Hold off gatherings to let vaccine arrive

Covid and Thanksgiving. They are like the old paradox of the unstoppable force meeting the immovable object.

And yet, we are just a few days away from impact.

Every year about this time, writers turn their attention to the stresses of “the holidays,” that vague yet real period of time from Thanksgiving through the first of the year when, through cooking and preparing and decorating and hosting, we create that perfect holiday experience known only to exist in a fairy tale of our own creation.

The food has to be cooked and prepared to perfection this week, and in a month add to that the perfect tree and the perfect set of decorations. No matter that everyone is working with no time to do any of it adequately. Or no one is working and no one has the money to do it adequately. On we march toward the land of joy and good cheer.

But all of that perfection takes its toll, because no matter how hard we try, there is no perfect anything. Consequently, the distance between the real and the perfect is where stress comes to live.

And that’s when life was more or less normal.

Now, with covid-19, some of the most enjoyed, longed-for get-togethers and reunions are likely to be kaput. How’s that for a stressor?

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its high alert for Thanksgiving and holiday events, there was some surprise, but with covid on a rampage, we aren’t sure why that was. The country’s and state’s numbers for covid cases and deaths are skyrocketing.

Just recently, the United States passed a grim milestone: a quarter of a million dead from the coronavirus, with average daily death counts of more than 1,000. Graphs depicting the chaos appear to be vertical lines as cases climb unabated. Across the country, there were 196,000 new cases on Friday. Remember when 80,000 was the record? In Arkansas, new case counts used to be breathtaking when they reached close to 1,000 in a single day. Now, we can top 2,000.

The good news is that we are close to a vaccine of very high effectiveness with first doses available as early as December. But making a vaccine available to everyone will take several months.

And making it available does not mean people will take it. Surveys have shown that half of Americans say they are not inclined to take the vaccine at all or that they will wait a bit to see how it affects others. Health care workers, who will be one of the first groups to get the vaccine, are no different, with many saying they don’t want to be the first in line.

Obviously, there are a lot of moving parts to this holiday season, which, by now, is just par for the course for the year.

The tried and true advice still holds for the most part: Take care of yourself by eating right, getting enough sleep and getting some exercise, even if, on Thanksgiving Day, sleeping means dozing in a recliner and getting exercise is rising from said recliner for just another sliver of pumpkin pie and whipped cream.

The get-togethers will be the hard part. The CDC goes through a list of questions such as: “Are cases high or increasing in your community or your destination?”

And if any of your answers are yes: “(Y)ou should consider making other plans, such as hosting a virtual gathering or delaying your travel,” it says. How marvy.

The bottom line here is that if Thanksgiving was the immovable object, it’s a holiday that will need to take a bit of a holiday this year and move a little out of the way of the runaway freight train.

Without anything to stop covid except wearing masks, washing hands and socially distancing, which are getting overlooked a lot these days, conditions continue to worsen. And while we are better at keeping infected people alive now than we were a few months ago, the coronavirus can still wreak havoc on a person’s body for weeks, months, maybe even years, and the older you are, the worse it can be.

Now is not the time to be cavalier. Now is not the time to throw caution to the wind and wink, wink, get everybody together. A vaccine is not far away, and it’s close to 100 percent effective. Keep your steely determination intact and stay super safe just a little longer. Next year, when you’re lounging in the recliner listening to pappaw tell that same story, you and everyone else in your family will be glad you did.