{"id":2072,"date":"2020-11-26T20:50:53","date_gmt":"2020-11-26T19:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/transitophile.com\/chango\/?p=2072"},"modified":"2020-11-26T20:50:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-26T19:50:53","slug":"madrid-spain-life-mid-covid-19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/transitophile.com\/chango\/madrid-spain-life-mid-covid-19-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Madrid Mid-Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ironically, the Madrid Metro I ride during the pandemic is the best I have used since my move here in 2016. Some travelers fear the subway now, have sought alternatives. Public transit ridership in Spain fell forty percent<\/a> this summer; sales of polluting old cars rose. I reap a dividend: the commuter now gridlocked on Paseo de la Castellana in his third hand boneshaker no longer crowds my shoulders or exhales in my air space on the 2 or the 5. I’ve never had it so good.<\/p>\n

Not everyone agrees. Sufridores del Metro<\/a> (which I’ll bet you can translate without my help) overflows with gruesome images of jammed trains, peak hour queues to access aforo limitado<\/em><\/a> platforms, LCD screens reporting scandalous-by-Madrid-standards<\/a> service delays. I haven’t seen such conditions, presume that fuming passengers post worst case examples, but \u00bfqu\u00e9 s\u00e9 yo?<\/em> I rarely ride at rush hour. Sufridores<\/em> may know better than me.<\/p>\n

\"Avenida<\/a>
Avenida de Am\u00e9rica station at height of quarantine, 03-29-2020 | | CC BY-SA 4.0 by Nemo<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I can offer only personal impressions. A metro car with ten standees seems crowded now.<\/p>\n

The Community of Madrid required<\/a> masks here in late July. Almost all pedestrians wear them, at least in my Plaza de Espa\u00f1a neighborhood. In the metro, ‘almost all’ becomes ‘virtually all,’ infants excluded. I remember one maskless teenager who held his sweater over his mouth through a half-dozen stops on the southbound 10, and a couple of bleary-eyed drunks who boarded the 3 barefaced a few weeks ago. Those are the only exceptions that come to mind. Thousands have viewed a recorded confrontation<\/a> between an unseen mask holdout and an enraged fellow rider. “My uncle died of Covid,” she shouts. “You aren’t riding alone!”<\/p>\n

FFP2 masks — the European near-equivalent<\/a> to N95 — are readily available now. The community of Madrid has given away millions<\/a> to Spain citizens. My neighborhood pharmacies have them in stock, will sell them for about three euros apiece. They’re not as comfortable as the lightweight blue surgical masks, but I always wear one in the metro. Always. If I’ve forgotten to bring an FFP2, I’ll buy a package or walk.<\/p>\n

\"Madrid<\/a>
VP Igancio Aguado with mask\/gel vending machine | CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, Comunidad de Madrid<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In mid-October I splurged for a Covid-19 antibodies blood test. 70\u20ac from arpam\u00e9dica<\/a> (now 75\u20ac), the ELISA type. Results online in a couple of days. I had hoped that I’d test positive. I might have presumed then that I’d already been exposed, am asymptomatic, could let down my guard a bit.<\/p>\n

No such luck. The test said that my body knew nothing of the virus, despite my straphanging ways. I can’t take anything for granted, have to keep taking precautions. I don’t yen for an ambulance ride to the ICU.<\/p>\n

First-hand Covid accounts drift in, personal stories. L. was the first conocido<\/em> to get it. He’d hoped to escape to Spain’s north when the pandemic struck, but was felled by the virus before he could leave. Sick as a dog for a week, he reported, and then headaches for a week afterward. His brother got it, too, likely from him. Then S.: shocking to me, given her youth and fitness, a wake-up call. Trim, thirty-something S.: she’d spent two full weeks in the hospital, courtesy of Covid.<\/p>\n

Other stories, too many. A middle-aged manic depressive shares with breaking voice that he lost his mother to Covid in April, his protector of last resort. A fellow expat was an unlucky long-hauler, still too weak months after infection to walk more than five minutes. A language buff (attracted to a life in France for neither the culture nor the cuisine, but because [I kid you not] she is fascinated by advanced French grammar rules<\/em><\/strong>) was unlucky enough to land in a hospital as virus stats skyrocketed. The ward filled rapidly with victims; administrators designated the site Covid-only, sent her home in an ambulance.<\/p>\n

\"Calle<\/a>
\u00a0C\/Preciados at height of quarantine | CC BY-SA 4.0 by Nemo<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I muse wistfully about the fanciful notions I’d occasionally had about the virus in early March: that the story had been overblown, hyped out of proportion. Ah, for those naive early pandemic days! It would be a challenge today to so delude myself. Could QAnon’s Satan-worshipping Democrat pedophiles have bribed my chums to make up their Covid stories? Perhaps the hospitals aren’t crowded at all; co-conspirator doctors may shoot craps in the deserted halls, debauch with nurses.<\/p>\n

I think of the pandemic as something that simply has to be gotten through, waited out, a universal minimum security sentence in a planet-wide penal colony. I chalk up 2020 as a mostly lost year, and know that the circumstances that allow me to see it as no worse than that mark me as immensely lucky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ironically, the Madrid Metro I ride during the pandemic is the best I have used since my move here in 2016. Some travelers fear the subway now, have sought alternatives. Public transit ridership in Spain fell forty percent this summer; sales of polluting old cars rose. I reap a dividend: the commuter now gridlocked on… <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84,89],"tags":[140,141,142,32],"class_list":["post-2072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-madrid","category-transit","tag-coronavirus","tag-covid-19","tag-pandemic","tag-public-transit"],"yoast_head":"\nMadrid Mid-Pandemic - Madrid<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"USA expat's impressions of life in Madrid, Spain during the Covid-19 pandemic, with a focus on public transit.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/transitophile.com\/chango\/madrid-spain-life-mid-covid-19-pandemic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Madrid Mid-Pandemic - 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