How Covid-19 Is Impacting Our Lifestyle as Nomads
Wondering how Covid-19 is impacting our lifestyle?
Some of you have been so kind as to check in with us and see how we are doing with the lockdown in Spain. We're settled into our Airbnb here in Barcelona and are booked until April 22. Between now and then it impacts us like it impacts anyone else in Barcelona, though we may miss out on a few tourist attractions that “permanent” residents have already seen. We are sad that both of the planned visits from family in the US have been canceled, so we're here by ourselves for the duration. Fortunately, Jim and I are no strangers to spending 24-7 together in small apartments!
I’m not sure what they are reporting to the rest of the world on the situation here so here is a quick update on what our “lockdown” entails: The Spanish government declared a state of alert on Saturday, March 14th and ordered the closure of all non-essential shops as well as bars, restaurants, cafes, parks, museums, and cinemas. Everyone must stay home and is only allowed out to buy food and medicine or to travel to essential work, hospitals or banks. Short walks with your dog aee also permitted.
The Catalan Statute of Autonomy establishes that Catalonia is organized politically through the Generalitat of Catalonia. The Generalitat holds exclusive jurisdiction in education, health, culture, environment, communications, transportation, commerce, public safety and local government, and only shares jurisdiction with the Spanish government in justice. So in some ways, like states versus the federal government in the US. Spain issued the lockdown, but Catalonia issued their own version of the lockdown and asked Spain to assist with closing all borders, airports, etc within Catalonia. So far, Spain hasn’t responded, but has taken over directing healthcare and the police force.
What does that mean? It means, much like Italy, here in Barcelona, we are #YoMeQuedoEnCasa (I’m staying home): no walks, no running, no sitting on the beach, no hiking, no exploring. The grocery stores are practicing social distancing by allowing limited numbers of people in the stores at a time and organizing lines outside to get in. The grocery stores have been pretty busy but haven't seen anyone buying enormous quantities of anything though and not a single fight or yelling. People seem pretty chill.
We are making the best of the situation and have crafted our own make-shift gym. A liter of water weighs one kilogram (2.2 pounds). So we have a variety of jugs to do some lifting. Our apartment building has six floors, so we can run intervals on the stairs to keep sane. Our apartment is small—I'm guessing six hundred square feet. Good thing we like each other! I did get out for a run yesterday morning, but by yesterday afternoon, the police were out enforcing the lockdown.
Some have asked if we are mad because this is being all blown out of proportion. The short answer is no. Since we are both science minded people we understand that:
This is contagious even before you have symptoms.
People don't show symptoms for 5-14 days after they're infected.
Therefore, there are many contagious carriers out there who don’t know they’re infected and can’t be identified.
Therefore, the actual number of cases is many times higher than the reported confirmed cases.
Although most people will experience only mild symptoms and recover quickly, there aren’t enough ventilators anywhere in the world to treat all of the people who are vulnerable.
There are a lot of high risk people out there that are near and dear to our hearts. We can't do much for them here, but we can avoid inadvertently spreading the infection to the vulnerable here.
Are we disappointed? Of course! Are we nervous that we may not see family and friends as soon as we’d like to? Yep! But we’re taking it one day at a time and focusing on the things we can do. We can still text, call and video chat, so we’re staying in touch and I’m still baking “together” with Lisa via video.
We're still booked to head to Istanbul on April 22. Obviously we're watching closely to see how things develop. If we're unable to go there, we'll either extend our stay in Barcelona or hop on a train or a plane and head somewhere different (if any other countries will take us!). Hopefully things are closer to normal by late May when we are planning to be back in Denver and visit family in the US.
Stay safe everyone and check out Jim's video on our neighborhood support here in Barcelona ❤️
