The time has come
Today is the day! Ascension has officially moved from preventing COVID-19 from entering the population into 'Living with COVID-19'. The monthly flight from St Helena arrived yesterday and departed around mid-day today and when it landed in St Helena all the passengers that were transiting through St Helena from elsewhere in the world were allowed out of isolation here on Ascension. There was confusion in the community yesterday as the passengers who boarded the aircraft in St Helena were not required to isolate on arrival, creating the possibility of one of them contracting COVID-19 from one of the passengers who were already onboard and introducing it to the community a day early. That has probably been the only uncertainty through the whole build-up to today, everything else has been communicated clearly and early enough to allow everyone to prepare.
For ourselves with a 2-month-old and youngest resident on the island, it is very worrying. Although we are aware that COVID-19 does not seem to affect younger people most of the time, it doesn't stop us from worrying. Hopefully, we can get him to at least 4 months before he contracts it when he has grown a little stronger and developed a bit more.
Runway news, I was lucky enough to have a site visit during the early hours last month. I was there from 04:30 to 08:00, getting photos of all the work being carried out. I've posted them on our Facebook and Instagram pages if you would like to see them. Since then the asphalting has been completed and they are now completing the hard shoulders, lighting and painting. The latest information I have been given is, that the first half will be completed in September. I'm not sure if that includes test flights and signing off, I'll work on that information for next time.
Winter has also arrived, we now have rain showers several times per week, the winds have picked up and at night it can get a bit chilly in Two Boats and Travellers Hill, although most people reading this off the island would love to have 22-23 degrees Celcius which is what we're calling cold during the night :)
To finish off, a quick update on parenthood, aside from our COVID-19 concerns, everything is going great. He's meeting all of his milestones and these past 9 weeks have flown by!
Until next time, catch you all later...