Living With The Plague

Here in the middle of the year 2022, we are entering the second (third?) year of the appearance of this virus that has already killed over seven million of us on the planet. We have witnessed the miracle work of our scientists and researchers who have miraculously found medicines in mere months, instead of years, that have saved the lives of many more millions.

We have seen how Israel has turned that whole country into a pilot test for us as to better ways to tackle this unseen enemy seeking to strangle us with the very air we breathe. We have seen how Sweden has opted to allow the virus free reign regardless of the cost in lives which statistics have verified, an approach Trump toyed with in the U.S. Where are we at now?

In the developed countries many have now had three shots and are working on a fourth, at least for the more vulnerable. In Israel they are delivering their fifth. It is clear that our booster shots have only a limited-time effectiveness. For billions, just getting a first shot has been a challenge. We have come to realize that if all are not safe, then no-one is, as the virus continues to mutate in the bodies of the newly-infected. But we have yet to effectively find the means to protect everyone.

There are positives. The virus has mutated in the direction of being more infectious while at the same time becoming less lethal. The phase where it threatened the functioning of the world economy has passed with wider application of treatments being available, and more and more people developing natural resistance to the virus. Those with health-compromising conditions remain vulnerable to its lethal effects, but most of us face only flu-like effects if we contract the disease. And new remedies are appearing for the stricken every day.

So mask mandates are being lifted, and for more and more of us, life is returning to a semblance of normal. But it is clear that there will continue to be more remote employment from central locations, and we will continue to see masks on the faces of people we meet every day. As well, we can expect a continuing regimen of booster shots at least annually, just some of us have been taking for the flu. Many thousands fall victim to that disease every year.

Inevitably, life has changed. Despite the outcry from anti-vaxxers that have become more vocal, we know now, more than ever, that most of us will be dependent on outside intervention in drug form on a regular basis. We may not have thought about it that way in the past, but our planet is a dangerous place to live in.

Although a virus is not a living thing, it requires us as a host to continue to exist, and it never ceases to strive to do so. And there are untold others out there which may be looking for a human host. This will be added to the climate worries that we are grappling with as we seek to survive here.

Further, our experience these last two years brings home to us how political considerations can be lethal when they are allowed to interfere with the administration of our health care. This was always true, but it has been brought home to us these past two years in a most powerful way. When politics blocks the truth from being told, people die needlessly. This is true for us on a local basis, on a national basis, and on a world basis. And we know the air around us is full of lies about many of the things that are important to us. But, in the end,  none are as important as those devoted to the administration of the nation’s health needs.

It is a matter of record that the US had in place planning for responses to meet emergencies like that country confronted with the advent of the virus. It also is a matter of record that those plans were dismantled with the arrival of the Trump administration. Why we do not know but likely in response to a lobby’s requirements in return for political financial support. That scandal has yet to be fully exposed.

We were saved because scientists were able to translate new discoveries into rapid medical responses to the virus attack. Yet thousands died needlessly in the U.S. at that time because of that administration’ refusal to take responsibility for what had to be done. Need I mention Trump’s name again?

Life has become a little more complicated. Many have left the jobs they had. There may be many reasons, but a feeling of insecurity about working conditions may surely have been a consideration. Many are insisting on pursuing work from remote locations. Many are preferring the continuing receipt of unemployment benefits to gainful employment’ Now the Federal reserve in that country is accepting that higher unemployment will be a necessary corollary to curtailing inflation in that country.

In our daily lives we will be more apprehensive if somebody near us will cough, or appear to be ill. What we might have ignored before may now prompt us to flee our surroundings. We may pay more attention to our own sniffles. Many of us have become more sensitized to the dangers to our health, and to the health of those we care for, than we ever were before.

And there are worries about “long COVID” that have not been at all resolved. Things are different in many ways now after the arrival of the plague. Endemic, like the flue, we will continue to be dependent on our neighbors protecting themselves just as we do. More than ever, we are interdependent, not just locally, but internationally. We are all in it together!