A first anniversary to mark with shame

A year ago today, a patient who was in the intensive care unit at Jefferson Regional Medical Center tested positive for covid-19.

If you recall, the state was surrounded by other states where the coronavirus had been detected. So make no mistake, the coronavirus was about to sweep over Arkansas’ shoreline; Pine Bluff just happened to catch the first wave.

And that set the stage for a year like no other, with pain and suffering and disruption in view just about anywhere one wanted to look.

If we thought that we, as Americans, were too sophisticated, too hygienic for something like this to happen to us, we were rudely awakened to reality. A year later and more than a half-million people are dead from covid. Our heart goes out to them and their loved ones. But too many lives were lost, and such a colossal loss of life bespeaks a colossal mishandling of the infection. Our country should be ashamed.

And while some people were infected by covid and are no worse for the wear, there is a population of individuals who may never get over it. That does not take into account what we are yet to find out about this affliction in the way of possible long-term health problems it may continue to cause.

The pandemic was certainly bad enough, but it was made worse by the politicization of wearing masks and of other scientific evidence. Large gatherings of non-mask-wearing individuals — people who should have known better — became super-spreader events. The stupidity astounds.

Masks are hardly new devices. People wore them more than 100 years ago to protect themselves from the Spanish flu. Sadly, facts used to be something we could all agree on, but with social media, facts are what anyone says they are.

Now we have multiple vaccines, and shots are going out at an ever-increasing rate. People are starting to move about with a bit more sureness in their steps. Dinner at a friend’s house is suddenly possible — as long as everyone involved has had their shots. Can going to a movie be far away? How about taking in a baseball game and not worrying about social distancing?

We overheard someone ask a friend, “Does it feel like a year since covid started here?” “No,” came the reply. “It feels like five.”

But a better place is in the offing. And we will get there; we are getting there. Doctors have described “there” as some place close to normal, with the new normal to include shots for flu and for the coronavirus, perhaps, and even booster shots from time to time for variants.

Bring it on. We’ve been through the worst of times; we can handle that.