The Dystopian Times, 16. The Wanderlust Bug.

I am getting an invasion of wanderlust. I want to set out upon the road with my car and drive out to new horizons. 

I suppose it's mostly because September is around the corner. It's my vacation month, and for years, I've always gone for a daytrip anywhere from two to three and a bit hour's drive from here. Last year, my husband and I went to Cantabria for a wonderful five days. This year, I get the feeling I'm going to spend most of September in my house.

That doesn't mean I won't take my car and set out for a drive. I will, but not with the intention of parking the car and wandering around strange streets. I might make a trip to nearby Pontevedra, or even Vigo, but they would be self-conscious trips, as I would try to stay as far away from other people as possible. I wouldn't be concentrating as much on where my steps are taking me, but on trying to sidestep people who might get too close.

That takes most of the fun out of any trip. It would also depend on whether certain localities are put under lockdown because of sky-rocketing infection rates. That seems to be the tonic in the coming months. Rather than impose a nation-wide state of alarm and lockdown, the lockdowns will probably come about by townships, or even neighborhoods, as they've been doing in some places. The economic cost of a national lockdown was too high, and no one wants to go back to that and create even more economic hardship.

It will take a few years to recuperate from the closed businesses, lost custom, and disappeared jobs. It depends partially on how the pandemic stretches out, and if a reliable vaccine or treatment appears soon. There do seem to be some promising vaccines that are beginning to be tested in humans, but no one can say with certainty that they will be mass produced and distributed within a set period of time. Apart from that, there is the case of the first re-infected person. But is he really the first? PCR tests were not widely done at the beginning of the pandemic, so more people may have had the virus than we realize. And we don't know if some of those are getting re-infected now, because we're also not doing blood tests to find out if a person has created antibodies. 

Probably we'll start to return back to normal when we reach herd immunity. But that means that some people will still get the virus and may yet die. Or get it lightly one year, get a stronger infection another year, and be put through the health wringer. Most likely, normality as we knew it is over, and we will always have to be on the lookout against getting sick. Not fun.

I just know that I want to wander free, but, for my sake and that of those around me, I shouldn't. So, I'll just spend a rather house-bound September.

Life continues.