Hard to Believe!, Issue 50

I started writing these newsletters on March 13, 2020. Prudence dictated that we fly back to Canada from the UK before COVID-19 closed borders. At that time, I was concerned that we would have to live through a three to six month shut down. Well, here we are fourteen months later and we are still not back to normal! But there is hope. Vaccines seem to be having the desired effect. If all goes well, over 75% of Québecois will be fully vaccinated by the end of summer and life will return to almost normal in September 2021.  

So, what is so hard to believe? 

• It will take eighteen months for the world to regain some level of normalcy. What happened to my guesstimate of  three to six months?
• That the true Coronavirus death toll is over ten million people, according to Economist estimates. 

• That governments, rich and poor, had prepared poorly for the possibility of a pandemic. I find it even harder to believe that some jurisdictions were so poorly prepared for the third wave and unwilling to take unpopular but necessary action.   Doug Ford and Jason Kenney get the Canadian rotten Tomato awards for performance during the third wave. 
• The promotion by some of COVID-19 as a hoax used by “big” governments to curtail personal freedoms and the anti-vaxers. But then again, there is a flat-earth society . 
• The speed that the scientific community developed new vaccines 
• That on May 19, Canada caught up to the United States in the percentage of people to have received at least one dose of vaccine. The Canadian uptake curves indicate that it may even edge ahead of Israel by the end of summer. And yet, there were naysayers that believed Canada wouldn’t start a meaningful vaccine program until 2022. 

• The billions of dollars, Euros, pounds sterling that world governments  have spent on Coronavirus relief. G20 – Covid 19 stimulus packages as a percentage of GDP that are greater than Canada’s 18.55%:
  • Japan – 56.09%
  • Germany – 39.3%
  • Italy – 37.69%
  • United States – 26.46%
  • France – 23.82%
  • Australia – 19.05%

But there is hope:

I also find it hard to believe that I:

• Have a restaurant reservation on a terrasse for May 28th
• Am getting ready to plan to travel again. I have unfinished business in London and Italy is calling. 
• Finally found a hobby. I like to write. Issues like this one are easy enough to put together. Many readers will recognize this is me, just rambling. Other newsletters require research. I have to find data; and, opinion that doesn’t align with mine. 
• Have taken on a family reunification project. Now, that sounds dramatic but it isn’t. My father had one brother that had children but they grew up across the pond and on the other side of the world. I find that as I get older, I want to know them better. 
• Found the energy and perseverance to write 50 newsletters, a number of other articles, and launch a website. 
• And, I am now contemplating stringing various newsletters into book form

I find it all hard to believe.