Travelling in the age of COVID-19

Andrea and the kids went back to Germany (on an "evacuation flight") in June. I went to visit them last week. Leaving Kenya, you don't need to get tested, but the arriving country, in this case Germany, does require it, with a negative test taken in the 48 hours before landing to avoid quarantine or instead taking a test on landing and then once the results are out, being able to leave quarantine.

I tried the test here, but the results didn't take the 2 days they were supposed to take. Instead they took 4 days and I'd already landed in Germany and got a negative result from a test there, in Frankfurt airport (within 4 hours of doing the test).

I had taken the dog with me, which was an extra level of complexity, though ultimately fairly smooth. There was a long queue outside the airport for the first security check (the trolleys were good at keeping social distance) and the temperature check, though inside less spacing whilst checking-in. Everyone wore masks of course. The lounges were closed, and there was no fingerprinting at the immigration desk. Every other chair was blocked off, but otherwise most things were fairly normal. On the plane, apart from wearing masks, the food and entertainment was all normal. On arrival in Frankfurt and then taking the train it was the same really. In fact as the train got further out of the big cities fewer people bothered with masks. I don't think anyone bothered with the hand sanitizing in the airport.

Germany has a stellar reputation for managing COVID-19, with an efficient, quick lockdown accompanying a strong healthcare system and strong, locally managed, contact tracing systems. With very few cases for weeks, especially in the rural areas where we were, life was basically as normal... in theory people were supposed to wear masks in indoor places, but in many cafes and restaurants people were not (and it is not required outdoors).

So it felt thoroughly strange after 4+ months in Kenya of wearing masks outdoors and indoors, and even whilst running. It also felt strange actually doing fun things - from theme parks to river rides, visiting tourist attractions like castles etc (although nowadays these things are open in Kenya too, but with masks). We even went to a pub (closed in Kenya) and various ice cream or food restaurants where there was no social distancing (unlike Kenya).

Returning to Kenya (having taken another COVID test in Frankfurt airport a few hours before boarding) we had to show the negative test result at immigration as well as fill in our contact details (and I was getting an SMS message every morning after arriving reminding me to update my health status in the app the government asked us to download and use).

Now it is back inside with a computer screen and phone most of the day, with daily runs, and rare physical social interactions with other people. Just lots of online video calls and phone calls, including with my family!

Coronavirus Update #4

oh dear, 2 months since the last update! Well since our last update the number of tests in Kenya has increased a little... to around 6,000 give or take, per day. The numbers testing positive had increased from the 5% of June to 10% then 15% and up to 20% a few weeks ago. However in the last 2 weeks they have dropped back down to around 10%. This does not really reveal a huge amount as the numbers tested are not proportionate and we (the public) don't know who of those tested may be health workers, truck drivers, flight crew, contacts of those already positive, or just random people. However if it continues like this it might imply that basically there's a degree of herd immunity that has been achieved and thus in another couple of months we may have overcome the worst of it. 

Despite the lack of testing the number of deaths has not increase too much (around 5 per day give or take) and the hospitals are coping so far. Though we can presume there may be unreported COVID-19 deaths, it may not be thousands, so we can be fairly relieved. Have we been lucky because much of the population spend most of their time outside, that most are on rural farms, that most are young, most are healthy, and there are few overweight, diabetic etc or for some other reason? Maybe we'll find out some day.

Certainly most regular people have stopped wearing masks, or are not wearing them properly, and most of the handwashing stations seem to be barely used nowadays. The spacing on public buses isn't being followed so much any more, the restrictions on travelling outside of Nairobi or Mombasa (that were implemented for several weeks earlier in the year and may well have helped then in delaying the spread) have been stopped and there's more transport now -it employs many people and also facilitates more tourism. International flights restarted in August (domestic flights restarted in mid July) and a lot of the middle class have taken advantage, at least to restart domestic tourism. The evening curfew remains, which is to avoid too much drinking and partying that directly may cause rapid spreading, or indirectly reduce hospital admissions from traffic accidents or violence. By July all restaurants had reopened and up to 7pm or 8pm for sit-down meals (with some spacing etc). Thankfully many of the export commodities have recovered as the European and Asian markets have re-opened.

It was decided in July that schools which had remained closed since end of March would not re-open until January 2021 and all students, at least though in public schools, would be expected to repeat the entire school year. The thinking was that most students had already missed 4 months, which would be hard to catch up on, and that it would be very hard to implement social distancing and hygiene for the rest of the year (and the teachers who could be the most vulnerable would likely refuse to teach anyway). In theory there is some teaching ongoing through TV and radio broadcasts as well as videos online, but few students are benefitting.

Unfortunately keeping schools (and kindergartens) closed does make it harder for parents to go to work (many of the private kindergartens have re-opened, though probably illegal). For children in private schools, in order to charge fees and keep their teachers employed (since only the public school teachers are being paid for doing nothing), and which are quite important in Kenya with over a third of the population attending private schools (which range from the cheap to the expensive), there is some online video teaching going on. None-the-less some of the international families have packed off to another country for school-based learning for the rest of the year (this is the case for us - Andrea and the girls have been in Germany since mid-June and started in German schools last week).

On another note, it is incredible to think of the bigger picture of this year, from the debts racked up, the role of technology, the international disputes, the role of "experts" that were previously criticized so much in many countries recently, the strangeness of the unpredictability of the virus and live overall, the impact on relationships, education, social interactions, the positive impacts on the environment, the new thinking of health and hygiene, the incredible speed of vaccine development, and the recognition of vulnerable international supply chains especially of critical health goods. And so much more.... of course the media have reported on all these things for months now. We've all learned new words, new phrases, new rules (that keep changing) and it really is a "new normal" at least for this year.

Any next year, or whenever this is sort of over, what will the "new normal" be? Will retail, services, offices, tourism, education, healthcare, international relations and more besides have changed permanently? How are countries going to deal with debt, deal with economic recoveries, how long will there be pain for, what will the impact be on politics and institutions (especially in the US)? So many questions. So much time to discuss them!