Like most Americans I find myself being whipsawed between two completely opposite views about COVID-19 and all of its variants. Both were on full display yesterday in the comment feed of a cartoon I posted on Facebook. Any summary of these opposing belief systems that I might attempt will not satisfy anyone, but I will give it a try anyway.
One group is convinced that COVID-19 is nothing more than the flu, and all of the public health recommendations from the vaccine to social distancing to masking are at best nonsense and at worst a naked power grab by government to rob us of our liberty and eventually usher in Communism. It is believed that the vaccine is dangerous, kills people and might even contain deliberately toxic elements intended to facilitate future government control over us (microchips). The wearing of masks is useless, possible harmful, and only serves to divide us. In addition, the public health workers in this country are only making their recommendations based upon their pursuit of money and power, and are intentionally and knowingly working at cross-purposes to what is best for the American people.
The second group believes that the vaccine is safe and effective. Although the CDC has been all over the place on many of their recommendations, this group generally complies with whatever the latest guidance is, figuring that as more and more is learned about the virus, changes in protocols are inevitable. Some in this group are strict about the social distancing, others not so much. Some are ruthless when it comes to mask wearing, others are hit and miss. But generally, this group tends to accept the consensus of opinion of the world’s epidemiologists and scientists who have devoted their lives to the study of viruses and pandemics. These folks tend to think that government actions during this pandemic, while often maddeningly confusing and ham fisted, have been taken out of the desire to save lives.
There is a third group, although smaller in number than the other two. This is the group of poor souls who have been sequestered in their homes for 18 months paralyzed by fear, convinced that they are one unguarded deep breath away from death.
The one thing that everyone has in common is that we all hate wearing masks. All of us hate social distancing. Nobody likes to get shots. Everyone hates the disruption of business, the loss of income and jobs that shutdowns bring. Nobody likes to be quarantined.
My own views on COVID have gone through many phases over the past year and a half. In the beginning I was a bit suspicious, to be honest. I personally knew exactly no one who had it. Being a natural skeptic made me question the original shutdown. I thought it a terrible overreach, not to mention an unprecedented attempt to bring the world’s largest economy to a grinding halt. I was fearful more of the impact on my business than I was on my health. But then my young, healthy neighbor got it. She became deathly ill and was down for over a month. Another neighbor who works as a nurse in a COVID unit at one of the local hospitals told me about what her days were like, of the marathon running guy in his early 50’s who died after being on a ventilator for two weeks. It was a sobering story of death. Then I learned of people I knew who had lost their lives, some older but many middle aged with no serious health problems. then I began to watch the numbers explode. Then, just yesterday while my Facebook feed was alive with this debate, a friend tells me of his 40 year old neighbor who died last week of COVID, his wife deathly ill in ICU, and their two children having been sent to Ohio to live with relatives. If this whole COVID thing was a hoax, it sure seemed to have a ton of co-conspirators. So, I began reluctantly to take the thing seriously. Pam and I both got the vaccine as soon as it was available. We wore our masks when that was the prevailing advice. We attempted the social distancing thing with less success…it is so hard to stay six feet away from other human beings!! But, when the numbers began to drop and the guidance changed, we happily went back to our normal lives, grateful for the miracle that was the vaccine. So, put us in the second group.
But now comes this Delta thing. Now comes the possibility of more mask wearing, perhaps a booster shot, more social distancing…and I hate the very thought of all of it. But I have a decision to make. Do I allow myself to believe that all of the official protocols by Federal, State and local public health officials are a plot to bring Communism to America, and that every single doctor and scientist making these recommendations is on the take and drunk with power? Or do I trust that they are doing the best they can to fight a complex virus on the fly and do what they say? For me the decision is an easy one. In life, it is vitally important that human beings stay in their lane. I know a little bit about a lot of things. I know an awful lot about a few things. But I know virtually nothing about epidemiology, biology, pandemics or medicine. I think it best to defer to people with specialized knowledge. If this makes me a sheeple, thats a chance I will have to take.
We live in an age of greatly diminished trust. Nobody trusts anything or anyone anymore, and for good reason. But thats a horribly unsatisfying way to live. Believing that everything that you disagree with is a plot against you being waged by faceless, nameless villains is exhausting. If I might mix metaphors..when you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail…But sometimes a duck is just a duck.
Again, I always prefer humor and sarcasm to make my points for me rather than cold, dull logic. So, I will end this blog with two great memes I ran across yesterday…
God bless you all and have a great weekend.
