Days of Rona: Earth Drive (Montijo, Portugal)
The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.
Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.
Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan
Days of Rona: Earth Drive (Montijo, Portugal)
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How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?
So far everyone is healthy in the band and we are taking good care of ourselves and family the way is possible. Due to this COVID-19 complex situation in the world we had to cancel our new album kick of tour show´s and this had a huge impact in the band emotional and financial investments. But we are coping the best we can with this and for now we need to wait to see how long this will last and if we need to postpone more show´s and reschedule all things again. It’s hard all this uncertainty but we will get through this for sure.
What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?
We are now in a state of emergency.
This more radical measure covers patients with COVID-19 and the rest of population who must remain in hospital or in a health facility or be closed at home. The measure will also cover those who are under active surveillance, determined by health authorities due to the risk of having contracted the disease.
For those who are in compulsory confinement, the violation of this rule constitutes a crime of disobedience. To prevent this, the authorities of the place of residence will have a list of people in these circumstances, provided by the health authorities. For the time being, a sanctioning framework has not been created, but this is expected to happen if it proves necessary.
Those over 70 years of age have a special duty of protection, which means that they will only be able to leave home in the cases provided by law: go shopping; the doctor or the pharmacy; the bank, post office, or insurance company; going to the street to walk the dog or for some physical exercise, and collective activities are prohibited. The same rules apply to immunocompromised patients and those with chronic disease who should be considered at risk: hypertensive patients, diabetics, cardiovascular patients, patients with chronic respiratory disease and cancer patients.
This special duty of protection does not cover anyone, who is not on leave, maintains his professional activity; health professionals and civil protection agents; and also the politicians, magistrates and leaders of the social partners.
To citizens in general who, despite everything, have a wide range of exceptions that allow them to travel on the public road, namely: go shopping; moving to work or responding to a job offer; go to the pharmacy, the doctor or give blood; giving help to parents, children, people with disabilities or in some way vulnerable; to go to school (only for the children of health personnel or security forces); social volunteering; for a brief individual physical activity; to walk the dog or any animal to the vet; or for any case of force majeure. Journalists can also travel, in the exercise of freedom of the press.
How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?
We feel that this is affecting in a deep way the community. We feel some anxiety and fear and this grows along the bad news that TV constantly shows to the people. There is a lot of hope thou that this will bring a huge transformation for the humanity and for the world if people understand this as an opportunity to change and to push governments to start making the right decisions for the planet. There are a lot of professionals working hard to save lives and a lot of other people working hard to transmute people fears into light and hope to balance the world energy. We feel that artists are dealing with a lot of frustration right now but there are a lot of us doing things to comfort people doing stream shows and other initiatives in order to not lose their purpose and to keep fighting to prevent that humanity lose their identity. The humanity without culture is a humanity without identity. So let’s rock even harder together!
What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?
Well we just want people to know that we are all in this together and in this moment is the perfect situation to start to let our egos out of the way and work as ONE to save humanity and to reconnect us to mother nature. She will always prevail and we are the ones who need to learn how to get along with her. We just want people to know that we will be here in the music scene to honor the privilege to do this and try to respect all of you and nature with our honest music, art and attitude. We are in a very delicate situation like a lot of people, bands, promoters, PR agencies, sound engineers, labels, specialized press and a lot of other music agents working on music but together we will learn and get through this rocking.
Thank you so much for the opportunity to express our feelings and thoughts about this crisis.
A big hug for everyone and please be safe! The best version of ourselves is yet to come. Peace!
www.facebook.com/earthdrivesound
www.earthdrive.bandcamp.com
www.ragingplanet.pt
