SERBIA

It has allowed me to live in the here and now. I hope life is changed forever, with our focus on society and nature being long-term. I am hopeful society will no longer have an attachment to myopic experiences; weekend transfers, intraday flights for meetings, quick dip and flip of a house. The pandemic has given us an opportunity to re-evaluate and allow nature to breathe, I believe this should be capitalised upon to spend longer and more valuable time with what you have to hand. I have discovered that my desire to travel further afield has been seriously diminished.

I do miss MHS in the autumn, the colours and hearing all my class mates stories from the Summer!

Serbia, during the first peak of the first wave imposed a curfew from 5pm to 6am in the morning and an all-day curfew during weekends and public holidays. There was a 24h curfew for elderly over the age of 65. No intercity bus and rail travel, cancelation of public transport in the cities, border closing, airports shut down, emergency airlifts for Serbian citizens wishing to return to the country, closing down all stores except grocery, pharmacies and petrol stations, restaurants (only delivery available), cinemas, theatres and such, limiting the number of people present inside stores, mandatory masks inside.

The measures were being eased from the beginning of May. Grocery stores, shopping centres and restaruants gradually opened and even football matches with supporters were held. Not to mention the general election! Shortly after the election, there was a second peak and the government wanted to impose a curfew again which sparked protests and even clashes of protesters and police on the streets of Belgrade and other cities across Serbia.

The government gave up on the curfew but re imposed mandatory masks inside stores, public transport, buses and rail, shopping centres. All stores to close by 9pm, all restaurants and bars to close by 11pm, cinemas and theatres remained closed.

I believe far more testing was needed, the curfew imposed was pointless as during the day parks, favourite walking grounds by the rivers and streets were overflowing with people, and elderly people over the age of 65 were pointlessly closed down 24 hours a day. The curfew impacted on me as I felt trapped and working from home I found demotivating. Personally, I was not impressed and even felt that certain measures were imposed for political gain by the government to exploit in the upcoming general election.

I think a return to normal is only possible if a vaccine is developed. It seems that collective immunity is not possible to achieve as it appears you might be able to catch it again.

I am very keen to return back to normal but it seems that will never be the case. Although the pandemic is making us close down for health reasons, it seems that the recession that will follow will affect us even more.