Farewell 2020! Don’t Let The Screen Door Hit You On The Way Out!In February I recall hearing a small story about a new virus that they had discovered starting up in China.
I remember thinking:That can’t be good!In March the WHO issued guidelines for dealing with the virus as it was obvious that it spread easily. China pretty much started shutting down. That can’t be good.
Facemasks were in short supply and nurses complained that they were being told to wear their PPEs for longer; much longer than is safe, amid the word “pandemic” surfacing over and over. That can’t be good. Where I was living their was a rather slow acceptance with a definite percentage of “wait and see-ers”Nor that…Meanwhile by April “we’d” edged up to 100,000 “daily” cases worldwide, and take this number with a grain of salt because very few places were doing serious testing. Hell very few places even had access to testing equipment that would handle dozens…Understanding that in the blinding glare of “20-20 hindsight”, that hundreds and then thousands of new cases were waiting in the wings. Since this was essentially viewed as the “flu” we dilly-dallied and tried old flu vaccines while only China at first got a handle on the outbreak.We were soon edging up on 300 and 400,000 daily cases. But you know all that now.
All we can do is hide like the frightened Neanderthals we really are when it comes to a menace such as this. We all speak about it, as it is the topic that just won’t leave, like that relative that talked you into allowing him to stay for two weeks but after a week it was already too long…We need words when we speak about our (now, greatly changed and …reduced) lives. According to the Washington Post, people ascribe words like “Chaotic”, Surreal”, Exhausting”, “Relentless”, “Heart-breaking”, and “Nightmarish”.Those are not happy words…Those are stressed words, and that can’t be good. We actually needed to develop an entire new lexicon to describe our feelings as the debate over masks wore on and more people got ill; more died. 2020 will leave us (tomorrow!) so, at least symbolically our Time of Being Tested will end. And yet, the Corona Virus will stay…probably for years. This will likely change the very fabric of our society for the long term. Words like Zoom have become a new sort of verb…and a noun! Before a car could zoom past but now zoom is a no-contact meeting via computer. You all know this of course as well, but here’s something that is truly new. I’ll bet that most of us have thought some variant on this sentence-And it’s a phrase I never would have conceived of even 9 months ago: “Dang I can’t find my favorite mask!” It is the only one that fits my face comfortably…”Favorite mask? What? Am I a fashion forward bank robber? Nope just trying to continue to exist.I was in a store yesterday and there was a lady (who admittedly was wearing a mask) and who was buying a holiday special liquor, while trying to cough up a lung and facing the poor clerk.I heard about a big Christmas party with over 2 dozen people at it. That’s just criminal to allow that and then, go back among the general population. Enough already. Though, there’s a saying in Western New York: “Never say: ”Well, at least it can’t get any worse!” Because it always can.
For the short term,I don’t know about you, but my advice is to keep that in mind.”Farewell 2020! Don’t Let The Screen Door Hit You On The Way Out!”
