Banking - no longer a land of milk of honey

The end of month. My employer, affected by several adverse external factors (the pandemic, low interest rates, excess liquidity on the market) in a pursuit of cost savings and switching into more automated solutions, is conducting lay-offs. The last day of a month are chosen to hand in notices, to shorten misery of those made redundant and minimise their payroll and severance packages. The laid-off will have it uphill in terms of finding a job in financial sector in which headcount is on decline. Those who are kept in have few reasons to be cheerful, since efficiency per employee must rise and automation of processes does not apply to those whose work is not repeatable.

The style of work in banking no longer resembles residing in a land of milk and honey. Before the financial crisis bankers would do overtime more or less often and received sky-high financial rewards. Today toiling away has become less spectacular, more mundane. To blame is the growing extent of regulation the industry is subject to. On one hand I praise measures put in place to prevent a financial collapse witnessed in 2008, on the other I grit my teeth when I focus on ticking off fulfilling requirements from regulators instead of concentrating on sheer analytical work. The burden of regulations generates additional costs to the industry, which additionally faces competitive pressure on revenue side.

If I were to change a job, a transfer within the banking industry makes no sense. All banks are under the same pressure, room for salary increase is limited given my earnings. I do not slog like a dog and have established myself a reputation with my workmates. Benefits of changing a job would not make up for starting building my value from scratch. The only option is hence to move outside the banking industry.

What could persuade me to change a job? At the present I do long yearn for more money, albeit with a prospect of raising a family and wanting to buy or build a house, dough would come in handy. The new occupation would have to let me develop my competencies and not be repetitive. It ought to be challenging, yet not stressful. I would love to feel what I do matters, which seems a rarity, if one works as a clog in a corporate machine. Besides, balance between time spent at work and private life is of profound importance to me.

A few years ago I thought I would find it hard to come up with the idea of what to do in life, if I had a plenty of assets and could live off the income they produce. Today, as I have grown mature, I realise I would spend my time and energy on charity or / and on semi-political or expert organisations, to strive for a better tomorrow. This would sadly likely bring letdowns similar to what I have experienced with Szlachetna Paczka.

Pandemic diary – weeks 48 & 49

Monday, 8 February 2021
I wholeheartedly recommend the film, whose title can literally translated as “The sharp (or acute) shadow of a fog” to anyone interested in malfunctioning of medical rescue services in the pandemic.

Tuesday, 9 February 2021
The Polish Ministry of Health publishes a report on excess deaths in 2020, examines numbers and… draws little conclusions. Upon making allowance for demographic trends, Poland witnessed around 62,000 excess deaths in 2020. As the report says, the coronavirus is the predominant cause of majority of premature deceases. But it fails to mention lack of access to medical aid as the second major cause of increased mortality.

Wednesday, 10 February 2021
I pick up a parcel containing 25 FFP2 masks. If things countrywide get worse, I will pass some of them to my parents for use before they get vaccinated twice, some will be left for myself, in case the Polish government proscribes use of such masks in selected public spaces, as their German or Austrian counterparts did.

Thursday, 11 February 2021
New cases rise week-on-week by 8%, the 7-day moving average has reversed into the uptrend. Steepness of the imminent incline remains in the realm of the unknown. I bet as long as schools are not further reopened, the pandemic is not going to explode.

Friday, 12 February 2021
Czech Republic is the first large (above 10,000,000 citizens) country in which 10% of the entire population have been officially tested positive. Given several times more have surely not been detected, the country ought to be moving towards herd immunity. In theory; in practice the pandemic does not slow down.

Saturday, 13 February 2021
More and more medical pundits assert the vaccine will not bring us back to normalcy, as those vaccinated will be reasonably protected against death, critical hazard to health of complications from the virus, but may still transmit to others. Preliminary results from Israel indicate the vaccine also reduces transmission, yet those conclusions need to be approached with caution.

Sunday, 14 February 2021
The percentage of the UK variant in countries such as Germany, Denmark and France is rising. In Poland, sequencing based on a small sample indicates in Poland it accounts for less than 10% of infections.

Monday, 15 February 2021
The state of emergency is eventually extended in Czech Republic. This will save hundreds of lives, but the humanity will not wintess results of an experiment, which might, but was not poised to be tragic.

Tuesday, 16 February 2021
Pictures of Poles partying at the streets of Zakopane over the last weekend prove my compatriots behave like cattle freed out of a cage.

Wednesday, 17 February 2021
Covid-19 death meter hits 500,000 in the United States, but is bound to slow down. Pace of vaccination programme is impressive and the number of new infection has been on substantial decline for 5 weeks now.

Thursday, 18 February 2021
The February / March 2021 wave will likely be smaller than the October / November 2020 wave. The number of people with antibodies is probably between 5 and 10 million, most of them are the most active. Plus we have nearly a million of fully vaccinated citizens. On the other hand we have a starting point 10 times higher than in September 2020. Thanks to ongoing vaccinations it will hopefully be less deadly.

Friday, 19 February 2021
The Polish government intends to crack down on use of face visors, scarves and other clothing as face covering. Face masks will be the only legitimate way of covering nose and mouth. The actual problem is that the current regulations are not enforced and an increasing number of people do not give a damn about proper face covering.

Saturday, 20 February 2021
Week-on-week growth in the number of new infections in recent days:
- Tuesday: +27.7%,
- Wednesday: +25.4%,
- Thursday: +29.4%,
- Friday: +37.6%,
- Saturday (today): +29.2%.

Twitter

My New Year’s resolution for 2021 was to set up an account on Twitter. I report I did so on 6 January 2021.

I confess to have had ambitions to become an influencer for years. In recent months they have given way to an unhealthy inclination to root out all the evil in the world and a predilection to engage in discussions with people and institutions followed by thousands of Twitter users. I also wanted to vent my anger with current goings-on, so that my voice became audible.

Just like with blogging, I am constrained by my profession. Several weeks ago a CEO of a large company being a client of my employer made a nasty remark on my profile picture on facebook. The chap is known for his pro-life views, while my profile picture reflected my pro-choice stance. I kindly rebutted his conversation starter by underlining my private views were not the subject of our business call. It worked and the conversation had absolutely no echoes in the organisation, yet reminded me I ought to preserve my anonymity.

After a weeks of presence on Twitter, I have the following observations:
- quickness of reaction does matter – if you want to reply wittily to someone’s tweet, you have less than one minute to invent, type and publish it; otherwise someone else will come up with the same thought,
- the application is a veritable time-suck,
- reputable users with thousands of followers just send tweets and let things drift, i.e. do not engage in discussions in comment threads to their tweets,
- wise people usually do not spend time online sharing their wisdom, but cretins have plenty of time and energy to show off their stupidity.

Tweeter has reminded me of an old Polish adage: Nie dyskutuj z idiotą. Najpierw sprowadzi dyskusję do swojego poziomu, a potem pokona doświadczeniem. Or the meme to the right. It also brought back memories of clashes with fellows of Toyah on his blog a decade ago. Ten years have passed but the rhetoric of trolls has not evolved much.

In my futile mission to save the world I wished to crack down on the most harmful group of trolls quite numerous these days, i.e. anti-vaxxers. Predictably, it just ended up with dead-end polemics with fools. I wonder who has a vested interest in widespread activity in anti-vaccination campaigning. The answer that it could be tracked down to Russia does not hold water, as Russians have produced their own vaccine, therefore painting the picture of death-causing vaccines makes no sense.

The eye-popping activity of anti-vaxxers has also prompted me to rethink my views of freedom of speech and censorship. Does somebody who espouses crossing an intersection on red light, claims drunk-driving is ok or praises benefits of domestic violence in fostering family relationships deserve to be deprived of their right to share their views? Should we count on collective wisdom of people who ought to recognise scribble put out by a downright idiot or should be ban harmful content on the Internet?

Moreover, I grow on an idea of giving up social media entirely. Just to evade loads of rubbsih out there and to save my nerves which I can't help fraying. 

By the way, it has been nearly 12 years since my first post on the blog... 

Pandemic diary – weeks 46 & 47

Monday, 25 January 2021
100,000,000 case of COVID-19 have been reported worldwide. This is just an official number of diagnosed infections, nobody knows how many people have been infected. I presume around half a billion.

Tuesday, 26 January 2021
Several European countries witness protests of citizens and entrepreneurs against restrictions. After nearly one year since the onset of the pandemic and four months into the second wave, everybody seems to be fed up with lockdown, whose safety measures are disproportionally higher amid fears of the so-called UK variant. In Poland thousands of businesses have reopened, since their owners have not received adequate aid from the government. I do not blame them. The restrictions are illegal, since they have been imposed with violation of the constitution, besides relief packages are patchy and several businessmen have not been eligible for taxpayers’ money. I blame those who are their clients and contribute to spread of the disease.

Wednesday, 27 January 2021
Note the proportion between the seven-day trailing average number of new infections and the seven-day trailing average number of new deaths two weeks later. In November 2020 it ran at around 2%, these days it reaches 3%. This is put down to age profile of the infected (aftermath of year-end family gatherings) and attempts to cure the disease at home instead of starting a serious treatment early.

Thursday, 28 January 2021
I suppose the downward trend of the waning second wave in Poland has just reached its bottom. Over the last 2 days the week-on-week numbers of new infections have been flat. I believe the trend is inevitable reverse due to: schools reopening for the youngest pupils, the Kent variant and reopening of frozen-up industries.

Friday, 29 January 2021
One needs to bear in mind the pace of vaccinations in 1Q2021 will predominantly hinge upon deliveries of the vaccine by big pharma corporations. Currently announcements of delayed orders become the daily bread, sadly. Hope the process speeds up, once deliveries go up and I hope it happens in less than 3 months.

Saturday, 30 January 2021
In 2020 Poland reported the second highest (after Bulgaria) number of excess deaths per 1 million citizens in the EU. Even countries heavily afflicted by the virus as Spain, Italy, Belgium, Czech Republic could boast of less tragic figures. The dreadful stats, generated merely in 4Q2020 are an aftermath of virtually defunct Polish health service which virtually stopped giving to those ill with something else than COVID-19 or insufficient testing (not detecting the virus before a decease).

Sunday, 31 January 2021
We can boast knowing quite a lot about Pfizer / BioNTech vaccinations. We know the first does is less effective (50% vs. anticipated 60%), but alleviates symptoms in case of an infection. First figures from Israel show the second dose seems more effective than anticipated 95% and those few patients infected more than a week after being administered a second dose showed mild symptoms. Those news are heartening.

Monday, 1 February 2021
Next deliveries of vaccines to the EU are whittled down. The Polish government keeps declaring it will not reschedule vaccinations for elderly people already registered. Time will tell…

Tuesday, 2 February 2021
Mass reopening of locked down businesses and ongoing mess about legitimacy of restrictions have prompted me to prepare a matrix which allows to assess a risk of infection in a specific place, given 5 factors which contribute to transmission of the virus. A food for thought to everyone in a country whose government fails to communicate with citizens.

Wednesday, 3 February 2021
By today 1 in 1,000 Polish citizens has officially died from COVID-19.

Thursday, 4 February 2021
Let’s look back into November 2020:
- 7-day moving average of new infections peaked at 25,611 on 11 November 2020,
- 7-day moving average of new deaths peaked at 506 on 25 November 2020,
which translates into mortality of 1.98%.
Now look at recent figures:
- 7-day moving average of new infections on 21 January 2021 was 6,183,
- 7-day moving average of new deaths on 4 February 2021 was 271,
which translates into mortality of 4.38%.
And note in November hospitals were much more overwhelmed than these days.
Two plausible explanations are:
- higher average age of patients (aftermath of family gatherings around Christmas),
- too long treatment at home, meaning patients call for medical aid when the infection is in advanced stage.

Friday, 5 February 2021
The Polish government loosens more restrictions: hotels, ski slopes, swimming pools, outdoor sport facilities, theatres and cinema will be allowed to open on 12 February 2021. Restaurants, gyms and schools have to wait. This squares with my matrix (see above).

Saturday, 6 February 2021
I do not concede the lockdown lifting decision made yesterday an informed one. The government does not track the spread of the UK variant which becomes dominant in several European countries. Without insight into that variable, the economy reopening is done blindfold.

Warming, warning!

Gone is the second decade of the twenty-first century. Time for summaries for weather / climate freaks. Climatologists use a 30-year window as a reference period, therefore with the advent of 2021, the 1981-2010 benchmark period gives way to 1991-2020 window. I hence take the opportunity to run some comparisons of average temperatures in Warsaw measured across decades.

I rely on official, publicly available weather data for Warsaw for years 1951-2020 and for earlier period, on a spreadsheet which I downloaded back in 2010 from a NASA website, but could not restore the link. The database I had come by then traces back to 1881, however lacks measurements from years between 1938 and 1950, hence the analysis is a bit patchy.

The first chart shows how average temperatures in specific months rose in last three 30-year reference periods. The trend of rising temperatures is clearly visible, with the average temperature going up by around 1 Celsius degree, comparing 1991-2020 to 1971-2020 average.

The second chart illustrates average yearly temperatures in 30-year periods. One clearly sees the 1961-1990 period was not warmer than 1881-1910, but the heating-up process actually began in 1990s and accelerated in the current century.

The third graph shows even more vividly the growth of average yearly temperatures decade by decade. I firstly took 30 years for temperatures to grow by 1 Celsius degree, but then the pace accelerated to alarming 10 years per 1 Celsius degree.

On the fourth graph you can clearly see the mean monthly temperatures have not risen markedly between the 1881-1910 and 1951-1980 reference periods, which means temperature growth was observable, yet its pace was not upsetting.

But the fifth graph compares two reference periods which are only 40 years apart (vs. 70 years apart on the fourth graph) and here the difference is clearly visible and reaches 2 Celsius degrees in some winter and summer months.

The last, sixth graph shows the change of mean monthly temperatures in Warsaw in 30-year periods which are a century apart. Oddly enough, the difference is in some months lesser than on the fifth graph (1960s and 1970s are said to be a temporarily colder period on Poland with frosty winters and inclement summers), but I draw your attention to how the gap is spread. Average temperatures rose markedly (nearly 2 Celsius degrees) in winter and summer months, while in late spring and early autumn months, the scale of warming is visibly smaller (less than 1 Celsius degree). I wonder what the factors behind such tendencies are.

In this note, I have attempted to provide you with some raw data, with scant purely statistical commentary. Conclusions should you draw yourselves!

Pandemic diary – weeks 44 & 45

Monday, 11 January 2021
Scarce number of vaccinations over the weekend (on average 2,000 doses per day) and reopening schools for the youngest pupils stir up the atmosphere. With such approach tackling the third wave will be more difficult. Majority of health service workers will not be immune by the time the virus spreads more rapidly.

Tuesday, 12 January 2021
Controversies regarding ways to register for a vaccination arise. From the coming Friday any person aged 80 or older will be able to sign up for a vaccination, either in a health centre, or through a helpline or via online patient account.
The problem is that health centres do not let people in, unless they have an appointment, while phone lines are congested.
The government’s helpline is likely to be congested (too many people trying to get through, too few consultants).
The only system which stands a chance of not crashing (or at least of being recovered at the dead of night) is the online patient account, which I do not find a piece of cake, let alone an elderly, scared person.

Wednesday, 13 January 2021
One positive tendency is the declining percentage of positive results. I wonder how come Poland is escaping the third wave. Even the Christmas gatherings and New Year celebrations seem to have not had a meaningful impact on new infections.

Thursday, 14 January 2021
The COVID-19 death meter hits 2,000,000. Those have been just officially registered deaths.

Friday, 15 January 2021
Registration for vaccinations for 80+ people commences. The system crashes for a while. Within first 36 hours 280,000 people (80+) register, over 1 million of young ones, including me, sign up as interested.

Saturday, 16 January 2021
Pfizer reports deliveries of vaccines to Europe will be diminished for a while, in order to boost capacity of its Belgian plant. This will impact the schedule of vaccination in Poland in 1Q2021.

Sunday, 17 January 2021
Today first people vaccinated in Poland three weeks ago receive the second dose. In a week they will be considered immune.
For the public it passes unnoticed, but a case of reinfection (6 November 2020 first positive test, 17 January 2021 second positive test, 4 January 2021 first dose of vaccine administered) is reported. This makes sad news.

Monday, 18 January 2021
Today the youngest children go back to school. Not a full-blown school opening as in early September, yet this will contribute to an increase in new infections in February.

Tuesday, 19 January 2021
For the first time since more than three months, the daily percentage of positive test results declines below 10% (to 9.98%). One swallow does not make a summer, but since many days the percentage is below 20%, a major progress since times when it ran at 40%.

Wednesday, 20 January 2021
The recent cold blast has contributed to considerable air pollution coming mostly from intense dwelling heating. Scientists claim smog can contribute to their death toll from COVID-19.

Thursday, 21 January 2021
The UK variant is officially detected in Poland. This neither impresses nor disturbs me. It has been here for several weeks, but due to restrictions has not spread significantly.

Friday, 22 January 2021,
Foresight bears fruits. With use of profil zaufany, I register my parents for a vaccination. On 10 March 2021 I have to drive them to Grójec (not a free slot in Warsaw and around by the end of March) for the first dose. A compulsory two-week self-quarantine also in the offing.

Saturday, 23 January 2021
Exactly a year ago the Chinese city of Wuhan was put on a stringent lockdown. Today the hotbed of the virus functions quite normally, while nearly the rest of the world struggles the pandemic.

Break-up & make-up

I have promised to write a longer post the break-up between my girlfriend and I. In the meantime the topic has been rendered outdated. We have decided to give ourselves a second try.

The decision wasn’t mine and I was not the one to reach out for the attempt to make up. At times I wonder whether such decisions as a matter of principle ought to be reversed, but I also keep in mind a Polish saying which says only a donkey doesn’t change their mind.

Crises hammer nails to coffins of weak relationships and solidify strong relationships. For the time being the relationship has proven strong.

We can draw on the first four good months, over which we have not quarrelled even once, we had mutual respect and seemed to be a perfect match. What went wrong then? To cut a long story short, this is not the right time for the diagnosis, as many questions are still being slowly answered.

As in case of each relationship crisis, two parties are always to blame (and I’m not about to quote a joke which says those are wife and mother-in-law). I need to work on myself and comprehend which of my traits had to be eradicated if I am to live under one roof with any woman and which are neutral and if are picked on, it is her fault, not mine.

I cannot pledge I feel a relief. There is fear of what future holds and uncertainty whether the relationship survives. Finally, I hold dear the universal tenet that upsides of a virus might prevail of downsides.

The pandemic and consequent isolation also change the perspective. Before the break-up was reversed, I had to carry on in absolute isolation, could not do what people used to do to get over in such situation. All forms of socialising were considered irresponsible. I believe, brushing aside the time necessary to get over, I would not reinstall Tinder for several weeks, because of the pandemic (when I was using it, the daily number of new inflection was never higher than 800).

I hereby for the record thank my friends: Kasia, Agnieszka, Marcin and Bartek who have spent hours on the phone keeping my company in that difficult time. Although they will not read it, they realise how grateful I am to them.

Pandemic diary – weeks 42 & 43

Monday, 28 December 2020
First representatives of medical staff were vaccinated in Poland yesterday. This marks a milestone in a fight against the pandemic, a symbolic one, but we are far from a breakthrough.

Tuesday, 29 December 2020
Now a little bit of pure maths, after 14,000 first doses of vaccine have been administered in Poland. If 100,000 jabs are given each day, it means 50,000 get immunity each day. Assuming optimistically that first people get immune to the virus 28 days after the first dose, or at the end of January 2021 and the process goes smoothly, 16.5 million Poles will have been vaccinated by the end of 2021. This too little for herd immunity to work.

Wednesday, 30 December 2020
The problem of children stranded at homes (they are unlawfully banned from moving about between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on weekdays), devoid of contact with peers, sick and tired of online learning, is getting more and more attention. Physical and mental health of youngsters has been wrecked by the quarantine.

Thursday, 31 December 2020
I thoroughly recommend watching this film to anyone interested in Polish politics. In its simplicity is masterfully depicts how badly my country has been run before and in the pandemic.

Friday, 1 January 2021
The illegal curfew was a calm period. The night was more silent than any usual night. Nevertheless, those who wanted to party stayed the night where they celebrated the beginning of 2021.

Saturday, 2 January 2021
Just for the record, yesterday my girlfriend and I broke up (actually she has taken that decision) – break-up during the pandemic means you act responsibly, you cannot take comfort in your friends, family, go and meet people, socialise and do other things which in normal times help people overcome their sorrow. More on it in a separate post, once I cool off.

Sunday, 3 January 2021
The first scandal of the new year is that some celebrities have been given a first dose of the vaccine, despite not being eligible for it (they had been told they would promote the vaccinations). My take on it is simple: vaccines must not go to waste. The other story is a lack of transparency in selecting candidates to be given the doses which cannot go to waste.

Monday, 4 January 2021
A short note on statistics – the reason why the number of total cases is underestimated is that once one member of a household is tested positive, all other, usually infected symptomatically, are quarantined. Ordered to stay at homes 7 days longer than the infected, they do not spread the virus, but are not included in the statistics.

Tuesday, 5 January 2021
The UK goes into full lockdown and on its first day registers nearly 61,000 new infections, which means 1 in 1,100 citizens is tested positive on this day. This is not a record-breaking figure yet. On 31 December 2020 in Czech Republic 1 in 628 citizens was tested positive.

Wednesday, 6 January 2021
The Czech Republic beats the aforementioned record and reports 1 in 620 citizens to be tested positive yesterday. This is an equivalent of 61,000 daily new infections in Poland, a figure never reported, yet conceivable to have occurred in early November 2020.

Thursday, 7 January 2021
As the minister of health says, social mobility during Christmas and New Year’s Eve / Day was as high as in summer of 2020. This should be reflected in the figures…

Friday, 8 January 2021,
The statistics in Poland do not indicate as a nation we have failed the exam in responsibility in terms of celebrating Yuletide. Two weeks have elapsed since social gatherings took place and the number of new infections is not markedly higher, as I feared it would be.

Saturday, 9 January 2021
The number of tests (carried out since the onset of the pandemic) per 1,000,000 citizens in Poland hit 200,000. My homeland ranks 26th out of 27 EU countries (Bulgaria keeps holding the last position and takes no effort to step up testing).
In comparison to other EU countries (with population exceeding 1,000,000):
- Denmark has tested every citizens nearly twice,
- the United Kingdom has tested once 86.5% of its population,
- Lithuania has tested 64% of its population,
- Spain has tested 59% of its population,
- Germany has tested 42% of its population,
- Czech Republic has tested 37% of its population,
- Hungary (with overtook Poland on 25 November 2020) has tested 29% of its population.
The gap in testing between Poland and other EU countries keep growing, despite larger number of tests in recent days.

2020 finally is over

Customarily, turn of the year is a time for summaries, a time to have a look at the quirkiest year in the lifetime of probably all readers.

The hottest topic in 2020, which dominated news headlines and turned lives of all of us upside down was the COVID-19 pandemic. As it was approaching the gates of Poland (officially, since I believe the first cases were active before 4 March 2020), I named it a classic example of a black swan. At first, we feared the unknown. That resulted in strict social discipline, which, with time and growing fatigue with restrictions, soon waned. We have learnt to live with the awareness of the virus and have developed the ability to shrug it off. The loosened approach to the allegedly retreating virus was, predictably, one of major causes why the second wave was in Poland quite deadly, but has taught us little anyway. To save those bleak days for posterity, I have kept records of the pandemic in a form of a diary (currently published in bi-weekly intervals) and will continue until the vaccines hopefully help take the strain off the health service and bring us back to normalcy.

In the personal life, this was the year I got familiar with Tinder. After 10 failed attempts I found a girlfriend, yet the relationship ended on New Year’s Day. A water to the mill to those who claim on Tinder you can mostly find people who have problems with personality. This is a topic for a separate insightful post, due in two weeks. I believe the break-up and all events in the run-up to it deserve to be put into perspective. Too early to write about it when emotions are running high.

Despite the pandemic, I had decided to get involved in charity. My zeal was quickly dampened and participation as a volunteer ended up with frustration and a grudge. Nevertheless, I still do not rule out I sign up for it this year, but only if the pandemic eases.

Home office, which by 11 March 2020 was an occasional privilege, has become the order (or rather ordeal) of the day (not a single day spent in the office since then). I have no problems with efficiency, focusing on work, ergonomics (I have invested in a top-of-the range chair) nor with separating private and work time. But I do miss direct contact with people and I am sick of staying all the time at home (there was a time when I slept at my girlfriend’s place and came home to work only which gave some relief) which no longer is an asylum and a place of rest. My employer has already told me after the pandemic is gone, I will work 2 days in office, 3 days at home. This looks like the first and foremost reason to look for a new job, which would give flexibility, instead of forcing me to stay at home to bring savings to my employer.

In 2020 I wrote little about politics, especially I have not mentioned my participation in the anti-government march in Warsaw on 30 October 2020, which was attended by approximately 100,000 participants, but just like open-air protests with face masks, has not contributed to increase in COVID-19 spread rate.

My outlook for 2021? The first milestone, whose date remains unknown would be the day four weeks after my parents are vaccinated. The fear of their mental and physical health will be then gone and I will not have to choose between meeting people and visiting them which was the case over the entire 4Q2020 (I had to fork out some cash for a PCR test before Christmas). As the pandemic eases and after I get over the post break-up trauma, I will need to resume the lookout a life companion, which in practice means the Tinder experience will start over.

And I hope by the end of 2021 I also get vaccinated. I will do that:
- out of care and responsibility of those whose life or health is at particular peril,
- to help those who cannot run their businesses, lost their job, income or wealth because of the pandemic,
- to accelerate the recovery of people whose mental or physical health has worsened on account of the virus.

Pandemic diary – weeks 40 & 41

Monday, 14 December 2020
After the final weekend of Szlachetna Paczka, I will redirect you to another post, where I dedicate a separate paragraph to how it was handled amid the epidemic.

Tuesday, 15 December 2020
I met my former workmate. She and her family went through COVID-19 (and were tested) in October. Fortunately, none of them suffered from complication. Now she proudly holds antibodies and lives with all inconveniences of the daily grind, but without a fear of getting infected nor infecting somebody for a while.

Wednesday, 16 December 2020
Looking at how people are relaxed about the sanitary regime, I fear Christmas gatherings will result in excess funerals in January. After my exposure to around ten of my volunteers without face masks during the Szlachetna Paczka final weekend, I decide to get myself tested (PCR test) before visiting my parents.

Thursday, 17 December 2020
All of a sudden, the government announces a Narodowa Kwarantanna (by no means a legal term) in effect from 28 December to 17 January. Worth noting that:
- scope of restrictions differs from the one set forth in early November, in particular no limitations in moving about, except for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, are envisaged,
- the full lockdown was to be introduced if seven-day trailing average number of daily new infections was in excess of 27,000, while today it officially runs at 11,000,
- all restrictions are illegally imposed with a decree (rozporządzenie) rather than with a bill (ustawa).

Friday, 18 December 2020
Over the recent days one could hear rumours that doctors and medical staff do not rush to sign up for vaccinations against COVID-19, which are due to start before the end of the year. Three of my primary-school or high-school friends declare they will aim to get vaccinated possibly soon.

Saturday, 19 December 2020
I grow tired of hearing of deaths from COVID-19, not of people I have personally known, but of my friends’ friends, my family’s relatives etc. But I must not escape it mentally. The virus is around, it continues to be a deadly peril, one must not shrug it off.

Sunday, 20 December 2020
The “new variant” of the virus which has been detected in the UK and transmits more rapidly emerges as a yet another reason for concern. Is another, far more horrific phase in the offing?

Monday, 21 December 2020
Despite markedly lower number of new infections, death toll remains high (only some 25% lower than 3 weeks ago, while new infections declined by 60%). Doctors say people report to doctors with symptoms of COVID-19 too late, are not tested (which accelerates admission to hospitals), land in hospital ward too late, which decreases their chances to survive.

Tuesday, 22 December 2020
I get myself tested voluntarily, to ensure safe Christmas, especially after the final weekend of Szlachetna Paczka. The experience of being examined by people looking like astronauts is somewhat quirky. The very process of swabbing (for a genetic, reliable test, preceded by six days of nearly full self-isolation) is not as unpleasant as some people describe, yet I immediately came into tears and felt like throwing up.

Wednesday, 23 December 2020
Those who meet at Christmas tables (hopefully in possibly small circles) will have yet another reason for quarrelling – approach to the virus and preventive measures taken has emerged as another divide line in the society. With a negative results of the test performed yesterday, I set off to my parents. Since early October I met with them two times only, to protect them.

Thursday, 24 December 2020 – Saturday, 26 December 2020
The time of peace, serenity, scant testing and not thinking about the virus. Hopefully after Christmas we will turn over a new leaf in our fight against the pandemic.