Europe braces for 4th Covid wave. And a quality of life index.

For those of you considering Europe this summer, you might want to rethink your vacation plans. Things are getting complicated.

The infection rates are rising again, especially the Delta variant.

“The fourth wave of infections is already underway,” said the Belgian Health Minister. “Hopefully it will not get out of hand.”

Portugal is being hit hard by the Delta variant, and travellers are advised not to go there if they are not fully vaccinated, and to be extra careful if they are. I’ll be awfully disappointed if I have to cancel. I booked my trip to Porto way back in April!

France could see a new spike in COVID cases by the end of July due to the spread of the Delta variant, said Gabriel Attal, the government spokesman.

Changing the subject, I received this Quality of Life Index the other day in my In box.

Notice something missing? Where the heck is France?!? It didn’t even make the top 25! I was surprised to see Canada and the U.K. so low down on the list. And where’s Italy??

Notice how high up The Netherlands (or Holland, as we mistakenly call it) is. That’s one reason I wanted to move there when I eventually retire. But after talking with many people and doing research, I think I’m leaning towards Spain. What’s not to like? Sunshine! Sangria! Beaches! Friendly people! Rich culture and history! Great food and wine! A huge expat community! Did I mention “affordable”? There must be a reason why Spain is the number one tourist and retirement destination. Well, I’m going to find out. First stop: Valencia!

Anyway, back to France. Turns out it’s number 26 on the list.

The Quality of Life Index is an estimation of overall quality of life by using an empirical formula which takes into account purchasing power index (higher is better), pollution index (lower is better), house price to income ratio (lower is better), cost of living index (lower is better), safety index (higher is better), health care index (higher is better), traffic commute time index (lower is better) and climate index (higher is better).

Here’s the link to the full list here –

Quality of Life Index by Country 2021 Mid-Year (numbeo.com)

4 thoughts on “Europe braces for 4th Covid wave. And a quality of life index.

  1. I too find it hard to believe Canada is so far down the list, when it’s often near the top of similar lists. It must be “house price to income ratio” – our house prices have soared astronomically in the last year. And of course, our climate is not Spain’s.

    • Beth, the house I grew up in in Scarborough is worth over a million dollars today. If my parents were alive, they’d fall off their chairs. I think they bought it for $18,000 way back in the 1950s. Yes, it must be that reason.
      At one point I thought I’d like to live where your pal, Chris, lives on that island off Vancouver. But it might be too isolated. Thanks for commenting. Hope all is well.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s