The Passionate Traveler

  Did this pandemic just come out of the blue? Were there warning signs? Most definitely!   The 1918 flu pandemic - the big one Let’s start from the really big one in 1918 – 1920 – Spanish flu. Killed between 50 and 100 million people. People were dying in such high numbers that they literally stopped counting! This virus started off in a pig farm and then spread from pigs to man.There is some academic debate on if the virus first came from a bird and spread to the pig and then to the farmer, or just from the pig to the farmer. In any case the pig is the pig in the story. This farmer (patient zero) went off to join the army as the USA joined the war very late in the war. The virus then spear like wildfire through the army camps and on teh troop ships bring the soldiers across from the USA to France. There are many lessons which can be learned from the 1918 pandemic and when you look at the mistakes which were then made during that serious pandemic, it is shocking to see that people are

  New way of life - getting tested for Covid-19 (not my photo)   There is no doubt that Covid-19 has caused a disaster in just about every country in the world. As of 10 August 2020, the world has passed 20 million people with confirmed infections. There have been over 734 000 people who have died. Each of these people who have died have left loved ones behind and families and lives have been disrupted. As bad as this is, the cost in human lives is by no means the only effect of this pandemic.  Social fallout - not USA military but civilians!   The economies around the world have taken a terrible blow and will take many years (if not a generation) to recover. The economic impact of this virus could still far out-weight the health impact of the disease with many millions of people out of work and the world economy in ruins. Many small businesses have just not been able to cope with the prolonged lockdown and social distancing rules (some of which are pretty illogical in South Africa). 

Last trip on an A 380 on the long flight from Dubai to Sao Paulo When will we be able to travel again? That is the all important question. The world is in lockdown and many flights have been grounded. For the next hundred year or so, people will be talking about the 2020 global pandemic that crippled the world. We are living through it! This will be studied by microbiologists, sociologists and economists for generations to come. That is, assuming that we survive this! The beautiful Pangolin - believed to have been the host of the virus which spread to man   Yes - of course -  man-kind will survive! After all, the virus which has grounded most of the planes currently has a mortality rate of around 4%. That means that out of every 100 people who get the virus, about 96 of them will survive. Based on the normal processes in the human body, those who survive should have antibodies and these antibodies should be able to prevent people from getting the virus a second time. Mankind is also