Plus tri

— Day 50 plus 4 —

Dear Nenad,

Today was a special day: for the first time this year we ventured out on our (racing) bicycles. Getting out of the city was relatively OK, there were not many people around, so we managed to keep distance. It was good to see that also the other people on bicycles were taking care. Doing exercise on a spinning bike is OK, but going outside is much better!

The virus situation in The Netherlands is slowly getting better, we have been on a level of two deaths and 6 hospitalisations per day now for the last two weeks. In Iran, China and Japan the virus seems to be on its way back, as they are reporting a much higher number of new infections. And of course the situation in the US, Brasil and Russia is still bad. With a tourist season just to begin, the question is how this will start affecting the numbers in different countries. Getting back some of the measures will be difficult as people are fed up with them. What will that mean for a possible second wave in autumn ?

From tomorrow we will be able to go to Italy, as Switzerland will also open. So we can now start planning a trip. So far Serbia is still on orange, so we will still wait before coming to Belgrade…

Our government has signed an agreement together with Germany, France and Italy on a vaccine for the virus. This is the one that Oxford has developed together with Astra Zeneca. Currently they have tested on 10.000 volunteers, will now start testing on 30.000 more volunteers and the hope is to have it available by the end of the year in large volumes. Let’s hope that it will work.

Here several demonstrations against racism have taken place (and better organized than the disastrous one in Amsterdam). Let’s hope that it will lead to a good discussion on what to change in society to battle this, without the violence and shop looting that is taking place in the US. With a deteriorating economy the weakest groups in society will be, as always, hardest hit so I expect that more social unrest will follow.

Our newspapers are full of discussions on racism, also on the fact whether we should remove statues of people that lived 300 years ago. In my view you should not erase part of history but you should highlight the other side of what many ‘national heroes’ have done in the past. Many nations in the past have been both victims and agressors and it would be good to give a balanced picture of this. Unfortunately I see the discussion ever further polarizing, which will not help.

It starts with being able to listen to each other. Once people stop listening, it can easily lead to big conflicts as everyone in former Yugoslavia  knows all too well. Cool heads and empathy are what is needed know, let’s hope that we will be able to do this…

How is the cat doing ?

Stay healthy! Robert

—

Dear Robert,

A little bit hectic atmosphere is here since officials are pretending that we don’t have a problem with Covid in spite, we have new cases and, on average, one death per day. Since we have an election in a few days illusion of normal life is essential. Thus it was allowed to have derby in football between Red Star and Partizan in front of 20.000 people in spite official limit is 1000. At the same time, Novak Djokovic has organized an Adria tournament, again in the full arena, and with players acting without distancing, with lots of hugging and close contacts.  Because of that, we have in all world media as a bad example. What is strange, even Novak, who is trying to give a positive example, had fallen to resist to the atmosphere. Many serious critics he got it, because of that. Finally, because of that kind of behaving, we have the growth of the positive corona cases, but officials stopped to publish the real data. For example, they said that we have yesterday 59 cases and one death, but at the same time, our colleagues said that just in Kragujevac, they got 50 cases from Novi Pazar. Finally, as a result, we have a close friend and colleague on a ventilator with a very critical results. I am sure this kind of irresponsible behavior will have an adverse outcome and a prolonged covid situation.

How people are not critical, we could see from planning to go to the see. But, because of behaving in Serbia, many countries are not allowing Serbians to travel there. For the moment, citizens from Serbia could not go to Montenegro, Croatia, EU, and even Greece. We had a terrible situation day before yesterday when our tourists have stopped on a border between Bulgaria and Greece since the Greek government decided not to allow Serbian tourists to come to Greece because of a high number of cases in the country. Interestingly, non didn’t discuss the dangers of Covid, but all argued about bad political decisions.

It seems that we are on the track of Brasil or India, where every day thousands of deaths and the thousands of new cases are recorded. Again we have a problem with a professional approach, empathy, and understanding of the whole society.

Besides, the health care system is not functioning. We are witnessing many tragic deaths and bad decisions with the high cost for patient health. Currently, the most dramatic is the case of Olympic athletes in shooting, who is in a coma after delivery. She had diabetes, but her situation is poorly managed. I have the impression that the system is destroyed since I could mention many cases just form the last week where the problem is created because of poor management and knowledge.

I am not sure what solution is since we need to wake up and restart respecting some basic things, above all the knowledge. Otherwise, we will be trapped in own country by believing that others are hating us, which is not the truth.

Thus, Ana could not travel to Montenegro, Nina could not travel easily to Vienna, all our meeting are canceled until the end of the year. Simple, it is not understandable why there is no European initiative since, as we discussed, the continent will be safe when all the countries are safe.

I am glad that you could plan a trip to Italy, and maybe Serbia, but it is evident that things are changing daily, and that decision could be made at the last moment.

So let’s stay tuned and believe that we will manage this summer to drink that vine together,

Nenad

PS. We have some problems with the cat (nausea, vomiting, etc). Since she is small they told us it is normal. Anyway,  I cooked her yesterday (chicken, carrot and little rice) and it seems she is better.