Concerns

Clearly, I am not a prolific Blogger! It has been over a year since I last made a post on this page which has made me wonder as to why I am doing this at all. Maybe, years in the future long after I have gone this obscure little corner of the internet will still be accessible and my grandchildren will able to read these posts just out of idle curiosity.

So 2019 has passed and by-and-large it was much the same as the years before. Which is to say that it was a pretty good year. We had a lovely visit in July with all of the family coming home and a trip for a couple of days in PEI. A really pleasant time. Last summer I got lots of golf in and although my game is not quite what it used to be, I did have one bright spot – I scored my lowest score ever. A 74 which was just two strokes short of golfing my age of 72. For no real reason, last year Cathie and I did very little travelling. This year we are planning a two-week trip to the southwest of England, first to St. Ives and then to a cottage in Devon. We will be spending this time with our daughter's family and most importantly our grandchildren (sorry Sara and Anth, you get second billing now).

That briefly was the year and our plans. But on the last day of 2019, China reported to the World Health Organization that they had detected a new corona-virus that had infected some of its citizens in the city of Wuhan. Within days there was considerable alarm about the nature of this disease which I think is now called COVID-19 and its rapid uncontrolled rate of infection. There was considerable uncertainty as to how this new virus is transmitted from human to human, and how long a person can have it before showing symptoms. It appears that older persons and those with other health issues (particularly respiratory issues) are the most at risk. Soon it was found in other cities in China and then in other parts of the world transmitted by travellers from China. And now it is being transmitted within the communities of other countries. The level of anxiety that this has had on the world is astounding. And it is not just the possibility of this illness infecting millions with many fatalities it is its effect on the entire fabric of the global economy. In the 64 days since it was first reported internationally, American stock markets have reported their biggest losses since the 2008 financial crisis and it has had a significant effect on travel especially to Asia. Most travel to China has come to a halt and there are travel bans to other infected areas imposed by countries trying to contain the spread of this disease. China has taken drastic measures to contain the outbreak with a significant effect on its economic output which I suspect will soon be to the detriment of the economies of those who trade with her.

So at this point, I have been holding back on booking our flight to England because I am worried about what the outcome of all of this is going to be. It is all over the news now and each day the problems seem to grow. I have a tendency to take in all that is going on in the world and form ideas that are very foreboding concerning the future only to find that my predictions usually are not as bad as I first conceived. I hope that will be true with this situation.