The viral year of living dangerously

Think back, to when you first became aware of COVID-19.

The virus has become so pervasive, so deadly, in our daily lives that it can be difficult to go back a year in time. That’s when the early reports were mildly alarming and at first seemed to just involve markets that sold live animals in China.

Or passengers and crews aboard cruise ships.

But didn’t it seem ... well, alarmist to conjecture that a pandemic could devastate much of the world, kill more than half a million Americans, and shut down schools and businesses, and isolate untold millions?

A virus could do all this in our modern, tech-blissed world, so far removed from the 1918-19 Spanish flu epidemic that seemed a footnote in history books too small, too distant to even decipher?

Who would have believed that 2020 would go down as one of the most wretched in American history, and that this spiky coronavirus would drive much of the wretchedness.

But here we are in mid March of 2021, spring around the corner, and the news is a bit brighter and more hopeful. The fierce siege of cases seems to have retreated as more people are vaccinated and even more have passed through infection to at least temporary immunity.

Yet, it’s still lurking. Shape shifting. Ready to mock our thin confidence in government protections and ...

Oh, just follow the ... science.

How many times have you heard that in the past 12 or 13 months?

But even the science has faltered at times, not to mention the collective might of the most powerful nation on earth.

Perhaps we thought that at least here in left coast Santa Cruz County, this alien intruder couldn’t breach the mountains or Highway 17 ... could it?

Yeah, it could. Although the toll could have been far worse, the virus was particularly lethal for helpless nursing home residents and the Latino population in South County. And while the numbers are far more promising, four more deaths attributable to COVID-19 were recorded this week in the county.

While many of us may be thinking that March marks one year of the pandemic, the actual day COVID-19 was transmitted onto American soil was Jan. 21, 2020, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported a confirmed first case of the novel coronavirus here.

On Jan. 22, 2020, President Trump was asked about the possible threat from the thenunnamed virus. In a harbinger of the see-no-evil approach to the virus that marked his administration, he told CNBC, “It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”

But, of course, none of that was true. Even as Trump spoke, we now know — and, we learned, he knew as well — the virus was not under control but was stealthily spreading.

Trump and his administration never came up with a working plan to control the spread. What they did do, however, was set the wheels in motion to get vaccines quickly developed. The strategy is now paying dividends, especially as the Biden administration has brought a semblance of order to distribution, and as public health officials and providers have learned to navigate a rollout system that for months seemed capricious and chaotic.

Now, with a pandemic year or more behind us, can we come up for breath, albeit from behind our masks?

There’s good evidence we can. The feared COVID-19 variants have not proved as lethal as initially feared. Santa Cruz County has moved into a more relaxed tier, based on the state’s system, and restaurants, businesses and gyms are welcoming people back, in limited numbers, with appropriate safety precautions. And we were encouraged when the California Department of Public Health issued new guidelines this week allowing vaccinated nursing home and longterm care residents to receive indoor — including in-room — visitors again.

It’s a start — and we’ll take it.