Face mask
Well, by now I guess we’ve all gotten used to face masks. But it sure was a weird feeling, wearing a mask in public for the first time. The first time I left my house after lockdown, to do some business in town, the place was almost like a ghost town. I felt a bit like in the beginning of 28 Days Later!
Now, here where I live, the mandatory mask requirements are going to be lifted soon. Good riddance and good bye, fogged up glasses!
But still, if there is one thing I sincerely hope we can learn from the folks in Japan, Korea, etc. then it’s to wear a mask in public places on certain occasions, especially in public transport. Not all the time and on a voluntary basis, but just as a form of courtesy to your fellow humans when you’re feeling sick and/or have the sniffles or a cough.
Washing your hands, coughing and sneezing in your armpit should also be habits we should strive to keep.
Anyway, I’m not an epidemiologist, but my armchair assessment is that just these simple habits would get us halfway there in terms of minimizing the effects of this and future pandemics. Maybe the flu season 2017/18 would not have been as bad if we all had followed those simple rules.
We’ll see. I’m sure things will stay interesting for the coming months and maybe years.
Stef
I’m a private pilot and I haven’t flown since the beginning of the lockdown, and I’m still a bit scared.
Small airplanes are a lot narrower than cars, and even though I’m technically still current to fly alone, our club introduced a new policy after a few hard landings (with landing gear damage), that after 2 months of not flying we have to do two landings with an instructor. Quite sensible, but now this has to be done wearing masks, disinfecting every surface anyone may have touched before and after the flight, doing everything alone whenever possible, etc.
Maybe some day.
There have been a few holidays/weekends recently with superb flying weather and all I could do was stare skywards longingly when a plane flew over.
Limitations are stepwise relaxing here, I went for my first flight since long last Sunday. Decided to be the best pupil in class, I wore for the first time a mask – only to find I was the only one to do so, on a field buzzing with pilots plus construction workers. Three days after, I feel no sypmtoms, fingers crossed…