Whilst the situation is still bad, some countries are starting to heal. Countries that would once be on complete lockdown are slowly allowing their residents to go out and do non-contact activities. For those who don’t know, when the outbreak began and schools switched to online education, I went back to my home country of St. Maarten. When I had arrived, there were no cases on the Dutch side of the island, but inevitably the cases began to increase. The number eventually reached 67 total cases about a month ago and has since stopped increasing. Now there is only one active case on the Dutch side of the island.

The government of St. Maarten took many steps to make this possible, starting off with a complete lockdown for two weeks, which limited the interactions between people, and allowed for the spread to cease. Beyond that they took it step by step in opening back the country, now flights have resumed through the Dutch kingdom, restaurants are being opened, and we are allowed to go to the beaches and partake in non-contact sports.

Therefore its clear that in that regard, things are steadily returning back to normal for myself. I’ve figured that if St. Maarten is going back to normal, I’m fairly certain many other countries are also returning back to normal. However, I cannot speak about many other countries because I am not living there or have affiliations there, but for me its good to see that so many countries are progressing. The death rate of the virus has decreased, and the daily increase of cases in Europe has become much lower than what it used to be. So there are good signs of returning to a semi-normal life soon!

One of my friends in a heavily infected country mentioned that at a time she couldn’t leave the house at all, only for groceries and for a short time. However, she recently started sending pictures of her going for a walk on a daily basis. Being granted a walk doesn’t seem like much, but to go from not being able to leave the house at all, to being permitted to go for a walk within your area is a step forward. Even if it’s a small step forward, you’re still moving forward, so we must celebrate these small victories too.

The football leagues which were once halted have resumed or are intending on resuming within the next few weeks. The Eredivisie and Ligue 1 have found their conclusion, the Bundesliga has already resumed, and the Premier League and La Liga are resuming within the next week. Personally, I’m very excited for the return of the Premier League because my favorite team will be back in action on June 19^th! The return of the Premier League also marks the return of the Fantasy Premier League, wherein I will be winning a trophy at the end of the season.

The media has been filled with a lot negativity as of late with what’s been going on in Yemen, The United States, and essentially all over the world, and I know a lot of people have trouble seeing so much negativity, so I hope to bring about some positivity today!