll see, and as we know, very few countries took this pandemic as seriously as they should, so we can't be too hard on Spain. They were only saying what every other government was saying.

As would be the case almost always after lockdown was eased, people went mad with their freedoms restored, and inevitably the case numbers, and deaths, began to climb again, leading in Spain's case to a reinstitution of lockdown from October.

[Trollheart]

Country: Denmark
Continent: Scandinavia, Northern Europe
Governing Party:++ Social Democrats
Political affiliation: Left I guess
Main crisis leaders:++ Mette Frederiksen (Prime Minister), Queen Margrethe II
Status of country: Kingdom
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 674
Deaths (at time of lockdown) 1
Cases (at time of writing):** 2,519,057
Deaths (at time of writing): 4,250
Date of first lockdown: March 12
Duration: 33 days
Number of lockdowns (to date): 2
Reaction level+++: 90
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 82%
Score:*** 95

When Covid first popped its ugly head into our world, and we began to learn about - and later to fear - it, the initial contacts were always from China, where the whole thing had kicked off. But as you read above in its entry, China was pretty soon superseded by Italy as the go-to place for infections, and so anyone coming from there was liable to carry the virus on its travels. Such was the case for Denmark, where the first two cases came, not only from Italy but from Lombardy, the very first major hot-spot in terms of the virus. Denmark might have been somewhat isolated, being up there in the far north and kind of removed from the rest of Europe, but once one of its citizens decided "You know what? I fancy a skiing holiday. Wonder where I'll go? Oh, Italy looks nice!" they were screwed. Dragged down into the morass with the rest of us, Denmark recorded its first case pretty early, at the end of February. A third case resulted from a conference held in Germany, and Denmark was well on its way.

Iran had also by now become quite the place to go if you yearned for Covid in your life, and so it came to pass that the country's tenth case in all (seven more from Italy had already been found) had been to the Islamic Republic, and as March got going the Danish authorities were not that bothered, only ensuring anyone infected (ten up to now, as I said) self-isolated at home. Of course it wouldn't stay that way, and twelve days into the new month the country would be on lockdown. Prior to that though, they must have thought there was hope, as their "Patient Zero" recovered fully. Meanwhile, Danish - and, by association, Dutch - sport began to be affected, as a player for one of the national teams was infected, leading to his teammates and those in the teams that had played them recently having to quarantine. Ajax (pronounced eye-yax) from Holland had been involved, so also had to isolate. As the country entered lockdown on March 12, whether she wished to evoke a "blitz mentality" or whether she really believed this to be the worst crisis her country had faced since then, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen invoked the words used by her predecessor at the onset of World War II, calling for samfundssind, or a sense of community spirit, to get the country through this difficult time.

Like most countries, the level and speed of escalation was frightening. From a "mere" 53 cases on March 9 the figure had jumped to a massive 674 in just three days as the country entered lockdown. On this same day, Thomas Kahlenberg, the footballer who had originally tested positive, recovered, but on the other side of the scales, Denmark registered what could have been its first death. I say could have, because the man in question did exhibit symptoms, and died of a heart attack, but the link between the two could not be proven. He might have had his heart attack and died anyway. He was eighty when he died, and had had a history of heart problems. Another man died in similar circumstances on March 14, almost the same age.

Denmark, like most of its neighbours, recognised the vulnerability of the elderly and those with pre-existing medical conditions to the virus, and so grandparents were asked to stay away from their grandchildren, and as we all had to do, they self isolated. Schools were closed (I'm sure, like here, the hurrahs soon faded as the kids realised they couldn't go outside to play) and the order to work from home where possible was instated. A sight soon to be familiar to us all, large and then smaller gatherings of people were banned, shops, restaurants and night clubs were closed, leaving only essential outlets such as groceries and pharmacies open, and sporting events were cancelled. On March 14 Denmark closed its borders, and only commercial vehicles delivering vital supplies were allowed on the roads, along with a few other specific exceptions, such as people returning home to Denmark, which any Dane abroad was advised/instructed to do without delay.

This seems odd to me. I suppose nobody wanted to trap or hold anyone in the country, but the government allowed any non-Dane to leave, and at this point their country had over 600 cases. True, there had not been many deaths, but still, you're talking about letting someone leave a country which has infections, potentially allowing them to spread the virus to wherever they lived, which might at that time have been a Covid-free zone. Just seems a little irresponsible to me, but then, many countries would of course put their own interests first as the pandemic grew and spread across the world, and everyone looked to their own safety. The idea, too, of Danes being allowed to come home? Did they check where they were coming from? Was it likely they were returning from Italy, Iran, Spain? China? Was anyone tested on re-entering the country?
I don't have those answers.

Look, we were all learning about this damned virus, and it's not fair to, nor will I, place the blame for poor information or guidance on one health authority in one country - the CDC kept changing tack, and so did the WHO, and these are two biggest health authorities on the planet, so what chance had Demark got? Nevertheless, they did get it wrong, they said on April 10, when they agreed with the general consensus around the world that asymptomatic cases (those not showing any symptoms at first) could also transmit the virus, where before they had said there was no danger from this. In effect, this led to workers continuing in jobs - particularly in nursing homes and medical facilities - who turned out to be positive but originally asymptomatic, with the resultant transmission of the virus to those they came in contact with.

And then, there was that touch of mink.

We all read about how mink on a farm in Jutland were found to be infected by a mutated form of the virus, and had already transmitted the new variant to humans, so the mink were culled. Rich women everyone must have gasped in shock, as no doubt did animal rights groups. A new lockdown was instigated for Jutland, beginning November 6, the national one having been lifted April 13. On Christmas Day Denmark would enter its second lockdown, which would last three months into the new year, however this year they became the first country, not only in Europe but in the world to suspend their vaccination programme, so they must now be doing all right.

[Trollheart]

Country: Ireland
Continent: None; island, but politically part of Europe
Governing Party:++ Coalition of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and various independents (hey, it's Ireland, y'know?)
Political affiliation: God knows! Left I guess. Maybe
Main crisis leaders:++ Leo Varadkar and then Michael Martin (Taoiseach) Simon Harris and then Stephen Donnelly (Minister for Health) Dr. Tony Holohan (CMO)
Status of country: Republic
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 97
Deaths (at time of lockdown) 1
Cases (at time of writing):** 1,615,426
Deaths (at time of writing): 7,573
Date of first lockdown: March 12
Duration: 67 days
Number of lockdowns (to date): 3
Reaction level+++: 60
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 81%
Score:*** 80

And so we come to my home country. No vanity involved, I do assure you: I'm trying, as I said, to process these chronologically, in the order they occurred, and based on the date of the first official lockdowns. I seem to have pre-empted Spain a little, by about two days, but let's not quarrel about that. To show (as if you care) that I'm not trying to push Ireland to the front, I concentrated on Denmark before this, as they had their first lockdown on the same day as Ireland. But now here we are, and while as usual I'll be referring to Wiki for details, data and confirmation of figures and dates, this I can write almost freehand, as I literally lived through it.

Like most people, I assume, I watched the stories of the spread of what was known at the time as the Coronavirus with little real worry (and, it has to be said, little sympathy either), never dreaming it would visit our shores. But of course it did, and Covid arrived in Ireland at the end of February. Our government at the time had already set up the NPHET - the National Public Health Emergency Team, an acronym we would all become exhaustingly familiar with over the next two years - to monitor the progress of the virus before it ever reached Ireland, or even Europe, so you might say we were well prepared, but of course we were not. Nobody knew what we were facing, and this wasn't because other countries wouldn't share their knowledge, it was just that everyone was in the same boat. We were learning as we went along, adjusting and adapting to a new virus, a whole new way of thinking and endeavouring to battle an opponent we had never even heard of before, never mind fought.


Like most countries in Europe, our point of contact for the first cases was Italy, with one case being detected over the border in Northern Ireland as a woman returned from Northern Italy, and then one in our own Republic, same thing, except this victim was male. This was February 27 and 29 respectively, taking us into March with one case in the Republic of Ireland. Of course, it wouldn't remain that way for long, and in fact we chalked up our first death eleven days into the new month. Like many, indeed most fatalities linked to Covid in the early days, this was an old person, who had died at a hospital. Lockdowns swiftly followed.

At the time, our taoiseach (pronounced tee-shock, and basically our Prime Minister, the head of the government, other than our President, itself largely a figurehead) at the time, Leo Varadkar, who would later become I think the only leader of the country to take a lower level job in the government - he's now the tanaiste (tawn-ish-ta, second-in-command) ordered first the closure of all schools, colleges and childcare facilities on March 12, followed by all pubs and bars the next day. By March 27 we were instructed to "remain at home" with strict limits on where we could go (no more than 2 km from our home, for exercise or vital shopping, doctor's appointments, that kind of thing), the order being shown on the TV: "Fan abhaile" (fon a-wall-ya) - Stay at home. This first lockdown would be our longest, and would instil the most fear into people, as we had never in our lifetimes experienced anything like this at all, and everyone was on edge.

As case numbers - and deaths - climbed steadily, and medical advice changed on almost a weekly basis, the hospitals began to creak at the seams. No country's hospital system had ever been designed to take this sort of pressure, and in addition to Covid patients it must also be remembered that people were getting sick and hurt for other reasons, as they always have done: car accidents, heart attacks, domestic accidents, trips and falls, shortness of breath - all the usual stuff emergency departments deal with on a daily basis, but now they had also to contend with hundreds or more of patients who needed urgent isolation and accommodation in the ICUs, and beds, never at a premium in Irish hospitals, were more scarce than ever. In addition, people feared coming to hospital, worried they would catch Covid, doctors and nurses feared they would bring it in (and maybe go back and transmit it around) and the government advised all sick people to stay away from hospitals altogether. If you thought you were coming down with the virus, they said, ring - do NOT visit! - your GP and do NOT attend the Emergency Room.

For my part, I was forced to do my shopping early in the morning. Having witnessed with shock the huge queues of people waiting to get into Tesco (and once in, finding almost everything out of stock anyway) I had to take advantage of the special shopping hours set up for the elderly, the vulnerable and carers, which meant being at the doors originally at 7am, later changed to 8. This period only ran up to 9am though, so you had to get in and out quickly, and back safely home. We had of course been advised to wear face masks and to socially distance, and to wash our hands thoroughly, which naturally I did. I've described elsewhere the eerie feeling of quiet on the deserted roads, the fear of going out, even for a short while, and the way the lockdowns, especially the first one, impacted on us, so I won't go into that again. Suffice to say that, like everyone, we were scared and nobody had any idea where this was going or how it was going to end.

One of our most important events, and one of the biggest tourist attractions Ireland can offer, the Saint Patrick's Day Parade, was cancelled amid fears it would become what was later termed as a "super-spreader" event, and we would be responsible not only for increasing the number of cases - and probably deaths too - in Ireland, but also for others taking the virus back to their own countries and propagating it there. So, amid general disappointment but, it must be said, agreement and understanding, the event was cancelled. Sporting events soon followed, as well as the likes of the Rose of Tralee Festival and the All-Ireland Championships, and school examinations such as the Leaving Certificate were postponed.

But in a country so famed for its welcome, and so religious, two other aspects of Covid hit harder than most. The first was the idea that nobody should or could shake hands or hug any more, as this was known to be a way to pass on, or contract, the virus. Even for me, it became hard not to give in to second nature and extend the hand or reach for the shoulders of loved ones. Irish people have always been a very "touchy-feely" people, if you like, and we love contact, so to suddenly have to cut that off was very hard. But necessary. I'm not entirely certain many in Ireland adopted the rather silly "elbow bump" that places like the UK did; we just kind of touched without touching. Saying goodnight, I would make the motion of kissing Karen's forehead but not touch it, and so on.

More to the point for Ireland was the closure of churches. Nobody needs to be told how strong and vital a part religion plays in Ireland - the whole Troubles period was based, after all, on differences between Protestant and Catholic, and we here in the Republic have always been a Catholic country, well over a thousand years back, if not more, maybe nearly two. So when churches were closed people were worried and concerned. The clergy, to their credit, saw the sense of it, unlike, as we will see later, certain religious figures across the Atlantic, and did what they could to help their parishioners, holding "virtual masses", transmitting over radio, absolving Catholics from their need or duty (perceived I imagine, as nobody is required) to attend mass and doing all they could to minister to the needs of the soul without being physically present.

Of course, this raised another issue. Most priests in Ireland are quite old, which immediately placed them in the "vulnerable" bracket, and even if they weren't, most of their parishioners were, so you had the sort of "double whammy" of an old priest not being able to attend an old parishioner, lest one (or both) give the other the virus. For old people this of course made things even worse. One thing Irish people - older ones certainly - could always rely on was a visit from the local priest, some of them even receiving Holy Communion at their home, as did my aunt, when she was too old and infirm to make it to the church. That stopped, of course, as such visits were no longer safe, nor permitted. I remember phoning our priest when Karen was depressed and wanted to talk to him, and he sheepishly apologising; he was "cocooning" himself and could not attend. Cocooning was the phrase used to refer to older or more vulnerable people self-isolating, not because they had the virus, but in case they got it. A sort of protective custody by themselves.

Funerals were another thing. As the dead piled up, it became impossible to allow people to attend funerals, at least in the kind of numbers you would normally expect. With social distancing important, and the virus basically airborne and carried by droplets (and how many of them in a tear, and where do people cry the most?) the idea of a large crowd of people mourning the deceased - and, like as not, crowding into a pub or house afterwards - could not be condoned, and so sadly many of the dead went to their rest attended only by a priest and a few select family members. Sad times. Certain groups - travellers, mostly (knackers/pikies/gypsies/whatever you're having yourself) openly flouted the restrictions, having their usual huge gatherings, to the extent that the Gardai (police) had to break some up, and even stop a planned wedding going ahead in County Wexford. Travellers have always considered themselves apart from the law, living on the fringes of society, so I suppose they either thought the law didn't apply to them or wanted to give the finger to the authorities, but both funerals surely acted as super-spreaders, as would the wedding, had it gone ahead.

Hospitals basically closed their doors to visitors. Even those who were sick and possibly dying could not be visited, as the hospitals had by now been forced to implement a strict and zero-tolerance "no visitors" policy, as again related by me elsewhere in respect of Karen's visit. This obviously put additional pressure on hospital staff, as they tried to comfort dying patients and also fielded angry calls from their loved ones. A lot of medical staff naturally got infected and the staffing levels went down as nurses, doctors and other staff had to self-isolate, leaving their colleagues trying to make up the shortfall. Meanwhile the ICUs were still filling up, and like most other countries we were running low on respirators and beds. PPE gear was also in short supply, and until the vaccine arrived it must have been a daily source of fear to have to go into work and face all those sick people. You have to just stand in awe of people who did this, day in, day out, with little to no concern for their own health.

Ireland may not have been alone in this, but it's the only country I know of so far which instigated a five-level status in the time of Covid, with level 1 being basically all is well and level 5 meaning a full lockdown. Over the course of the pandemic this was applied separately and at different levels to different counties, as case numbers spiked there. In particular, Offaly, Laois and Kildare would all find themselves at a higher level than the rest of the country until their case numbers slowed. At best, I suppose this could be compared to the way certain states in the USA were under lockdown while others threw caution to the wind. Not really though. I think they did something similar in the UK, which we'll check out in due course.

Oh, and don't we Irish just love a good pilgrimage! When you're getting too pleased with yourself, or you just need a good soul scourging, a barefoot walk over hard rock up Croagh Patrick was just the thing to bring you back down to earth (not, hopefully, literally!) and knock some of that heathen pride out of ya! But not this year, me auld segoshas! This year the event was cancelled; I mean, it made sense. Who wants to suddenly start feeling peaky (sorry) up the side of a bloody mountain in their bare feet, and from where would the rescue come, with the damn country on lockdown too? Hey, maybe God would understand and forgive you just this once, yeah?


But even more than ripping our soles (for the benefit of our souls) to shreds on stabby rocks in the cold morning air, we Irish love our pint, and if anything was going to push us to riot it was the closure of our beloved pubs. It didn't. Irish people seldom riot. Though to be fair, that's usually because we're in the pubs, and this was one time we couldn't be. In the pubs, that is. But if there was one complaint I heard more during the lockdown and rolled my eyes at, it was when were the fucking pubs going to be open again? To be fair, it was hard on the publicans, who lost money hand over fist, so much so that some never reopened, and the government did not help, dangling the hope of reopening and then changing their mind (not their fault; they were being guided by the NPHET), engendering frustration, anger and despair in the hearts of the hard-pressed vintners. Restaurants were the same; closed with no way to pay staff and no idea when they'd be opening again, times were hard.

Times were indeed hard, and to their credit the government instigated the hilariously-named PUP, the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, to be paid to anyone who was out of work due to Covid restrictions. Naturally, there were some who took advantage of this, claiming the payment while working, or having been on the dole, and so on, but overall the instances were not that high. There was also a corresponding payment to employers, to help get them over the hump and also to encourage them to have as many as possible of their staff working from home. When pubs were eventually allowed to reopen it was under strict guidelines, not all of which were adhered to by every establishment, and the Gardai did close down many, the owners of which were fined. Social distancing at houses, though mandated/advised, proved impossible to enforce, as Gardai had not the power (nor, I think, did they want it) to enter homes to confirm such guidelines were being followed, with the result that many house parties took place which featured no form of restriction at all. I imagine many new cases, and, sadly but inevitably, deaths arose from this irresponsible behaviour.

Ireland would go through two more lockdowns, both of which would be largely ignored, with the vaccine available, the rollout of which would be praised as the best in the world, which is certainly something. Like other countries, there was some hesitancy and some outright opposition to vaccines, and some right wing groups even organised demonstrations against the government and, um, Covid. There was sporadic violence, but nothing like rioting, looting or clashes with the police. Even so, thankfully those days are now long behind us. Nevertheless, Ireland is perhaps an example or cautionary tale of getting too complacent; as we basically shrugged at Covid, and largely still do, case numbers are growing again, though with the vaccines the amount of deaths had seriously dropped, one reason I suppose why most people don't take the virus too seriously now, and consider it something that happened, back then.

It was done with, in the past.
But of course it isn't.

[Trollheart]

Country: Netherlands
Continent: Europe (Western)
Governing Party:++ People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD)
Political affiliation: Left
Main crisis leaders:++ Jaap Van Dissel (Outbreak Management Team), Mark Butte (Prime Minister)
Status of country: Kingdom
Cases (at time of lockdown:* 1,135 (or possibly as high as 6,000)
Deaths (at time of lockdown) 1
Cases (at time of writing):** 8,264,406
Deaths (at time of writing): 22,496
Date of first lockdown: March 15
Duration: 22 days
Number of lockdowns (to date): 3
Reaction level+++: 50
Vaccine uptake (at time of writing): 69%
Score:*** 40

You would think a relatively forward-looking, progressive country as the Netherlands would have had an equally progressive reaction to the virus and lockdowns, wouldn't you? Yeah. Read on. Also one of the countries which protested the most violently against measures (eventually) put in place to try to save their lives, the Netherlands turned out to be something of a flash point for the exercise of what can really only be called anti-Covid demonstrations. As if you can protest against a virus, now honestly! Reminds me of those idiotic Texans or Floridans (can't recall which) shooting at a hurricane!

Two major blunders characterise Netherlands' initial response to the virus. The first was that Schiphol Airport, one of the busiest in Europe, took no special precautions, citing the lack of direct flights from there to Wuhan, but somehow forgetting about connecting flights, and the second was the contention of their version of the CDC, RIVM, that the virus was "not highly contagious" and therefore posed little risk. Where they came to this conclusion is beyond me, but it certainly set the scene for the kind of deaths the Netherlands would see, probably the most since World War II. In this atmosphere of unconcern, people were allowed to head to Italy at the end of February for skiing holidays, so I expect I'll find as I read on that many of the cases originated from there.

Four days later, February 26, the government, probably in the light of Italy's Own escalating problems with the virus, thought better of it and advised against - but did not prevent - people going to the affected areas of Italy. The next day the Netherlands had its first case, and yes, as expected, it was a present from Italy. Numbers quickly rose, standing at 82 by March 5, more than double the previous day. The next day the Netherlands registered its first death, and cases were soon quadrupled. On March 13 flights began to be suspended to countries already on other no-fly lists, the likes of China, Iran, South Korea and, oh yeah, Italy. Although the statistics show that the Netherlands began their first lockdown two days later, I read that the Prime Minister was not doing this, and was instead trusting in herd immunity. Universities were closed but schools remained open (wait, what?) while cafes and restaurants, night clubs and, um, sex clubs had to close. Schools were eventually included, as well as childcare centres.

Hold on here, let's back up a little. The no-fly order still allowed aircraft coming from the virus hot-spots to land if they had taken off before 18:00, when the announcement was made? How was that supposed to work? Anyone who had left Italy, Iran etc before 6pm was magically not infected, but anyone after that was? How ludicrous! About as crazy as waiting for enough people to get sick and die that immunity would be achieved. By the end of the month the country's caseload had climbed to 10,000, one month after that the figure had tripled and the death total was at just over 3,500. The first of many demonstrations took place in June, though this one was not against Covid restrictions or vaccines, but was in support of those decrying the senseless death of American George Floyd. Nonetheless, over 5,000 people gathered with little consideration given to social distancing, a possible super-spreader event.

It would not be the last.

As I intimated in the introduction, the Netherlands was one of the countries in Europe where the harshest backlash erupted against the restrictions imposed by the government in an attempt to control the spread of Covid-19. The main bone of contention seemed to be the imposition of a curfew, from mid-January, prohibiting the presence of the public on the streets after 9pm. Violent protests broke out against this on January 21 in Eindhoven and Amsterdam, and a Covid-19 testing site was even set on fire. You have to wonder about the mentality of these people: how dare you try to ensure we're safe? Take that! Burn, you bastard! The demonstrations - which quickly descended into rioting and looting - were helped along by right-wing and anti-lockdown groups and conspiracy theorists, with the aid of our good friend social media, and then of course the police responded, and all hell broke loose. Property was damaged, people injured, arrests made, special January sales deals were worked out without the troubling detail of money changing hands.

And the riots continued for the next several days, spilling over into other cities and districts as the whole anti-lockdown/anti-curfew/anti-everything movement grew and spread like the very virus its opponents were trying to protect them from. It should in fairness though be pointed out that not everyone took part in or supported these actions; in certain towns, groups of individuals, like in one, a sports team, came out to defend their city or towns and turn back the rioters, most of whom did not even come from there.