fear

I don’t have COVID-19.

There. I said it, and I hope it remains true, no matter how long this heinous virus goes around. Yes, I’ve heard of herd immunity, but I worry that we will never reach it, no matter how many millions get it, no matter how many hundreds of thousands succumb to it. I worry that more people will have it, or will get it, or will know someone who has it, or who has had it, that it will become a “Who’s Who?” commentary.

Did you know Dave and Lisa had it? Yeah, but they’re recovering nicely at their summer house in the Hamptons. Have you heard that Jeremy caught it? Sure, but now he’s okay.

I keep reading all these statistics that say it’s okay if you get it

• if you don’t have a preexisting condition
• if you aren’t 65+
• if you’re otherwise healthy

But these aren’t always true, and we don’t social distance correctly, and we don’t wear our masks the right way, and NO LIFE IS OKAY TO BE EXTINGUISHED. I don’t care how old they are, how sick they are, how bad they may be as a person, they don’t deserve to get this horrible disease. They don’t deserve to die from it. But it’s happening, and it’s happening in droves, and we can’t seem to get a handle on it.

Someone told me the other day it’s so rough here in America because of the American Way, this idea that we are all individuals, that we have these “inalienable” rights, that we want to exercise them, even if they get us killed, or get others killed, because of something that sounds so simple but packs a wallop: asymptomatic. This is the silent killer, the person walking around who looks and acts and feels normal, but they’re a virus mule, leaving their mark here and there.

So I fear where we are, and I fear where we’re heading, and I worry that we’ve come too far to go backwards, and yet in so many places that’s exactly where we’re going. My wife and I tuned in to the school board meeting this week for our daughters’ school, and they talked about all the safety and health initiatives they are taking to make sure the virus doesn’t run rampant here, and I kept trying to stop myself from saying, “By the grace of god.” Because I don’t even know if I believe in god, but I do know that it seems like a miracle is needed right now.

So, I’ve had this cough for the past three weeks, and nothing was really getting rid of it, which is strange for me. Usually my immune system is amazing, and would have eradicated it in a couple of days. I went to the COVID tent (where they do triage services these days) and they said I had bronchitis, so I received a regimen of antibiotics that didn’t quite get rid of the cough. A week later I went back to the tent, so freaked out that when they asked if I wanted the COVID test I said yes.

Now, there are three different types of people during this pandemic:

1. those who are still pretending this thing isn’t happening
2. those who were very good for the first two or three months, but have relaxed since then
3. those who are still pretty much quarantined with no true date in their minds when they will ever feel comfortable again being in public

I am firmly in the third camp, and I blanch when people try to tell me it’s okay. The numbers have gone down in New York, they say. It’s okay to go to parties if you’re social distancing, they say. Why are you still chilling at home? they ask. But the rational part of my brain says, “Yes, the numbers have gone down in this state. Why do you think that is? Why should we jeopardize it now? Have you heard we still don’t have a vaccine? I’ll do me, and you do you. Thank you very much.” Yes, I have turned into a hermit, and everyone doesn’t have this option. I get it. But when people are going everywhere they used to go, not wearing masks (or better yet, wearing it under the nose), and not staying away from large groups of other people, I just shake my head.

I’m afraid that this will never go away, or at the least, that this will hang on like grim death until a viable vaccine is found. When will we get it through our heads that doing what we’ve been doing isn’t working? I feel like I’m afraid of human nature, of human behavior patterns, of getting complacent and what that means not just for our future, but for our now.

But, right now I don’t have COVID-19. So, I’m just going to move ahead doing what I’ve been doing, and hoping for a shift.