The last day of the year

 Last day of the year and it is freaking cold as the island is stormed by the most severe cool front in 15 years; 12degree C when I climbed out from my warm bed...

I had to sit in front of the desk until 10pm and head back for the count down; it is an easy shift until now; travelling will only start tomorrow as today are still a working day.

The identification of 2 Covid19 cases related to the B117 British strain had shut down the country. Although no massive of local transmission was noted, the local authorities had halted most of the countdown event. Only 2 events are active; a concert going on at the east coast and the countdown around 101 building at T city.

I had several occasion taking swab test with full gear for suspected cases but however none of them came back positive. Although most of the places on the earth had shortened the quarantine period to 10 days, the island had still follow the 14+7 standard(14 days of quarantine with 7 days of strictly mask wearing when you are not alone). Play on the safe side is still the key....

The peace of mind however did not pacify my disturbing soul; I still missed homeland, everything of it, relatives, food….

Homeland had eventually given up on zero cases. We are seeing daily cases of four figure; 100+ ICU cases and 60+ respirator dependent cases. The strategy had apparently shifted to as long as the medical capacity is not overburden by the active cases, we can live with it. Indeed, you will not die if you got infected, but if no job, you are going to die every soon without income…

I had no idea how bad was the condition but some of my relatives were affected, they are still hanging on but would not hold on longer if the condition continues.

How long? It would be at least 8 months to execute a massive immunization and another 6 months to see the effect. So I don’t see any possibility I could step on the blood spilling land for another year...

Few more hours before going off and I had prayed deeply that everything would be the same when I laid my foot on the land again…