COVID-19 Fatigue

I awoke this morning to another bad COVID dream wherein my wife and I encountered an obviously saddened lady while waiting at a bus stop. She was lamenting to my wife that her close friend who was involved in the horse racing circuit was currently on a ventilator suffering with COVID with little expectation for survival. After some discussion during which my wife expressed great sympathy for her friend’s plight, the rational me, felt the cruel impulse to chime in to explain that the outcome of our collective behavior is determined by our individual behavior. I further explained that the lady’s friend had likely interacted heavily with individuals who knowingly made themselves highly susceptible to COVID due in turn to heavy interaction amongst other like individuals and so on and so on. This was enough to push this vulnerable and distraught lady into convulsive sobbing to which my wife instinctively attempted to console by drawing her to her breast. I saw the error in my ways. This is definitely not the place or time for rational analysis and honesty. Thankfully this was merely a dream!

So here we are one week after the Thanksgiving Holiday with the early morning news running in the background repeating yesterday’s announcements by Dr. Thomas Dobbs: “Our hospitalizations are growing at a rate that is absolutely terrifying,” “It’s not going to end at least for weeks if we keep everything perfect today…,” and “So without a doubt I think we are headed into the darkest period of the coronavirus for Mississippi”. Overnight, daily new cases as reported by MSDH more than doubled from 1141 to unfathomable 2457! Thus, we are now beyond the where it is appropriate to ask ourselves what happened, for we all know the answer. Months earlier in this crisis when we should have contemplated as a community, as a state, and as a nation what could have been and should have been, the answer was: we must only look to the situation in Taiwan, currently with no new cases in over 200 days!

At the outset of this pandemic, I had emphasized the need for rational action only to see the occasional utter disregard by individuals for their own personal health as well as that of their brethren, especially when any resemblance of rational analysis is brought to bear. All of this has been rehashed over and over by officials, administrators, and front-line workers of our health and medical care community until they are blue in the face. Yet remarkably, during the gradual increases as the crisis escalated, they pick up the pieces and soldier on to win major battles against this virus. First, with remarkable stopgap treatments that reduced the fatality rate to a tolerable level and now with the rapid development and deployment of two effective vaccines. What more can we ask of them? Why are we unwilling to help them contain the spread of COVID in the interim? As we continue to engage this common enemy, we must decide the magnitude of casualties we are willing to endure as we fight the remaining battle to the conclusion of the war against this virus. Is it 10, 20, 50, or 100 times the number of 9/11 deaths? With current deaths at 272,525 vs. 2,977, it will be definitely be over 100 times and likely be over 200 to 500 times at 1.5 million deaths. These were unfathomable numbers four months ago as the second peak occurred following America’s Fourth of July holiday. We can reasonably argue that a couple of successful measures have conspired to allow complacency to creep in amongst us all, even the most resolute, myself included. First the nationwide governors’ mandates issued in mid-july and the forementioned drastic decrease in fatality rate. Further, a couple of other significant events also did not occur. We saw no directly attributable increases due to drastic relaxation of restrictions on dine-in at restaurants and bars, and likewise, with the opening of in-person attendance at schools and universities. We didn’t see the return of the alarming exponential rate of increase in new cases that we saw in March, just an intermediate, gradual, and steady increase, causing this nationwide sense of complacency and subsequent relaxation of our guard against the corona virus. “We have met the enemy and he is us!”, Pogo, by Walt Kelly.

But make no mistake, current daily new cases are early indications the likely return of exponential rates. We as a society have been slow and reluctant to reign in those among us who intransigently persist in their truculent and incalcitrant behavior regarding our confrontation with COVID-19. They selfishly refuse to engage the enemy even at the low personal inconvenience and discomfort of properly wearing a mask while in public. Though I have racked my brain to great extent, I am unable to find a suitable explanation for the phenomena. All that comes to mind: “Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Now I offer instead something that is perhaps subtlety different. During the sixty odd years on this Blessed Earth, I have benefited from numerous events of serendipity. One that currently comes to mind as I ponder current events, is an incident that remains etched permanently in my mind as if it occurred yesterday. In the course of my formal education, I had enrolled in the renown Dr. Joe Brown’s infamous lectures of Machine Design during which he presented several alternate explanations to the practical application of some particularly abstract and obtuse concept, Castigliano’s Theorem perhaps, and was having difficulty landing the concept adequately. Recognizing his students’ lack of apprehension, he candidly reacted with great humor and even greater humility, “…that is all I have, would it help if I said it louder?”. So there and then, I learned the great value and power of humility.

With great anguish and humility, I introspectively submit: I have seen the enemy for it is I!