I am so done with the Covid pandemic. It’s been nearly two years that life, society, the world and humanity has been impacted by this.
In my specific case, the pandemic arrived 1 year after my wife died and just 7 months after I had moved into my new home in Raleigh. I was still grieving her death and at the beginning stages of rebuilding my life.
And then Covid hit.
I’m sick of seeing, hearing and reading death counts, case counts, positivity rates, and vaccine effectiveness probabilities.
I’m tired of slapping on a useless face mask to enter the swimming pool facility. Once we’re poolside, everyone immediately takes off our masks so we can swim – while inhaling and exhaling forcefully.
It’s stupid to have to wear the same face mask to go grocery shopping. Everyone “must” wear one indoors in public places because of our city mayor’s mandate. In the grocery store, at least half the people wear their mask under their nose or chin.
The 6 ft social distancing rule has been proven to be “made up” and silly since Covid is an aerosolized contagion not a droplet contagion. In schools, they changed the rule to 3 ft – this too is made up.
It seems like most of the social mitigation mandates are for appearances only. Does anyone really believe these slapdash rules which are haphazardly followed are actually effective at preventing Covid?
So let’s let’s stop pretending and just get on with life.
The pandemic of excuses that I predicted has arrived. Businesses have shortened hours. Service has declined. My pools are operating with fewer hours and days open.
As service and availability are declining, prices and inconvenience are increasing for everything from food to medicine to gas to utilities.
I’m also tired of myself. I’m tired of thinking about keeping away from people. I’m tired of veering far off the sidewalk or path when others approach. I’m tired of never shaking someone’s hand or seeing their face uncovered. I’m tired of avoiding all crowds.
I’m weary of hearing about new variants, the Delta surge and predictions that this could be the last peak…only to have another one a few weeks later.
I have pandemic fatigue.
So in search of solutions, I googled pandemic fatigue. The articles and info that came up was inane clickbait and regurgitated advice.
Advice like:
- Eat whole grains and vegetables instead of processed foods.
- Get 8 full hours of sleep.
- Exercise at least 20 minutes 3 times a week.
Are you f***ing kidding me?
Perhaps I’d feel differently if I or anyone I knew personally had Covid. But, other than a distant aunt who I haven’t spoken to in 20 years, I know no one.
I believe Covid is a bad virus that causes death, illness and an untold number of bad conditions.
In my lifetime I’m familiar with other viruses that have done this: AIDS, Hepatitis, Flu. I’ve had friends or family members who were stricken with all of these. But we never closed society for any of them. We lived our lives as best we could and made personal risk assessments and decisions on how we should act regarding these viruses.
I suspect we will eventually do the same with Covid.
I just wish that time was now.