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Dear Nenad,

My first entry to the diary on a weekly rather than a daily basis. These days I have a bit of a strange feeling: on the one hand you see everywhere that things are starting to turn back to ‘normal’. Lots of shops have opened again, it is getting busier on the streets, also with car traffic and tourist countries start to open up.On the other hand local outbreaks of the virus still occur and many people are worried for a second wave. It feels like being a bit in a twilight zone. We pretend as if life is going back to normal, but we all know that this is not the case.

On the medical side I see that some progress is made with the vaccines, but at the same time I understand from some articles that there is no scientific proof that hydroxychloroquine is helping. It seems that only Trump still believes in it ;-). Whether it is a medicine or a vaccine, let’s hope that something will be found soon.

Here in The Netherlands the government is scaling down the crisis teams, but I do not yet see a new crisis team for the economic crisis which will start now. For the second aid package to companies there is no longer the condition that companies are not allowed to fire people. So I expect lay-offs to start happening soon. Booking.com did not apply for new state aid, hopefully because they realize it was already immoral the first time, but probably to have their hands free for other steps. In my view we should start boycotting companies like these towards the future.

Differences between countries keep on existing: in Italy the sport centers will re-open, whereas here they will not open until September 1. Here the distance between people has to be 1,5 meter in Italy only 1 meter. I just had a look through the app of La Repubblica, with which I follow the Italian news and I could not even find today’s corona figures anymore. Although I understand that still more than 100 people die in Italy of the virus every day. Sometimes it gives me the feeling as if I have woken up from a nightmare and I wonder if the corona crisis has really happened.

Of course if you look at the rest of the world, things look different. Almost 100.000 people died of the virus in the US, Brasil is seeing many infections now, but the news is slowly being taken over by non-corona news now. Anyway, I decided to spend more time today on the Athos text (but it will take some more time to finish) instead of watching news sites.

What is your impression of how the mood is changing ?

Stay healthy! Robert

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Dear Robert,

It is more then you wrote. The mood is changed, like corona never happen. That is showing many things. First, that everything that was happening was not so horrifying, but it was treated in many countries against human freedom. It is showing that measures have ben disproportional. That complete living is suspended, which harmed a lot to everything from economic to survival rate. We still don’t know the outcome of corona in all those fields, and I a friend that would be bad. As I hoped that somebody did a nice study about everything on different levels. Maybe we will soon have a movie with a corona story.

I noticed burn out of doctors in Serbia. They are not paid liked it was promised. Actually system functioning because of the sacrifice of certain doctors, which is not good in this kind of problem. Doctors are arguing that the system should be better. I agree that epidemiologists didn’t use the opportunity to show how important is their job—quite the opposite. We are waiting for the first case against one of the doctors from the crisis headquarter in front of the Ethical court of Medical Chamber. I see that the same thing happens in the States, Germany, etc. Doctors are critically commenting on everything that’s happened.

I am really sorry that we could not help more Brazil and all the other countries who have a problem. I was there, and honestly, it is difficult to take any measures in favelas, where people are squeezed and without basic hygienic conditions. I have again the impression that people don’t care too much for some countries who are far away. Like their casualties are different than Europeans. The same was with all previous outbreaks of Ebola, Zika, Sars, etc. From another side, It is terrible what was happen in the US, but they probably have the best healthcare system, which showed that it is not available to everyone and that even the best system could not do good under poor leadership. The basic idea of the World Health Organization, Red Cross, United Nations good, but these institutions don’t need to be an asylum for politicians, but real professionals and those institutions should have mechanisms that neither one country could suspend them, especially not the guy like Trump.

What is good that we return to normal so quickly and that people are looking brighter in the summer holidays. Going to the sea was always important here, as a kind of escape from reality. I understand how much is important to people. That also means that you will come to Serbia without a problem, I will get a bet and we will have a wine party.

Next weekend my youngest granddaughter is celebrating a birthday. One residue of the corona is that playrooms are not working. So we will need to organize a celebration a little bit different without not so many kids. But what is good they could travel to Austria and back, and then to sea in Montenegro.

Looking forward to seeing you in Belgrade,

Nenad