V-Day

It's been a month since I last posted.  There have been quite a few incidents of note and photos I want to log, and maybe I will circle back and maybe I won't.  I thought I would mention that I am extremely grateful that the scientists have come up with a number of (apparently) working vaccines at a truly ground-breaking speed.  I simply would not have expected this level of progress until the middle of 2021, and pessimistically perhaps not until 2022.  However, a handful of citizens have received the shot in the UK, and next week it looks like the vaccine will be rolled out (so very gradually) in the US and Canada.

No idea where my family and I fall in the list, though probably in the bottom half.  Nonetheless, I am assuming a gradual opening up through the spring, and potentially mass entertainment (movies, concerts, theatre) may possibly be able to return in the summer.  As much as I would like that, I think I would be willing to sacrifice it for a "normal" return to school in the fall.  Some children have adapted quite well to the new situation but others, particularly the younger ones, have not, and if we can limit the damage to one and a quarter school years, I would be incredibly pleased.

I think that's all I have to say on the subject for the time being.  I'm still expecting this to be a long, difficult winter, but there is hope that we will be turning the corner as the vaccine is distributed.  And while there are a fair number of vaccine-shy individuals in Canada, the proportion does seem to be a bit lower than in the States.  To be fair, I can understand not wanting to be in the very first wave of vaccinations, though I think at this point I would go ahead and take it as soon as it was offered to me.  (Again, I have no intention of cutting in line and clearly think that the elderly in long term care homes, doctors, nurses and then other essential workers (including transit drivers) have a higher priority than I do.)  But it's nice to have hope when things were looking so desperately awful for so long.

Edit (March 2021): I think I was maybe a bit too optimistic.  Canada has just not been able to get the vaccines in a timely fashion, and it looks like the US may be able to be more or less back to normal several months before Canada, and I think this summer will largely be washed out.  We may not even open the border until the late fall, so no bands are going to be touring anyway.  Any tourism will be domestic for pretty much the entire year.  It could be worse of course (and the vaccines do seem to be making a tangible difference in the situation), but it is still a let-down.