Travel hopes still alive

"Fauci said there were a number of promising vaccines in development and that it's about "when and not if" they get positive results. He reiterated his hope that a vaccine could be made available by the end of 2020 or early 2021."

--USA Today (June 23, 2020)

To recapitulate past postings, 2020 was going to be my best travel year ever.  And I live to travel!

For over two years, we had been planning a two-week celebration of my birthday, to be held on the Italian coast in the town of Levanto.  We had two villas rented, with thirty guests planning to attend for one or two weeks.  Immediately following that celebration, my sister and two or three others were joining me for a week of "recuperation" at a rented lake shore house on Lake Como, north of Milan.

I was then to come back to Seattle for six days, and then fly to Glasgow, where I would join a couple of friends for an extremely interesting hike I'd done before in 2011 -- the West Highland Way from Glasgow to Fort William.  Today, I would have completed my eighth day of the hike; I'd be returning to Seattle on Friday.

And then, of course -- although no definitive plans had been made -- I would make my annual visit to my nephew Denny and family in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for two or three weeks in October or November.

These were my plans as of mid-February.  On February 25, I posted "The Plague and I," in nervous response to reports of a severe outbreak of the Covid-19 virus in Lombardy, Italy.   I conceded that the Italian trip was looking a bit "iffy," but expressed a determination to continue with it as planned, if at all possible.  I bravely asserted

I'd rather die from contracting COVID-19 while hiking about the Cinque Terre than die of an aneurysm while watching Fox News at home on television.

Things soon went rapidly downhill, and on March 13, I mailed a notice canceling our rentals to the property agent in Italy. 

But we didn't exactly cancel the rentals -- we agreed to postpone them for exactly one year, until the last two weeks of May 2021.  In mid-March, that seemed quite reasonable; things surely would be back to normal by then.  Within weeks, however, I realized that Covid-19 could be with us for at least a couple of years.  No cure was known.  Not only was there no cure, but no medication was available that could make a serious case less serious.  And epidemiologists were estimating it would be one and a half to two years before a vaccine could be developed, tested, approved, and made widely available.

Early last month, I emailed everyone that I wasn't too optimistic about 2021, but that we'd evaluate the situation in September.  And that's where we stand now.  But predictions of the availability of a vaccine have been increasingly -- if guardedly --optimistic.  As have reports of medications that often alleviate the more serious -- and fatal -- consequences of infection for older victims, and for those with certain underlying conditions.

And today, Dr. Fauci expressed his "hope" that a vaccine might be available before we leave for Italy.

Almost too good to be true -- as it may well be.  But if scientists and drug companies that are working feverishly to develop a vaccine are successful, it would mean that everything I'd hoped for this year could be done in 2021.  And almost all of the folks who had signed up for Levanto this year have expressed a desire to stick with us in 2021.

As I've mentioned to a number of people -- in that gloomy, Eeyore manner that makes me so popular around normal folks -- even if we'd done everything we had planned on this year, by this Friday it would all be over.  We'd have nothing but memories and photographs to show for it.  But now -- maybe everything still lies ahead.  Like thinking you've reached old age, but discovering it was all a dream; you're still only a teenager and have your whole life lying ahead of you.

So Covid-19 might be a blessing in disguise!  Right?  Who knew?
--------------------------------------

Admittedly, this posting is extraordinarily insensitive to the fate of the 480 thousand people of all ages, and especially the elderly, who have already died from Covid-19, and for the many more who have survived but have suffered permanent, debilitating damage to their lungs and other organs.  And to those who have been economically devastated by the pandemic.  And, of course, to those who -- regardless of Covid-19 -- would be unable, physically or financially, to spend their retirement years traveling about the world.

Trump isn't the only narcissist, I guess.  But I've written about hopes and problems that are important in my own life, even though they give illustration to the term "First World Problems."