Io Sapsai 🌱

Rather not say but across the border south, about 4-5 hours from Bucharest.

It was fun having to go to work yesterday morning. Nothing was cleared up, no way for cars to get to my house so I had to make a trek by foot. This morning was worse because some of the snow had melted during the day yesterday and it refroze. Everything is slippery now.

One thing outside observers need to know is how incompetent the municipality services are. They knew in advance that this storm was coming. There were warnings all week. It came a day late here so they had extra time. The municipality website showed no information, just some cultural events and an article from two days ago that “the municipality is ready for the winter”. At this point we have a saying for poor organisation during winter time when everyone knows it’s coming in advance:

“The winter surprised us again!”

While it really does feel like it, as a person working in healthcare, I do see some change after the whole shitstorm from recent years.

• There are people who actually wear a mask, few, but they are around.
• A lot more people seem to be conscious of spreading their illness to other people be it a cold or COVID.
• People definitely wash their hands more often. I know we do.
• Some people started getting their annual shots when they didn’t intend to before.
• Local businesses open their windows and doors a lot more than they used to.

But also I also see some negative tendencies:

• Interest in flu shots has waned. That might have something to do with the govt introducing a free flu shot programme from your GP if you’re above 65 or with specific conditions (which is a great thing) But I definitely see a lot more vaxx-scepticism and fear of combining both shots (infant vaccination plans are a lot more intense and the vast majority are fine).
• People politicising a disease.
• This is country specific but food supplement companies aggressively promoting “immune system stimulants” to the point where in the beginning of The Plague™ they somehow managed to include them in hospital treatment plans.

This came out longer than intended but there were some things that I needed to get out of my system.