Now that there's a light at the end of the tunnel and we'll all gradually get vaccinated, how are you right now? And how were you during the pandemic situation in general?

I feel like the worst of the despair has passed for me because there's finally a foreseeable future, instead of the time freeze we've been in for a year with all the uncertainty of when things would be normal again.

My situation is a bit different than everyone's else because I live in a country that hasn't been as badly affected as elsewhere so my daily life hasn't been affected that much (aside from having no work anymore). But I'm also not a citizen of that country and that has been an emotional roller coaster.

The pandemic started with me being in renewing visa period while my mother went on a trip without telling her friends, so her friends called me panicking and I had to stop the (nice)(also a policeman) neighbor from destroying her door while being on the other side of the world.
Then the country I live in (Japan) closed its borders to every foreigners, including residents, including me. Meaning that if I had to go out I wouldn't be able to come home for who knows how long. They opened the borders for residents 6 months later.

And now, my own country (France) closed its borders to everyone, including its own citizens unless they have very good reason to go in, or out. Among those reasons are work, studies, death or illness of a close family member. But I calculated and between the tests and the forms,the papers, the travel itself, and the quarantine it would take me two weeks to go back. Obviously too long to even attend a funeral and most likely too late to say goodbye to a dying family member.
Right now I'm not happy. At all.

Aside from that and the time(s?) I had COVID, the pandemic could have been worse. I'm thankful for the very relaxed lockdowns and to be able to bug the husband who's now working from home all day long.

I feel like if the problem were the pandemic alone, maybe I could've dealt with it better, but the thing about it is my already existent problems either got worse or sort of branched out into new problems since last March. I kept thinking that maybe once pandemic ends those problems will go back to normal but it's been a whole year. Safe to say those problems are lasting problems now.

It honestly didn't affect me directly. It just gave me more reason to be the way I am anyway - someone who doesn't step foot outside unless absolutely necessary.

It /did/ make my dad more aware of a pre-existing issue with me, which wasn't a bad thing at all. I have a suppressed immune system and he finally seems to really get how easy it is for me to do something like catch a cold as compared to him and how much harder it is for me now to get over it when I do.

My dad was temporarily unemployed for a month or 2 of it during which he was on a government funded thing then he was able to work from home so it hasn't been too bad there. He's allready on the list for the vaccine but I don't think I'm allowed to yet. Something about it making me more sick than I allready am. (shrugs)

Myste wrote:He's allready on the list for the vaccine but I don't think I'm allowed to yet. Something about it making me more sick than I allready am. (shrugs)

Yeah the vaccine is a weakened version of the virus that is supposed to teach your body to fight the real thing. So it's weak enough that a normal immune system would kill it and remember how to fight it. But if your immune system is suppressed, you could end up basically having covid because of the virus. One of my friends is a clinical psychologist and was supposed to get the vaccine but she was asked if she had any food allergies. Since allergies are basically the immune system overreacting. If the immune system overreacts that's another problem cause you'd have an adverse reaction to the vaccine. She did have food allergies so the doctor said she'd have to skip taking the vaccine.

We've been lucky so far. My husband works from home, and I don't work, so not much changed for us. My father was out of work for a little while, but he's back now. No one in our family has gotten sick. We've been ordering most of our groceries online.

Umm... well its been an experience. I live in upstate New York and work at a hospital so things have gotten busy and chaotic to say the least. Thanks to my job I never was without employment because I work for a hospital pharmacy so even though elective cases were cancelled and postponed, we still had a lot to do with the growing number of hospitalized covid cases. Luckily I stayed safe and everyone for the most part at my job were doing everything to obey the regulations. I can’t count the number of times i’ve wanted to cut off family members who told me covid isn’t real because while they’re doing that and ignoring regulations, i’m making meds and ivs for people who are on the verge of death from it.

On the bright side though, I got the vaccine! I was a part of the first people to get it because of my job. Covid cases also started finally dropping for us too.

Wow, you're not too far from me then! I'm in central NY!

That’s actually pretty cool! The medical network I work for is huge and has locations in upstate and central ny so there’s a slim chance we’ve run into each other or you may know some of my coworkers.