Our collective advances on beating back the corona virus pandemic have taken a massive but not altogether unexpected U-turn in recent weeks, with many epidemiologists predicting very dark days ahead, possibly worse than what we've already been through. And all of this potential, and largely unavoidable pain, suffering and yes, dying, is due to the simple fact that we, as a species, have handed the corona virus and its burgeoning variants everything they needed to spring forth from our respiratory systems and multiply.
Last week it was reported that 200 million people around the world have been infected since this pandemic started (some say it started in December of 2019, but it was officially declared a pandemic in mid-March, 2020). I strongly suspect that tally is vastly under-counted as such counts usually are and when so many communities hit with this virus are isolated, or mild-cases and deaths are being attributed to something else. Now that the Delta variant is raging, causing many hospitals in the US to return to the nightmare conditions seen in the darkest days of last winter, some of the vaccine "hesitant", who were perfectly happy to let everyone else play guinea pig, some even boasting that they wanted to see more people get the "jab" just to make sure it was safe for them to take it are starting to rethink their self-absorbed self-importance (nothing like enlightened self-interest, tardy as it may be, to get one to the nearest clinic). This is a good thing, but it shouldn't be forgotten for a second that the reason there are variants spreading like wildfire is that too many "hesitant" people in the wealthier countries, where vaccines are readily available and, at least in the US, free, refused to get them...until now. In all honesty, I've given up on the anti-vaxxers. They truly are a death-cult. Sadly they will also be the incubators for more variants, very possibly ones that are even more contagious than Delta, and more deadly and vaccine resistant, and in the process these same people will deny life-saving care for others who need acute care for unrelated maladies, like heart attacks, strokes, car accidents, near drownings, because all the beds are full of covid patients. Over 90% of covid positive admissions in the US are currently those who are unvaccinated (and of those admitted who are vaccinated most have serious co-morbidities), and now many are, on their death beds, begging for the vaccine when it is far, far too late to do them any good. Lambda, a variant festering in Peru as I type this, is already proving it is worse than Delta--and we are heading into the colder months--always a ripe time for respiratory illnesses--and schools are reopening and certain politicians are making it illegal to wear masks...the madness goes on and I sometimes wonder if the human race isn't suffering from some sort of collective insanity from which we may never recover. Maybe the planet is truly fed up with us and so handed us a loaded gun to see what we'd do with it.
53 days ago, my state officially "opened up". Mask mandates were dropped, businesses that had been shuttered were allowed to reopen. Tourists began to return--all great news for the local economies of so many towns and cities in my state, but...as many feared, there was a spike in infections here shortly after the July 4th holiday that saw people from all over flock to our beaches and fill our quaint streets, coffee shops, hotels and world famous restaurants. Another major tourist attractor is happening all this week, and it's causing so much concern, local authorities are urging residents to stay home, or, if that's not possible, they are posting routes to avoid the major bottlenecks and tourist draws. I even received a text yesterday, from the local office of emergency services, offering to text me updates on what areas to avoid or major traffic issues. The excuse is that it was too late to cancel this mega-event once the July 4th spike was recorded, but many locals had raised grave concerns, stating it was too early to start holding these major tourist events, that they would be just like the super-spreader events of last year. Not unexpectedly, these warnings were ignored or dismissed by these same local authorities who are now telling locals to stay home. I don't ever remember that happening before; locals were always encouraged to get involved, to partake, to immerse and enjoy. No more. Roads, even last week, were getting more congested as visitors and event attendees arrived early. These same people are behaving like utter jerks on the road and off, and of course most tourists are going maskless, aggressively ignoring social distancing, and basically pretending the last year and half and all the terribly hard lessons we all presumably learned are a distant and no longer relevant memory when nothing could be further from the truth.
I readily admit I enjoyed--savored--the overall quiet, the deserted streets and nearly empty grocery stores, of nature reclaiming much of what we humans considered ours alone during the height of the pandemic, as I discussed in my blog entry marking the reopening of my state. Hearing cars and motorcycles roaring along a very twisty highway that's about a quarter mile from my home at all hours of the day and night, and the occasional muffled boom as someone failed to negotiate a sharp turn was a distant memory--but no more. It's back. Just yesterday I overheard two separate crashes, followed in short order by the wail of sirens and it's just the beginning--the pines that line that highway and act as natural, albeit involuntary bollards are in for a rough week, I fear. The congested city streets and crowds of tourists behaving badly are back too, with a vengeance. There were always issues when this area held some major tourist draw--car/motorcycle crashes and bar brawls were an expected part of such, but we as a species appear to have lost a lot of our social skills while in lockdown--fights on airplanes and in restaurants and anywhere else humans find themselves in close quarters with their fellow humans are becoming the norm. A really ugly norm. It's a triple whammy: not only have states reopened, with all the attendant problems that came with this (and of course making it near impossible to close back up again), but in the past year and a half we've forgotten how to get along, we've become far more tribal, far more suspicious of "the other", far too quick to assume the worst and act on that feeling, and now new variants are among us, bringing with them the looming specter of a disastrous winter that will rival the winter of 2020-21. It's the perfect storm headed towards us like an existential tsunami.
I am incredibly fortunate; I remind myself of that every day. I have the means to stay home. I can have just about anything (within financial reason) I need delivered to me. I can spend my time reading, writing, playing with my dogs or working in my high-walled garden and well-away from my own increasingly crazy species. I did work for this "privilege", and for years, often putting in 80+ weeks and 12+ hour days in an über stressful job (and no, I'm not talking about Uber, the ride-share company), but I am far, far from wealthy. I live modestly; I pinch my pennies. Unlike many, I enjoy my own company so staying home for days, even weeks on end is no particular hardship, but I am painfully aware most people don't have that option. They have to go out, be it to work, to school, or simply because they need it for their mental health, regardless of the risks and no matter the precautions they take, and I genuinely fear for them.
Anyone who thought Covid-19 was down for the count was dead wrong.
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