This week marks four years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the residents of Dénia normalized the use of masks, teleworking and discovered the many possibilities of a small balcony. It seems like an eternity ago, but it was only four years ago when we left the streets to lock ourselves at home. And it wasn't a nightmare. Passed.
Four years since our life took a 180 degree turn and what seemed like a horror movie became real. The global pandemic that was causing so much damage was already in our house, and we could not look away as if nothing was happening.
During the morning of March 10, nobody had a glimpse of what was going to happen that night. Life continued with total normality and we were getting used to the presence of the coronavirus, "a distant flu that the media exaggerated", in the most relaxed topics of conversation.
During the first hours of the afternoon, incredible rumors began to arrive from the corridors of the Generalitat, but they had to be a lie. And it was late at night, around 22:00 p.m., when the president's announcement, Ximo Puig, made that real flu which did not turn out to be a flu nor as conducive to jokes as we thought. The coronavirus was in our hospitals, but we did not want to see it until the first measure that at that time we saw was drastic and insurmountable: the Fallas 2020 were postponed.
There were only a few days left to start the plantà, many important events, such as the breeding, had been carried out and the first prizes had even been delivered. It seemed impossible that this could happen because there were no sick people around us, but it was decided to make an unthinkable decision and, to this day, we know it was a success.
The party had to be parked. After a few hours of internal debate, we came to understand it, since it involved large crowds of people who came from many parts of the country where there could be more infections. But we did not imagine that it was going to be the first restriction and, honestly, one of the mildest and most acceptable that we experienced that week.
The week everything changed
Just a few hours later, on March 11, the events of that week organized by associations and town halls of the Marina Alta. In the middle of the afternoon the sports cancellations began, with the suspension of non-professional football and futsal in the Region, which followed cancellations of appointments from the Volta a Peu announced the next day.
The situation was getting more serious than expected and that March 12 it was impossible to look the other way. That afternoon the closure of educational centers "until new order". The students had to go home, what they did not know is that it would be until the end of the course.
On the 13th there was no going back. Museums, libraries and sports facilities closed. In addition, party venues decided to voluntarily close that weekend as a preventive measure. However, there was no other remedy since shortly after the imminent closure of the hotel business in the Valencian Community was announced.
Forbidden to go out
And the bomb arrived on March 14. The first state of alarm was decreed throughout the country and we all had to confine ourselves to our homes for two months, with all that it entailed. It was an abrupt life change that nobody expected and that we tried to carry with optimism.
It's been four years since our lives changed... forever? We thought about it, there was talk of a new normal, but the truth is that it is a normal that is as old as ever. The vaccination was a success, the preventive measures too, but everything has now been forgotten and it seems to be something that others have experienced.
