Hellobee

Unfortunately we’re having a record breaking number of covid cases in the Philippines almost every day due to the Delta variant — we’re number 20 in the world in terms of total cases. The country capital area is currently under lockdown, and most flights to our island are canceled except for returning locals. But because we live on a remote island where flights have been limited the entire pandemic and require testing before boarding, we’ve largely been spared from widespread covid here. The Philippines is comprised of over 7000 islands, and I think that’s helped keep covid cases from being much worse. When lockdown started on March 15, 2020 here, who could have predicted the impact covid would continue having on our lives today, a year and a half later?

sunset last night

The vaccine rollout has been very slow here, with limited vaccines going to priority groups like the elderly and immunocompromised. 13% of the Philippines is fully vaccinated and at the rate we are currently vaccinating, we will reach 70% of the population by June 2022. Mr. Bee and I are not in any eligible groups for the vaccine in our town. We purchased Moderna with a group of businesses many months ago through a private clinic, but they still haven’t arrived due to shipment delays and flight cancellations. So we ended up getting the Astrazeneca vaccine last month, only through our connections — most of our friends here are still unvaccinated. We get our second dose of Astrazeneca on October 11th, and then we will head to the US to visit my family. Charlie will turn 12 while we’re there so he will get vaccinated, and hopefully Olive’s age group will be approved as well by January.

the kids help care for our many rescue animals

Life looks like it’s pretty normal in the US, with kids in school, people traveling and going out again. We’ve been under various forms of lockdown the entire pandemic. It’s been strange living on a remote island in pandemic times because most people here have been socializing without masks the entire time. The widespread covid I expected to hit us never came, and those that got covid didn’t get that sick.

This is Wolfie who I rescued at 1-day-old back in March 

We are definitely much more cautious than the average person here, and have socialized only once in the past 6 months. But living on a remote island for the past 6 years has definitely prepared Charlie and Olive for the pandemic era. They are used to staying home, not having much to do, and hanging out with their parents. I think they’ve actually thrived in many ways. Because I cook every meal, they eat more and more variety. They started online homeschool and enjoy learning. They are learning coding and are so into it, they forgot about playing Minecraft. And Olive finally finished the Harry Potter series this weekend!

We will not reopen our business here as we think tourism will take a minimum of 2 years to recover, and that’s being optimistic. We will move back to the US to be closer to my family and that timeline has definitely been moved up due to the pandemic. But it’s hard to make plans for the future because we really don’t know what life will look like a year or two from now. We just have to take it a day at a time.