Surviving the Coronavirus in Spain

Last Wednesday I walked away from the farmhouse for the first time in five and a half weeks.
Up to that moment I had no absolute need to leave home, since Alan does our shopping every couple of weeks.
Legally, I could have periodically walked, cycled or ridden my motorbike to one of the nearby villages, armed with the required paperwork in case of a police check, stating that I was going to buy food or medicine. But from day one Alan and I agreed that we would follow the lockdown measures as strictly as we could, physically and mentally, and to not take any avoidable risks.

But last week became ‘the perfect storm’ for me - it had been raining for several days so I couldn’t get outside for work or even to tip around the farm. I had also been under yet another three-day wave of fatigue from whatever virus that we have. Then came an issue with my prescription and my doctor’s office is shut for the duration of the state of alarm so I had no choice but to visit a nearby pharmacy to sort something out.
I could have cycled the few kilometres to town but I knew that, however low my energy was, I needed this walk. I dressed for the warm but damp morning and started the slow journey into town.
Soon the drizzle stopped and the scent from the pine forest mixed with fruit and olive trees filled the air. A wild rabbit ran across the empty road and the sky was full of birds, including eagles and vultures.
I am used to being surrounded by wild rosemary and thyme growing between the olive and almond plantations but now that I had emerged into the middle of my first spring in northern Spain, I realised that the countryside was full of other herbs and food, such as wild garlic and fennel. My neighbours’ trees are bursting with cherries and other fruits just coming into season. The thought of more foraging and being able to buy food from the farmers around us put a pep in my step.
At the village pharmacy I was offered a month’s prescription (unheard of in any other country, in my experience) while I went through the ever-complicated process of accessing my regular controlled medication in a region that I’m not officially resident. I had just completed this testing bureaucratic process in Andalucía, where I had first settled in October, when I decided to move to this autonomous community of Catalonia. Restarting the process during lockdown is more than I can face right now so, I’ll soldier on, falling between bureaucratic cracks for as long as I can. Meanwhile, I was delighted to be told to return the next day to collect my tablets; I felt like I had been given a ‘get out of jail free’ card.
Six weeks into strict lockdown, I now feel that I have been careful enough for long enough. I still appear to have acquired and survived this virus so now I am ready to return to society when a need such as this arises.
I am acutely aware that there are many unknowns regarding Covid-19, such as, how many strains there are or, how long immunity lasts. How many times can we get the same or different strains of Covid-19? And how long is someone infectious when they have or had each strain?
HERD IMMUNITY BY ANOTHER NAME
I believe that it will take a year or two, at least, for a vaccine to be developed and then to be given to the world’s population. No country can last economically, physically or mentally with more than a few months of severe restrictions; some of the poorer regions couldn’t even get through a week without pushing a worryingly high percentage of their population over the poverty cliff. And with a growing number of people in many countries revolting against their state-imposed restrictions, and especially loudly in the United States of late, lockdown is clearly a temporary measure.
I also believe that the majority of governments have decided that herd immunity is the world’s only chance of survival. Just as the term ‘lockdown’ means different things to different people, depending on the country that they live in, their life circumstances, and their mindset.
Likewise, the methods of achieving herd immunity can vary widely, and is dependent on factors such as the national and per capital wealth, the quality of a country’s health care system and their citizens' access to it, their government’s leadership qualities, the population’s compliance level plus their ability to act in a reasonable manner, to name but a few.
Sweden’s decision to not impose a lockdown and to keep large parts of the country open is being watched closely by the rest of the world. The Swedish Public Health Agency denies that its strategy was based on the overall goal of herd immunity, but on a sensible and sustainable plan of voluntary social distancing by giving its people more guidelines than restrictions.
Sweden’s ambassador to the US, Karin Ulrika Olofsdotter says that ‘about 30% of people in Stockholm have reached a level of immunity’ and is on course to reach herd immunity next month.
Sweden has recorded more infections and deaths than their Nordic neighbours, yet less than in the UK, for example. And it is worth noting that the Swedish figures include all deaths of people with coronavirus, including those in nursing homes, which they say, account for around 50%. The UK estimates that their care home deaths account for about 11% of their coronavirus deaths, but they don’t even include these in their daily figures.
Unfortunately the World Health Organisation has said that not everyone who has been infected with Covid-19 has developed the antibodies needed to have immunity, and that not everyone who has antibodies is immune.
Therefore, it is possible that so-called ‘immunity passports’ could end up helping to spread the virus again and/or further. Last week the WHO said that the ‘worst’ of Covid-19 is yet to come’.
Last weekend here in Spain children were finally allowed to go for an hour with an adult, which was very heartening; one child said ‘everything looks bigger.’ I guess it would if you have been looking at the world through the TV, from your balcony, or as playthings on the floor for a month. We are hopeful that, if the numbers remain relatively low, everyone in Spain will be allowed out of their homes for an hour a day for individual walks or exercise.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, Alan has set up a new website (cookingwithalan.com) specialising in creating dishes during this pandemic. We have limited kitchen facilities at this farm-sit and we shop for food only every couple of weeks. To add to these restrictions, I don’t eat meat and Alan very rarely eats fish, so it is challenging to constantly come up with varied, healthy and tasty meals based on what is available, rather than what one wants.
But who doesn’t love a good challenge?!