More difficult times are on the horizon, I wish everyone the best of luck with what may be approaching, which I fear may be worse than what was experienced March/April this year. There is of course hope on the horizon, of vaccines to blunt the spread of the virus, and the likelihood that some aspects of the "system" in which we live will need to be rethought for the better.
Not to make this about politics, but I feel the virus and the resulting tough decisions our leaders have had to make regarding balancing health and life vs economic considerations has revealed a number of big issues in the way we live and work nowadays. For instance, our economy and our lives ave been progressively squeezed into a corner where everything is leveraged to the max, and there is have virtually no slack available to deal with any kind of crisis or unexpected stoppage of any sort. Almost everything and everyone has been made to (and got used to) operate in a state of teetering on the edge of total collapse. Now this killer virus comes along and all that was needed was to shut down almost everything for a month at most, but we couldn't do it properly because the system can't handle not having every singe able bodied person of working age at work 40+ hours per week, or every pound in everybody's pocket being spent on consumerism (OK, I exaggerate). My conclusion is that I hope we learn from all this and rebuild a more human, kinder, yet resilient system with a better work / life / health balance.
I'm v lucky in that I am working and my job can be done from home, and flexibly, but being in the public sector in a non-essential role there is a risk that my contract will be ended early if the government's finances get really bad as a result of lockdowns etc.
