July 2022

 March 2020, was when we knew we were in a pandemic. Now it’s almost July 2022. 

The Pandemic still swirls around us, but here in our “safe” suburban world, most people ignore it. The newspapers give it maybe a 2 in by 3 in column here and there. Primarily when the World Health Organization comes out with something new, or a resurgence “somewhere else” brings up talk of masks or quarantines. Right now, the talk is of vaccinations for infants finally being available and do we need to tweak the vaccinations we have to better work against the latest variation of the virus. 

And yet the latest variation, Omicron (I think it’s called), is far more transmissible than the earlier variations, though my understanding is that the symptoms aren’t as bad if you get it. I connect with people who tell me that, though vaccinated and boosted and having avoided Covid all this time, have come down with the latest variation. My son and his girlfriend among them. Several days of high temps, of being miserable, brain fog and “passing out” but nothing “life threatening” that would send them to the hospital. 

The news reports say that the number of cases is high, not because they are reported, but because the sewer water was tested and had “high loads” of the shed virus in it. With free home tests available to all now, it’s easy for people to check themselves at home and not bother with seeing a doctor. In my son’s case, he reported his home test results to his company’s telehealth medical staff, then waited over a day before someone contacted him back to get “intake” information to give to the nurse who called him back several hours after that. Nothing prescribed, just reported and given instructions to stay home for several more days. As a manager, his staff are supposed to report if they test positive to him, which one of his staff did. But unlike the early days of COVID when someone even remotely thinking they had covid, without any testing, would send the entire office into home quarantine for a week or more, this time, the rest of the office just kept on coming in to work. 

I go to MUNY, the grocery store, restaurants, church, and other places. Some still have signs on their doors requiring masks and social distancing, others require it of their staff but not of their customers. Probably 10% or less of the people I come into contact with these days wear a mask. Those that do are primarily parents of children who aren’t vaccinated or those with an autoimmune disease. But then I live in a state where the politicians still seem to think COVID is a hoax, even though it has been found on every continent at this point and is still considered a worldwide pandemic. 

Many people seem apathetic to it now. It’s a “known” danger that they will have to live with and will probably need periodic vaccinations for like the Flu has been for years.  

A pessimist, in the back of my mind, are all the people afflicted with long haul Covid 19. With reports from the Mayo Clinic of fatigue, fever, respiratory problems, neurological problem, joint and muscle pain, heart problems, digestive problems, blood clots and vascular issues, and menstrual issues for women from not only people who were hospitalized with major problems after they came down with COVID, but those who were asymptomatic and didn’t even know they had had it, until the later problems caused a past Covid diagnosis. 

Only time will tell, if Covid has caused other problems that may not emerge for several years while the Covid 19 virus and its variations incubate in our bodies. 

But for now, the majority of us go about our lives as if it’s just a “thing” that we have to acknowledge but we can ignore.