“We have to open the country again.” My friend said. He is retired, living on a fixed income. He was only echoing the things he’d heard. He’s getting paid no matter what happens, so he has “no skin in the game.”
He doesn’t know anybody who’s had the disease. Nobody in the county where he lives has been infected. He has never worked in the health care field and has no medical training. He is handicapped so he doesn’t travel much.
His insistence would have been a little shocking if anybody else were president. It wouldn’t make sense if he didn’t have all of the government generated misinformation raining down everywhere all the time.
During the latest Corona Virus Task Force briefing, and the first one in weeks, Vice President Pence almost took a victory lap, claiming the latest surge in infections was somehow much less serious than the first. He made the astonishing claim that the mortality rate is much lower. Which may even be true, but, hospitalization, suffering and rehabilitation are enormous considerations, but, Vice President Pence felt comfortable that most of them probably wouldn’t die.
Texas not only opened up they did it in true Texas fashion, a big, wild, boot-stomping blowout. Clots of people drinking, restaurants were allowed to seat at 75% capacity and the party was started.
Unfortunately, there was an uninvited guest and like the planted jar in the Wallace Stevens poem it held dominion everywhere.
Harris County, which includes Houston, has recorded a “severe and uncontrolled” outbreak. Intensive care beds are filling up all over the state. Texas has had to move backward, closing all bars, and reducing restaurants to 50% capacity. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, who in March said he was willing to risk death to help the economy (not his death, of course) claims the hospitals are providing “misleading information.” He also feels this newest surge of cases is mostly young people who aren’t going to die. If you live what do you have to complain about? This discounts being hospitalized and the resulting catastrophic expense.
Florida opened with a splash, what else would you expect from Florida? It hasn’t worked out so well. They have had over a 1,000 new cases a day for twenty eight straight days. That is when this was written and is probably much higher now.
It all starts at the top, though. Trump has been quoted as saying he wouldn’t wear a mask because reporters would enjoy it too much. Additionally, he claimed people were only wearing face masks to prove how much they dislike him. Further, he made the unbelievable statement that testing was the cause of the extra infections. Nobody would be surprised if he said all these people are getting sick and dying just to make him look bad.
I can forgive my friend, he is worried about the future, and maybe he is worried about the present. He hears what is being said, at least what is being said on talk radio and in conversations at the small diner and grocery store in his little town. He doesn’t have internet access or cable television so his opinion is formed on a very narrow spectrum of information. He is probably like everybody else and just wants all of this to go away.
Like my friend, I’m sick of all the bad news. I’m sick of sheltering at home. I want to be in a crowd, I want to fill my own fountain drink at McDonald’s. I want something to seem normal. It has really put me uptight.
For some odd reason, the line from the old Alice Cooper song Public Animal #9 keeps looping through my head, “I’d trade a month of cigarettes for just a couple of lousy beers.” I don’t smoke and I have some beer, but the sentiment seems perfect, we are forced to make choices about what we really want.
I’ve resorted to writing long boring letters to people I know to pass the time while I stay home. Staying home is my duty. I ordered a couple of Grateful Dead face masks on the internet. Wearing a face mask is my duty, too and it might as well have some flash. Unlike my friend, I think it is going to be a long walk back, and I’m willing to wait.
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