When we lived in Paris, we often used to go to the science museum. They always had a lot of fun things for kids to do. My children would always volunteer for the bubble experience. They would stand on a platform and suddenly a giant soap bubble would materialize around them, gradually drawn upwards by a hoop. At some point they would find themselves agreeably imprisoned within the walls of a magic bubble.
There were only two disadvantages to this bubble. Firstly, the giant bubble could not float away in the air with the children inside it (if that had been possible, I might have considered buying the machine). Secondly, the bubble would eventually burst, leaving the person inside with soap-spattered clothing.
In these visits, I was only an observer and never directly participated. However, I did end up learning a lot about bubbles. For example, the best soap for making soap bubbles is Savon de Marseilles, French laundry soap. (However, since we were in France, the advertising hype was to be expected.) I also learned that bubbles are round because this is the shape that uses the smallest possible surface. Because of this roundness, molecules are thus less stressed, and feel less tired. (I could relate to that thought).
A soap bubble explodes when one’s child punches it or because of other more scientific reasons like gravity, evaporation, or air pressure, which tends to grow as the bubble becomes larger.
In Times of Coronavirus, bubbles have become a trending topic. As we all know, a bubble is a thin sphere of liquid enclosing air or another gas. However, over time, this boring primary meaning has evolved and expanded to designate other things. Now “bubble” also refers to a space that is protected from danger or any unpleasant reality.
Living in a bubble can be both good and bad. It can be positive in that a bubble world has many colors and facilitates a rosier vision of the space outside the bubble. When living in a bubble, one also feels protected from any encroaching danger. The downside is that this feeling of safety may not correspond to reality because the walls of a bubble are very fragile and can easily burst.
Because of the pandemic, government leaders now want to return to their childhood days and blow bubbles in the bathtub or elsewhere. To boost the faltering economy, they need to foster tourism between European countries, and make people believe that if they travel, there will be no danger of coronavirus infection. Obviously, this is untrue because the risk is there. The only question is whether one is willing to assume it.
Of course, governments could take a page from President Trump and ask people to sign a waiver in which travelers acknowledge that they will be at risk of exposure to Covid-19 on their trip, and agree not to hold the airlines or anyone else responsible for any disagreeable consequences derived from their travel. This would not be good karma though. Signing a waiver seems to indicate that the coronavirus is not a hypothetical construct and is more contagious (and dangerous) than the flu.
Instead of following the American example, the EU has preferred to take a page from David Copperfield. With an admirable sleight-of-hand, they have created a lovely illusion.
This illusion is not achieved with bleach, PCR tests, or hand sanitizer, but rather with semantics. The term “bubble” has thus been activated and is currently used to describe safe travel between countries. Language provides the assurance that signing a waiver cannot.
In a “travel bubble” a set of countries agree to open their borders to each other, but keep borders to all other countries closed. People can move freely within the bubble, but no one can enter from the outside. If countries have a similar incidence of coronavirus cases, there is supposedly no additional risk.
The word “bubble” also fosters the (erroneous) belief that one is able to cross borders within a precisely delimited area that is totally free of all possible infection. Evidently this is ridiculous because a travel bubble is anything but a hermetically enclosed space.
Last month, three European countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — opened their borders to each other to create a Baltic bubble. Denmark, Norway, and Finland have also been considering a Scandinavian bubble though with Sweden excluded because of the high infection rate. The EU is also in the bubble mentality and has told European nations that they should open their borders on 15 June so there can be unlimited transit between EU countries.
If indeed this really happened on Monday, it would create a giant EU travel bubble. This would be positive for Spain, which is a big tourist destination. In fact, tourism accounts for 12% of the GDP. The coastline is a national treasure, which generates more revenues than any other industry in Spain. Every year thousands of people from other countries visit the beaches and resorts here. Each German, British, or American tourist is regarded as a bottomless moneybag with legs. The pandemic has dealt a deathblow to the economy because all hotels have been closed since March.
However, in an unusual display of good sense, Spain has decided that next Monday is too soon, and that it is necessary to wait at least until 1 July. The beginning of July may also be premature but at least there will be two more weeks to prepare for an invasion of tourists.
It seems that someone in Spain has read up on bubble physics. As previously mentioned, as a bubble becomes larger, air pressure becomes greater. This inevitably causes the bubble to explode and the illusion of safety vanishes.
