A September day in 2021. Last year at this time, 2020, the pandemic was still raging, but Florida was open to tourists, of course. Florida was shut down only for a month. But most places – even Disney and its attractions – had protocols in place. Masks, social distancing, the usual things. Vaccines weren’t available yet. But we were hopeful about an easier 2021.
And for awhile in 2021, after vaccines were becoming available, we were hopeful that by summer, we would be free of this virus. We got our last Pfizer in late March 2021, at a CVS. It felt like a kind of liberation. In May we took our first flight in more than a year. Wore masks all the way to Montana. The summer was looking up. But by July, the Delta variant had taken hold in Florida and our governor, Ron DeathSantis, was holding press conferences about the dangers of the vaccines and that mask mandates were now illegal, and how people had a right to their personal freedom. You know, my body, my choice. Unless it involves abortion, but that’s another story.
No one was really sure how many new Covid cases occurred daily in Florida because the state’s Department of Health had stopped publishing daily info. But the department did report weekly cases, a skewed number of deaths, and the number of new cases added up to more than 21,000 a day. Deaths in the U.S. per day exceeded 1,500. Our governor banned mask mandates in schools, outlawed proof of vaccination on cruise ships, in government buildings….and yet. In public places, I usually saw people wearing masks.
If you’re unvaccinated and don’t wear a mask, then you’re one of the selfish.
And during this time, I got summaries from those who hadn’t been vaccinated about how I was being fed misinformation by the CDC, the government, doctors, science. The virus was no more than a cold. The virus was a conspiracy. The virus was created by Fauci in cahoots with the pharmaceutical industry. Bill Gates had embedded a spying chip in these vaccines. 5 G was infecting my brain. Blah, blah, blah.
“It’s the vaccinated people who are infecting the unvaccinated.”
“It’s my moral obligation to speak out against these vaccines.”
“Trump’s going to be reinstated.”
And that, right there, that trump will somehow be magically reinstated to presidency on a date that My Pillow dude declares, is the real disease in this pandemic. The media calls it The Big Lie. But it’s the trump toxicity spillover into the Biden presidency, a kind of mental black goo that sticks to people’s brains, blinding them so completely that they live in an alternate reality.
This reality is ruled by aging white men so terrified of losing their majority that they enact oppressive voting laws and, in Texas, overturn a 50-year-law, the right of a woman to an abortion. No exceptions. You’re raped by your father? An uncle? A stranger? And you get pregnant? Well, too bad. No abortion for you.
So this is where we stand nearly a year and a half into this pandemic, a harbinger of the paradigm shift that is underway. I used to hope that maybe the old paradigm would just die out with a pathetic whimper. But trump tapped into the darkness of the American psyche, the toxicity of racism and misogyny, of building walls that separate us as human beings inhabiting the same planet. And here’s the fallout.
Maybe it will have to play itself out. But if this darkness wins, we’ll be living in Gillead, a new chapter of The Handmaid’s Tale.
No, thanks.
The absolute evil of these people who promote lies and disinformation is stunning. I’m very much afraid this is going to become much worse before it gets any better. The bad guys are winning.
Every losing politician will now call the election stolen. It’s all very much a shit show.
Now Bannon is moving into Brazil to “help” with their elections. I just cannot believe the rule of law can do nothing to stop these seditionist traitors.
And the only reason we knew about it was because he was detained as he was departing the country. Every since you mentioned it I’ve been researching Costa Rica as a possible place to live. It’s my first choice.
Well said as always, thank you for your thoughts. When I read of the stunning self-imposed ignorance of so many Americans, and worse, the death dealing, willful ignorance of their “leaders” like Trump or the governor of Florida, I really do feel that our country has reached the end of its promise and hope, and is in true decline. Here in Tucson they tried to recall our Mayor because she imposed a mask mandate, although our republican governor never did.
I personally had two aquaintances who have died of Covid in the past 4 months. Died of it. I also personally know a fair number of people, New Age and liberal minded people, who refuse to get vaccinated, because they “don’t trust the government” or “don’t trust the pharaceuticals”. But they trust hospitals to take care of them if they get sick? And feel no responsibility to others, should they contact a deadly plague? It is mind boggling to me.
Same here, Lauren. I don’t understand it. Covid isn’t the flu. It isn’t a cold. In Florida, it’s killed nearly 50,000 people.
Thank you, Trish. Always good to read your well written thoughts and analysis. Trump admits that he doesn’t know much, but what he does know is how to fight and he had good teachers in Roy Cohn and Trump senior dad. So he taught his base and right wing journalists how to fight for the sake of fighting. They want to fight everything know matter what harm. So sick and sad!
Sick and sad and pathetic.
I have four siblings. Two have been vaccinated as have I. One of the unvaccinated thought the threat was overblown, the other still thinks it is a hoax, no worse than the flu.
One of my 2 brothers called me yesterday saying he was one day out of the hospital with Covid. He has an Oxygen generator for his device similar to a C-PAP. He has another nine days of quarantine. His wife also has Covid but was not hospitalized.
My son told me that he told my daughter not to tell me two days earlier so I wouldn’t say I told you so. When he called me I didn’t. Since I got my last shot in March I have been asking if he was going to get one, was he wearing a mask? He didn’t want to do either. He kept saying there weren’t that many cases in the county. I called one of my sisters for her birthday today. She went on a site for the hospital my brother was in. It said that there are only 2 non-Covid ER beds in the hospital so if you have a non-Covid emergency you are out of luck.
I hear so many stories like these, Ray. And there have been so many senseless deaths. We got our vaxxes in March, too. Whenever the booster is available, I’m in line. Stay well!
Maybe your brother should get a flu shot if he thinks Covid is no worse that the flu. At least he won’t get the flu, if he did!