So this happened today. I was out having a Cold Beer with Peter (sitting by an open door, as always) when an old guy came in and asked if I happened to have a mask. Well, I always have a couple of spare masks in my bag in case of emergency, like if mine breaks, or even for the times I’ve walked out of the house without one on and don’t realise until I’m in the street. So of course I said sure, and gave him one of my extras. And THEN he asked me how much I wanted for it. Like, whaaat? I said it was on the house and that the important thing was that he had one. He thanked me and walked away.
Later it struck me that this was a bit odd because there is (sadly) no longer an indoor mask mandate and I wondered why he needed one. I mean, they are easy enough to find in health centres and pharmacies (where they are still required) and then I wondered if maybe it was to get into a soup kitchen or other help centre since he did look a bit down on his luck. Guess I’ll never know now.
Meanwhile Spain has the dubious honour of reporting the first two deaths in Europe related to monkeypox. The only other one outside of Africa (so far) has been in Brazil. Suddenly it feels like February 2020 all over again.
casa azahar 
I am just numb at this point. I saw a tweet (can’t remember if I retweeted) yesterday involving a sighting on public transit in Madrid of someone with obvious monkeypox lesions on his bare legs, and the Tweeter — I seem to remember it was a medical person — calling him out for being in public, only to be told that “my doctor says it’s okay.” I have to assume 1. mild case 2. probably “resolving,” or he wouldn’t be up to ditty-bopping around town, but we are told clearly that people should isolate at the very least until every lesion is healed over with fresh skin, so I don’t know what anyone is even doing here.
And we’re a few weeks away from kids going back to school and rubbing all over each other like the wretched little Petri dishes that they are, and therefore we are so fucked. I’ve also seen a Twitter account of a massage therapist showing symptoms, almost certainly exposed while working, but not being able to get a test (this is California) because she wasn’t a gay man or someone who could report multiple sex partners. What the actual fuck. So that’s me out of work for a while longer even if people would take Covid seriously.
LikeLike
That guy in Madrid clearly should not have been on the metro inches away from everyone else. Or even out of the house. It really made me sick that the initial reportings on monkeypox stated it was a “gay thing”, just like HIV. It’s not just that it seems we haven’t learned anything in the past 2.5 years, it seems people have become even stupider and more selfish, if that’s possible.
I still can’t get a second covid booster here because I’m not over 80. And there are no monkeypox vaccines available yet. As you know, I’ve shut down for the summer while holiday makers spread B5 all over the fucking place. At this point I’m actually not sure if or when I’ll be able to start doing my tours again.
LikeLike