Thoughts on masking--and nonchalance

My pity party is over. I’m thankful that such episodes generally don’t last long with me. Today I’ve been much more upbeat and busied myself with some household chores like laundry, getting rid of stuff for the party that wasn’t, etc. Jordan and I have sort of perfected our delivery system, which means a lot of trips between houses for her. Today we exchanged laundry, and I packed up the wine caddies and things for the party—emptied a wine box that was perfect for that—and set it outside.

Tonight I made an experimental dinner, took out a portion for myself, and put the rest on the doorstep for Jordan to take inside. It was inside one of my treasured Corning Ware casseroles—and when I set it down, even with the stool for help, the lid bounced off. I watched in horror as it crashed to the cement driveway, but miraculously it did not break. (More on the dinner in tomorrow’s Gourmet on a Hot Plate blog.)

I may be over self-pity today, but I have a healthy dose of anger, indignation, whatever. I vowed this year to be kinder, to think of the other person’s viewpoint, not to leap to conclusions, and—this is a weakness of mine—not to assume that I am right and the other person’s opinion has no validity. But then, today, I read an essay from The Atlantic, titled “Where I Live No One Cares About Covid.” The writer, editor for a Catholic literary journal and a contributor to The American Conservative, lives in rural southwestern Michigan, an area I knew well as a child. I suppose now it is extremely conservative—Michigan is such a teetering state with a liberal governor who is always under attack.

This writer seemed to think that concern over Covid was strictly an urban matter. In rural areas like his, he claimed, people go about their business as if it’s over. His children have continued to go to day care, unmasked, and to see extended family every weekend. The only time he has seen masks is when he went to D.C. and was astounded. Frantic concern over Covid, he writes, is a folly that urban elites are imposing on others. He believes sooner or later they will realize their folly

Part of my indignation was that he seems to nonchalantly overlook the deaths of nearly a million of our citizens (we are truly moving up close to that number), let alone the long-term effects of those who survive. We have the long-haulers, and we don’t even know what complications will arise in survivors thirty or forty years from now. I think of chicken pox, which I had at the age of six or seven (no, I won’t say how long ago, but you can guess—it was a long, long time). Last year I had a case of shingles, because that chicken pox virus hiding in my body all these years decided to make itself known. Similarly, polio survivors are having complications—muscle weakness, joint degeneration, etc.—some sixty or more years later. Who knows what Covid will do?

More than that, the writer seems to dismiss the anxiety many of us feel as bureaucracy instigated. He apparently doesn’t believe the CDC. He is not worried that he does not know one person who has had a booster (data has suggested that the booster makes the difference with the omicron variant), the controversy over masks is silly. And this, apparently, is an educated man with some intelligence. Although he writes for a conservative publication, I found nothing in his essay to indicate that his stance is politically motivated. So I am at a loss to understand it.

Meantime, tonight a friend in an assisted living facility says that today they are near lockdown. She can come out, but restrictions are severe. There is no communal dining; she must wear a mask at all times, until she is in her own apartment; no guests are allowed. Our county has high statistics of cases, though as is the case elsewhere with the omicron variant, deaths are not as high as with the original or delta strains.

I am angry that there are people in our country, even our world, who take this so lightly, ignoring the tragedy it has brought to so many families. Masks are not major protection, but they do help. I saw a chart recently that said if two people both have KN96 masks, it takes two and a half hours for the virus to transmit; if they are not masked, it’s something like ten seconds.

Me? I’m going to isolate and mask and wish the rest of the world did. If they don’t—and I truly mean this globally—we’ll never eradicate the virus or even tame it.

Stay safe, everyone.