It certainly is not me. I never understood why people downvoted the competition or photos posted in it and the downvoter never explained. But if you look back over the months, most do have a downvote.

@Daniil Maybe because people disagree with the theme choice?

@Willeke well... I think we've learned our lessons now. People are wearing masks and taking basic precautions

Plus some level of immunity

@Willeke @Daniil I looked through my collection of photos of that market and found a good enough image that isn't graphic. I'll post that one, and link to the full album (with a warning); is that fine?

@gparyani, that will do, very well indeed.

@JonathanReez, do you expect people on holiday in a hot country to wear face masks all the time and be sensible about it when the alcohol flows freely?

@gparyani in that case they should leave a message or come into the chat, if we do not hear what they do not like or do not approve of, we can not change or explain it

@Willeke distancing is effective. Masks help for those occasions when you cannot keep your distance

I would love travel to be open again, but I would first of all want to be sure that opening travel is not going to ruin all we have worked on these last few months.

@Willeke exactly!

I mean, we all know the only full solution is likely to involve vaccines, but along the way we just need to avoid overloading healthcare in each country

And that's the aim of masks/distancing/lockdown

Going from Lockdown to open tourism abroad in the span of a few weeks feels to close together.

We did not have a full lockdown, but the actual rules for most people worked out the same. Only more businesses did not have to close, so more people are still working.

@Willeke I don't expect tourists to be any more sensible than locals. Presumably Spain will only allow bars/restaurants outdoors, where the risk of transmissions is neglibible

hostels will likely be closed. Public transport will have strict enforcement on masks

I think we're now back to the original "don't overload the hospitals" strategy, which makes a lot more sense if you're not an island like New Zealand

and there's no way we would ever hit the original peak any longer, simply because people are more cautious than they were in late Feb/early March

I really really hope that the Oxford vaccine will succeed and our elderly get vaccinated in September, with everyone else vaccinated by January, but... if it doesn't work then we're better off reopening

if we could guarantee a vaccine in September it would of course make sense to wait a little longer

@hippietrail flying from the US to Europe in late June. Not looking forward towards wearing my full face mask for 10 hours without drinking or eating, but excited about flying

@JonathanReez I wore a face mask all the way from Bucharest to Melbourne via Qatar two months ago and it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting.

I'm fully expecting a second wave because too many people don't care, because historically there's not only always a second wave, but the second is always the biggest one, and there's always a third wave too. People will be eager to relive the pressure and won't see anything bad so will let down their guards. Even the first spreading will take two weeks and be tiny at first.

But I'm also very hopeful that we can break the historic repeat this time because we're prepared and know what to do. But leaders will likely be slow to react again though not as slow as last time. It could also get seeded in a lot more smaller centres before anyone notices, from people finally being able to get out of cities they were locked in, without any idea they're carrying it.

@hippietrail I'm planning to wear this monster of a mask

it gets a bit uncomfortable after a few hours

and you can't take it off for even a second or you'll waste all the effort