Covid-19 update

It is now mid July 2022 and we have only 5 weeks to go in our trip 😢. We have managed to avoid infection so far, and have maintained our strategy since my post in March, but also made the following changes: (We know it will not be possible to completely maintain this level of caution when we return home, but we have a lot of fun planned for the next few weeks and don’t want to get sick and miss anything.)

1. We came back to Europe, where cases are high and restrictions are minimal rather than stay in Asia where cases are lower and public spaces are safer. This has been anxiety provoking at times, but we wanted to try cycle touring (1771 km & counting!) and end our trip in England, so we took the chance.
2. We were able to get our two kids under 12 their second dose of Pfizer in April ~ 9 weeks after their first dose in Bangkok (free of charge again). Thank you Germany! 🇩🇪💉
3. We are using public transit on occasion. When possible, we choose busses or trams with open windows over subways. We travel at off-peak times on longer train rides (as we have bikes with us).
4. If we are in a crowded indoor space, we may choose to wear glasses/goggles and breath steadily rather than chit chatting (respirator masked too).
5. We are taking more risks to do the activities we want to do. We may have been the only ones masked at Wembley stadium, but we had a blast at an Ed Sheeran concert in June! (The crowded subway home was probably the biggest risk.)
6. We have purchased a nasal spray to provide additional protection against COVID-19. It is comforting to have another tool at our disposal as the 7th wave is ramping up in England and hardly anyone else is masking. Three of us are 6 months + since our third dose, so we know we are not well protected against infection at the moment.

A few observations & thoughts:

I have noticed that there are a lot of signs around and emails received that indicate that some precautions are required or requested by a venue, but they are consistently ignored by visitors & staff. Why bother posting these?

Another thing that is wild to me is how if any precautions are taken, they are for droplet spread. #covidisairborne Hand sanitizer, gloves & face shields are not going to help…..

It would be wonderful if Western society would employ a vaccine-plus strategy and #ventilate #filter & #mask because #covidisairborne, but that seems unlikely at this point. Even recommendations to avoid the 3Cs (see link below) would help, but we seem to have given up.

Click to access 3CS.pdf