New Year, Same Old, 30 & 31. Grey Day.

It's another dreary wet Sunday. Yesterday, at least we could see the sun between showers. But today, another front is going by, after Justine yesterday left monster waves along the north coast, and the dark mist has converged upon us, leaving us even more isolated.

Too many times, the weather colors the mood, and today isn't much of an exception. Today marks a year since the very first case of Covid was detected in Spain, and the contagion in our township has gone up again, to 50 infected. Portugal has closed its border with Spain. The admittance to ICU's in all of Spain has gone up exponentially, as has other hospital admittance for Covid. The vaccination has slowed down, and numerous stories of people who know people getting shots ahead of time, abound. Pandemic fatigue is beginning to show, with people either going paranoid about getting sick, or giving up, or denying a pandemic even exists. 

Regional politicians play petty games, too, at the cost of the population. Catalunya is having regional elections next month, despite trying to postpone them till spring because of this new outbreak. But, a court ruled they could not postpone the election, so it must go ahead in February (Yet, last year, elections in Galicia and Euskadi were postponed till the summer, because of the pandemic.). The regional president of Madrid called out the Catalans, shaming them on managing the pandemic by closing down businesses and shutting up people. In the meantime, infection in Madrid is not going well, either, with all their laxness. 

With beautiful 20/20 hindsight, professionals and politicians are now blaming the "save Christmas" relaxation of rules that have fueled this virulent third wave. Of course, give a finger, and have an arm taken. If the rules allowed for ten adults of two different households to get together, who was going to police the neighborhoods from door to door? So, twenty adults of four different households most likely shared the holidays, and now we have the lamentations. 

Children in Galicia are also getting sick, and more and more classes are being closed, students put in quarantine. In a way, I'm glad I don't have a declared academy. My classes are private, undeclared, and in a small study in my home. Technically, any patrol car could stop by if it saw an inordinate amount of cars parked in front of my house, and fine each student and myself, even though my biggest class consists of only four kids. So, I will try to give classes online. It is safer, both in health and financial terms, even though very bothersome, and likely to be interrupted by connectivity problems. Before this recent lockdown, I already had a student who was quarantined at home because she had come in contact with an infected classmate.

What strikes me about the vaccine fiasco is not so much the push and pull between the European Union and Britain; if anything, something like that was only to be expected. Rather, it's how some countries vaccinate first those most at risk, like Spain, while others vaccinate those within the government. I understand that a working government is crucial for all states, especially in times like these, but most of those ministers, presidents, mayors, congress people, tend to be younger and not in any risk group. That an older person, like Joe Biden, be vaccinated is completely to be expected because of his age and the probability of having underlying pathologies. But Kamala Harris is only slightly older than me. 

Then there are those who get the vaccine without being first in line because of the argument, "If I didn't get it, the dose would have to be thrown out." Apparently, the mayor of the town of Boimorto, here in Galicia, was called by the regional health department, the Sergas, to go get the shot because there was one left over. Other mayors, of different political stripes, have also gotten the shot elsewhere in Spain, sometimes accompanied by their spouses or entire families. If the dose was going to have to be thrown out, weren't there any other at-risk people who might have gotten it slightly ahead of time? As always, the close-knit groups of I-know-someone-who-knows-someone-who-can-get-me-a-deal, always end up getting ahead of others in line. 

Life continues. Hopefully, tomorrow I'll get out of bed with my right foot, instead of my left.