Covid by June 2021
It’s the start of a “new normal”. While I keep my mask handy on a lanyard around my neck, the majority of people I encounter aren’t wearing one and show no indication that they have one with them. Those I see still wearing masks appear to be those who will wear them regardless, those who are working in a service industry (most businesses like restaurants and stores are still requiring their employees to wear masks), or those in a medical field. If I go to the local hospital or one of its medical buildings, I not only have to wear a mask, but it has to be the paper surgical mask that they provide to me at the door.
The Covid Pandemic Task Force made up of senior medical professionals representing the main hospital/medical entities in the region have announced that they will no longer give regular briefings on the covid situation, but they will continue to meet and coordinate Covid and now “other” medical concerns that affect us as a region.
I fully admit that like most Americans, I have gotten blasé when I hear or read the latest reports on Covid. We have reached 600,000 dead from it in the US alone that WE KNOW OF. The studies are showing that Covid was probably present in small numbers in the US in Dec 2019, but wasn’t recognized until large groups of people started showing symptoms several months later. Yet, I’ve reached the point after over 15 months of constant reports on the Pandemic everywhere I turned and news reports rehashing and rehashing the little that was known at the time, as we went through the Pandemic, that I read the headlines and seldom read the entire article any longer.
I remember when almost every story in the newspaper and on the radio and tv news was about covid, now the news stories have one or two a day, but are back to reporting on more “normal” news stories.
The rules requiring facilities to limit the number of people who are in one place at a time are being eased and the news that sports stadiums, Muny, theaters and similar venues can go back to full capacity make larger headlines then 600,000 people dead.
Some Public Schools are announcing that masks won’t be required for students while some universities are requiring all “in-person” students to be vaccinated before they can attend classes.
We are tired. People feel “washed out” and exhausted after almost a year and a half of dealing with COVID news and COVID restrictions and are seeking a release. Vacations and traveling are on many people’s agendas right now, as they seek a release from the tension of the “Covid year”. Other’s wait for the “other shoe” to drop, fearing that as people become more lax following sanitation rules and more new variants are identified that we will return to the rules in a few months. Right now, Missouri, where I live is #1 in new Covid cases, and those are primarily the Delta Variant of Covid.
I spoke to my physical therapist, a young mother with 2 children too young to be vaccinated, today. While she lives in St Charles County and the schools that her children went to remained open for in-person schooling most of last year, she is concerned about her children not only getting covid but spreading it to their grandparents and others. Her job isn’t one that can be “done from home” and she can’t stay home to care for the children if they get exposed to covid at school and have to quarantine at home for awhile. As a result, her husband has left his job and is now the “house-husband” ensuring the children get to school, sports activities and the like while she works to pay their bills and keep health insurance. A difficult decision, but one that they felt was the best option for keeping their children safe and protected.
At the same time that families like hers are still making difficult decisions about child care, the safety nets that were cocooning so many are gradually going away. The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) payments for those unemployed, under-employed, gig workers, independent contractors and others end on June 15th in Missouri. For many who would not normally be eligible for unemployment receiving both unemployment and the extra $300 from the federal government has made a difference in keeping food on their tables and their bills paid.
The special programs preventing landlords from evicting renters who became unemployed or underemployed are also ending as are the programs that have prevented banks from foreclosing on and evicting homeowners who couldn’t pay their mortgages.
But the ending of the PUA payments and potential evictions and foreclosures draws little attention as people have become so inundated with bad news over the past year, that they allow things to “bounce off” of them, rather than absorbing and reacting to today’s news.
And that is just the “American” news. The papers, radio and tv news carry almost nothing about how the pandemic is still raging in underdeveloped countries. The People’s Vaccine Alliance reports that at least 90% of the populations in 67 counties will probably not be able to be vaccinated in 2021, because the highly developed countries like the US have purchased 53% of the vaccines available making it impossible for the poorer countries to get the vaccines, even if they could afford to purchase them. While steps are underway to give more vaccines to the poorer countries, the expiration dates and the refrigeration and transportation requirements to get the vaccines to the people who need to receive them, may still be beyond the poorer countries reach without more assistance from richer nations.
Only 22.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of a covid-19 vaccine as of June 27, 2021, according to Our World in Data.org, with only 0.9% of people in low-income countries having received at least one dose. But as vaccinated American’s, little attention is paid to their plight, as it doesn't seem to directly affect us.
Where is the outrage we felt when vaccines became available in the US, but the distribution systems were poorly planned out and people had to drive 4-6 hours to get them? Why don’t we feel that outrage for our brethren in other countries where vaccines aren’t available at all? This is a worldwide pandemic in an era where people and things get transported around the world on a daily basis, bringing disease to our shores now just as early explorers brought devastating diseases to native populations. Being one of the few countries where the majority of citizens are vaccinated may give us a feeling of security, but doesn’t it also provide us with an obligation to help others?
The G7 just pledged 870 million doses of COVID vaccines, making it 1 BILLION does that they have committed to sharing with poorer nations, BUT they only expect to be able to deliver half of that by the end of 2021, so the pandemic will continue throughout the world for over a year after everyone in the first world nations who wants to be vaccinated is. Yet, we in the will go on to a “new normal”, to vacations and travel, to hugs and kisses
How I long for the days when we would feel outraged by the numbers. When we would feel a call to action to help other human beings, rather than then the numbness that wraps around us now, leading us to feel more for the people killed and maimed by the collapse of a highrise condo building in Surfside, Florida, then we feel for the millions of people who aren’t able to get access to a vaccine that would save their lives?
We are parched and wilted. Like unwatered flowers in the summer sun, our heads and bodies are bowed to the ground and we are too wilted to even attempt to raise them. Beaten down by the rentless onslaught of news about covid 19 hospitalizations and deaths and long term health issues, until we no longer absorb it.
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