How are you all dealing with coronavirus and the restrictions many of us have to live

I wonder if this will be the final nail in President Piñera's coffin. My husband was telling me that there is no impeachment process included in the constitution as there is in the US, so he'd probably have to resign. His popularity has been low since the protests in 2019, often in the single digits. The pandemic response has had its ups and downs. His popularity is up a bit now, because they've been rolling out the vaccines pretty quickly. However, all bets are off if the vaccine being used here isn't very effective, as many suspect.

Another expat I know here that likes to crunch the numbers said yesterday that of the larger countries that are vaccinating a lot, nearly all - US, UK, Israel - are seeing new cases level off or decline. The two exceptions are Chile and Serbia, the two countries that are mainly using Chinese-made vaccines - Sinovac here and Sinopharm in Serbia. They both use the older technology of an inactivated virus. Interesting.


Weird, I thought my husband would be trying to convince me to get the Sinovac vaccine once I qualify (probably next month). However, yesterday he said he understands if I want to wait a bit and see what the situation is as far as the other vaccines that have been ordered or for which they are negotiating purchases. I imagine that production has to ramp up soon and it may not be all that long that we will finally start getting more Pfizer shipments and possibly J&J (being negotiated) or AstraZeneca (ordered). Right now, Pfizer is only giving us crumbs - less than 500,000 doses in all. I work from home and don't need to go out too much, so I am pretty low risk.


I think he will also have to get revaccinated eventually so we can do that trip to Portugal once the situation improves. I was reading that the EU is considering requiring a vaccination passport to travel there and it will most likely not accept vaccines that are not approved for use there as valid.


I find it interesting that there have been a lot of articles written about how fast they have been vaccinating here, but they are written as if we are already have received a lot of Pfizer, AstraZeneca, etc. That is simply not true. Ordered or being negotiated does not mean they have arrived and are in use. I wonder if the government is feeding them that narrative.


96% of the population here is now in one of the two most restricted phases as of today.

It’s clear we don’t deserve what being a politician means nowadays, we need another kind of politicians who cares for their citizens’ interests and not their own ones. Unluckily they perverted what Politics is.

I feel confident I am safe from COVID. I have not eaten inside or outside a restaurant in over a year, I stayed in the house for the 3 month lockdown. I double mask. I’ve been super careful and I can hang on for another couple months until I get my vaccine. But then I do plan on going out to eat again and going back to work.

My parents got their booster and I am very relieved- both of them are in their 80s and don't handle illness like they used to. Their neighbours currently have covid and dad recently lost a friend to itso the risk has been a significant.

Apparently many people who have been vaccinated have stopped following guidelines according to a survey (40%) but my parents haven't, although we can see them outdoors. I can see why some older people may really want to see their families again. It's been such a long year. But I hope people will still be careful and not get too lax.

At work it feels like normal, it's been pretty crowded in the store, people are probably desperate to get out. Mostly they're wearing masks fortunately. So I feel like it's a limbo at the moment, normal and not normal at the same time.

We are going to have a minutes silence for all those who have lost their lives during the pandemic, next week at midday on 23rd. I have mixed feelings. It's important to honour these people but in the UK the minutes silence (we have one for armistice day and have had others for terrorist atrocities) have become meaningless. It doesn't sit well with me personally but I'll comply, I'll be at work and the store will no doubt schedule it.

Sometimes I feel like this last year has been so weird I haven't processed much of it. I've sat on the emotions. If and when this is suppressed enough not to be a problem I wonder if I'll process it then or how will I process it.

I'm glad to hear your parents are fully vaccinated @Discombobulated. What a relief. My parents are in their 70s and also got their second vaccines recently too.

I hope people are also taking into account that it takes some time after vaccination before it's actually effective? 2 weeks I think. And there's no certainty yet that you can't still spread the virus to others if you're vaccinated. (Which of course the covidiots are using as a reason not to get the vaccine, saying it only protects the person vaccinated. That's not necessarily true, we just don't know yet!)

More and more countries in Europe have stopped vaccination with AZ for now. As if it wasn't going slow enough already.

True, BreakForTheLight that it the vaccinations do need some time to reach full effect. It's still a jarring contrast that other countries vaccinating at similar rates to here that started at about the same time are starting to see new cases decline and no such trend can be observed here.


Today we had another day of over 5,000 new cases. 9 municipalities in the Metropolitan Region will go back into quarantine as of Thursday. We were spared for now. Most were densely populated urban areas. However the rural community just to the west of us was on the list.

Has anyone else gone from an early riser to dragging themselves from the bed to their desk 5-10 minutes before starting work? I hate how much this has changed me

I used to get up at 6 - or earlier if I wanted to go for a run - and be at the office at 8. Now I just wonder how the hell I managed? And I like early morning. But I can no longer get up early

Today is especially annoying because I'm still super tired so I decided to skip the run today, but the noise from the construction work started before 7 AM and is quite loud so I can't get any more sleep either :/

I add myself to your words for @Discombolutated and you for your parents.

Here, only 3% of the population has been vaccinated.
I think snails going up a hill are faster.

@BreakForTheLight


*Raises hand!* Almost every day. I have good intentions. I set the alarm early thinking I will do my work early and have some free time in the afternoon to get some things done around here. Instead, I hit the snooze a bunch of times, start late, end up working into the evening because I feel like what is the point of it all.

I admit I didn’t do so badly today. I managed to drag myself out of bed at 7:30 mainly because the dogs wanted to go out. Sometimes they are happy to laze around until later. I was able to get most of the plant watering done, wash dishes from last night, clean the cat box and do half an hour on the stationary bike. By 9 I was ready to work.

Other days, I’m in bed until 8:30-9:00 thinking I just can’t do this. I agreed to take on extra work for my client last weekend since they are busy. I got through Saturday okay. Sunday I worked a bit in the morning and just hit a wall. Mentally, I couldn’t continue. I’m lucky my client said it was okay to finish it yesterday , but that ended up being a long work day.

On top of everything I had contact with an old friend from Brazil. He lives in the US, although he spent some time in Brazil last year. I know his whole family. I’ve stayed with them when I’ve been in Brazil. His sister and her husband came here on their honeymoon and my ex and I showed them around. They’ve been so wonderful to me; I consider them family. Anyways their state has been hit really hard lately by Covid, as has most of Brazil. So, discussing that and how it has hit his family just made my mood take a turn for the worse.

Then, it’s so dark in the AM, so that doesn’t help at all. For some reason, during the last Bachelet presidency we didn’t change the clocks in fall one year, so we kind of got “stuck” in the same time zone as Argentina for most of the year. Winter time is only about 4 months here, we usually change in May and then again in August. It’s not light until about 8 AM right now.

I also have had a hard time. I already told it but on one side, as a result of the lockdown along last Spring, and on another side, because I’m feeling changes in my body due to age, I was barely able to get up from bed other than for taking the doggies out when necessary. So no matter how much early I got up, I used to get tired all day long.

Luckily, I’m feeling better since last Autumn and I’m more active. Used to get up at 8. Take the doggies out and do my walking with my female doggie who is younger than my other sweetheart at 6:00 in the evening.
And I’m using what’s app and the phone to be in contact with my siblings, niece and nephew who are in another city. I use the phone much more than before the pandemic lol. Getting used to audios and that kind of things.

I had to tell it. It’s not what I normally see, ok? I have to make clear that the big majority of people have and show respect for the others, but today, I was having a conversation with an elderly woman in the park when two covidiots (from 25 or more) and one of them was without the mask because he was smoking ( OK. no problem, I understand it) but when passing out, he on purpose sneezed over one of my doggies. It was on purpose, he didn’t sneeze for real. He did it to call the attention. Why? I don’t even know.
Why people do these kind of things? I don’t know it.

It sounds like antisocial behaviour and maybe he is like this in normal life. In the UK at the moment there is an increasing awareness and publicity of how some men intimidate and harass women in the street. It's a kind of bullying in my opinion.

I'm sorry you had to deal with this Azul.

Here in the UK we are being told that vaccine supplies are seriously limited over the next month. The outcome of this is that over 50s are not being vaccinated as anticipated in April, instead they are focusing on completing over 50s and 2nd dosing every one.

The UK has done well to this point and our daily death rates are now in the 100s not 1000s. But we have spaced 1st and 2nd dose by 3 months, this is how it was given to as many people as fast (we have over one third of population 1st dosed). But now we will slow down as all 2nd doses must be given as a priority.

I understand this but it means like so many I'm going to have to wait longer for mine. I am one year under 50 lol.

Sorry you're struggling so much, rechu. I agree it's even harder to get out of bed when it's dark out. Here we're heading towards spring so at least I don't have to get up before sunrise, but it's been really grey and depressing the last couple of weeks :/

I'm just so tired and numb. In the morning I can't get out of bed, in the evening I can't be bothered to move from the couch to bed. And when I do finally get to bed, I'm mindlessly scrolling through my phone for hours. I know it's a bad habit. But it fits my blaaaah mood.

Apparently we're moving into the third wave. For weeks there's been plans for lifting restrictions and now we'll probably get stricter measures again. It feels like this is never going to end.

It's still summer but lately it's been grey and depressing here for some reason. The weather has been so weird. It was sprinkling this morning when I let the dogs out. We rarely get a drop of rain in the summer.

9 municipalities in the Metropolitan Region started a new strict quarantine. It's chaotic because it's mostly areas of the capital that people need to pass through to get to work or home. People who don't live or work in those areas still need to get off the metro in a quarantine area to take a bus, to another area for their job or to go to the doctor, etc. Nothing in the ridiculous permit system was designed to handle these cases. They were showing the military stopping people in the metro stations that were in these sort of situations. At least the soldiers were trying to be understanding and generally let them go on their way. It's just the lack of foresight a year into this that amazes me sometimes. Greater Santiago is so interconnected that it's complicated to have adjoining municipalities in different phases. There are areas where you cross the street and suddenly a whole new set of rules applies.

It feels so weird sometimes. I used to live in the capital and when we first moved out here, we'd still go in occasionally on the weekends to buy some things we can't get here, etc. Now I realized it's been over six months since I have been to the city. I only see it on the news.


There will be new announcements today about changing municipalities to other phases. So, I am again hoping we don't end up quarantined.

Here, the weather is so good. It so nice to go out. But, still, we are gonna be banned to travel not only outside my Community but even outside my province. So, I won’t be allowed to meet my sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew.
Meanwhile, foreigners people are being able to come here to the islands for vacations and rich younger tourists are also find the opportunity to travel here by plane to have illegal parties. This is a virus brought by the rich and pay by the poor.
I have no words to describe how I’m feeling. I feel tramped and furious.

Yep, same here. On travel forums there are always questions about traveling here now. People tell them it's a bad idea, but many come anyways. It's the last thing we need. They are allowed to travel out of the Metropolitan Region to other areas within 24 hours of arrival. Here inter-regional travel for residents is restricted to only a few permitted reasons.

Another 7 municipalities are going back to strict lockdown as of Saturday. We had over 6,000 new cases in the country today. We are one of the losers. Back to quarantine we go. Now it's only 2 permits a week for 2 hours each to go out.

How damn we are gonna do tourism to get the shot? If we can get out out our own neighbourhood, we are trapped, @rechu ,lol!
@rechu, it’s supposed in other European countries are taking very restrictive measures there but they can come here to mess it around. This is the last straw. I hope a politician can explain is why, but doing it, if it’s not to much to ask, without lying on our face.

Here, the fourth wave is already considered as inevitable, the good weather is gonna increase imprudent behaviours. Just today, began to increase the numbers of contagious. So, I wonder how long this is gonna last if we are always making pay to a part of the population while we accept another part of these population to do whatever they want. Viva la vida loca! lol!

I’m so tired because of the differences, the lack of equality.

This pisses me off. So. Much. I read somewhere there were already like 200 extra flights from Germany to Mallorca as soon as the Balearic Islands were no longer high risk. A) not supposed to be traveling for fun still and have numbers rising even more when they come back and B) Spain does not need to be overrun by German tourists misbehaving, disregarding all corona measures (because that's what German tourists are like, I'm sorry to say).

Yes, people should be allowed to travel for other reasons like visiting their relatives who they could’t have seen for more than a year.

You know we are a country whose main Economical sector is Tourism. That’s why. But, it’s insulting for Spanish people because I could also travel to Balear Islands but I’m not allowed because I don’t speak German. lol

I guess it's fitting that the lockdown announcement came today on the one year anniversary of the declaration of the state of constitutional exception. Without the constitutional exception they can't use lockdowns or give tourists preferential treatment, because it's not constitutional to essentially create different classes of people, some who have more rights than others.

They closed the borders to all but legal residents and citizens a year ago too. Honestly, I think they never should have opened them. We'd be better off right now.

And, those people that want to come here? Half the time they asking for advice about finding a loophole around the quarantine upon arrival and PCR test requirements. So, I am sure a lot of tourists come here and don't respect the rules.

And don't start me on the lying. At a press conference the other day, the health undersecretary flippantly said that we shouldn't be concerned about the Brazilian variant because the vaccine works just as well against it. I have seen several articles discussing this. Brazil is mainly using the same vaccine as here, so they have been studying if the vaccine will work on the variant. There's no final verdict, but initial findings seem to indicate that it is less effective. They lie and lie. I am sick of it.

Something else. My friend, who is in an area that hasn't gone to quarantine yet, and I were chatting about the whole thing. I have seen some of the the maps of where the virus is concentrated in my municipality and it's mainly downtown. We are outside of town and we were green, which was the lowest case incidence. Here people seem pretty responsible and the houses are spaced out. A lot of neighbors seem to be professionals that work from home.

Anyways, the first Health Minister we had during the pandemic, I call him Robert de Niro (google Jaime Mañalich and you will see why), liked to do this thing called dynamic quarantines where part of a municipality was quarantined and the other wasn't. It was widely criticized and part of why he was pushed out. My friend and I were joking, though, that's what I need about now. Quarantine downtown but now here. Although, then I guess we'd only be able to shop in the little village up the road.

L.M.A. O. , Here is also the perpetual state of exceptions, yes.

Here, AztraZeneca vaccine is not being given because they are still studying the relation between this vaccine’s administrations and some cases of blood strokes.

So, we are without vaccines, without responsible politicians and without common sense, lol!

Hahahahaha! Jaime Mañalich is also another kind of covidiots. Up this point in time there are many categories of covidiots. Politicians, Health responsibles, denniers and Viva la Pepa (the ones who don’t care), lol!

Here, it happens the same, the downtown is specially crowed and if you travel to the center of Spain, Madrid, is a paradise for illegal parties. I don’t invente it. It’s said by them, the Viva la Pepa people who attend here to parties.