Coronavirus and how it affects ME

     I will be writing about the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and how it is affecting not only Portugal, but how it is affecting me and my life. So far, worldwide, there are 164,837 cases and 6,470 deaths. These numbers are growing exponentially every day.

​Portugal

   Yesterday, in Portugal, there were 41 cases, today I woke up to 112 cases. The only thing that they show on the Portuguese news, (and probably all of the news) is the coronavirus. But compared to other countries, Portugal has it easy. France and Spain have both tripled their cases and Italy’s a mess. But enough about other countries, we’re talking about Portugal. Most major cities (Lisboa, Porto, Braga, etc…) here have the majority of the cases. We’ve been to most of the major cities here before the cases appeared, so I think we’re good. Currently, there have been no deaths from the COVID-19 in Portugal, but that might change at any moment.

If you would like to keep up to date with how many cases the world has please click here. It’s a really reliable source and it uses sources from all around the world. It is the World Health Organization (WHO).

My life 

  So, the coronavirus is simply completely obliterating our plans for this trip. My parents say that we are not going to any other country besides Portugal, we’re not going to any more football matches, and we can’t go to any major cities.

​Worst of all, we’re staying here in Ponte de Barca where there was an amazing football pitch that we played for hours on, each day. Yesterday, though, we were playing 3 on 3 with some Portuguese boys, when these two officials walked up to us and said something in Portuguese to the boys. The boys motioned for us to come off the pitch and said, “Coronavirus.” Today Sol and I went to check on the pitch. The doors are locked. We’ll try to find another pitch. 

   I guess that we’re not going anywhere. We can’t come back to Canada without being in quarantine, and the airports are sketchy. At least, at the place where we’re staying, we have wifi.

   We have rented a car for 15 more days so we can explore the surrounding area a bit better. Probably more hikes and churches. Last time we rented a BMW and had fun with that. The roads here are really windy so we can’t go super fast, as there are cliffs on the side as well.

   Anyway, I just feel that we’ve seen Portugal already and I’m ready to leave, but now we can’t. In Spain, it is actually against the law to cycle. I’m really disappointed because this is a once in a lifetime experience, that has just been ruined. Yes, we still have Portugal, but it will become just like the other countries. 

conclusion

   Portugal is doing okay, compared to other countries. It has been growing a lot in the past few days, but is still under a thousand. We’re stuck in Portugal until further notice. The coronavirus has annihilated our trip. We’ve rented a car to see the area, and I would like to leave Portugal, however we can’t. This virus is taking so many lives. I sincerely hope that they find a cure.

PS: Just for comparison, I've written out a fraction for you to see how many people are infected versus how many people there are in the world. I've done some calculations and the percentage of the people in the world with coronavirus is 0.002%.