| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Settling in for the long pandemic |
| 2020-07-12 |
| The Week via Hot Air I wouldn't call it a breaking point, necessarily, but it feels like we've reached a moment in the pandemic when things are starting to change. There's been a shift, a dawning that normal isn't just going to come back. That things will not simply get better anytime soon. While rationally it's been clear for quite some time that life won't fully resume until we have a vaccine, there'd still been some wiggle room to play games with yourself: by Memorial Day, by the Fourth, by September, by Election Day it might be different. Confronted now as we are, though, with the onset of the second half of the year, and no significant progress having been made toward mitigating the threat of the virus, many of us are having to come to terms, for the first time, with the looming pandemic long-haul. In the early days of the outbreak, due to the sheer uncertainty of what was coming, it was easy to feel somewhat optimistic. Major League Baseball initially postponed Opening Day by only two weeks; Disney's live-action Mulan was delayed from a late March premiere to what at the time seemed to be an overly-cautious date of July 24, 2020. After what felt like the worst of the pandemic, in April and May, you could convince yourself the spread was starting to get under control; cases were going down, anyway, and lockdowns were being lifted. States moved ahead with reopenings, only for the disease to flare back up again, as experts had warned it would all along. Now, as the government ghoulishly prioritizes the economy over American lives, our grasps at versions of "normalcy" (you can get a haircut!) are desperate at best. It isn't that optimism is being replaced by pessimism so much as it is that ignorance is being replaced by a new informedness. Still, it's one thing to understand that normal life isn't going to be back by, say, September, and another thing to actually come to terms with that fact. For many, the past few weeks have involved grappling with such a shift not so much logically as emotionally. Personally, it's been fall event cancelations that have really hammered this home; while I knew there couldn't safely be a New York City Marathon this November, for example, it's still a blow to actually hear that the city is now in the phase of preparing for what will by then be month nine of the pandemic. Additionally, it's rattling to have nothing to look forward to in the near-future, to know indoor concerts won't soon resume safely, much less if it is realistic to plan an international trip anytime in the next 18 months. Discussions in the news this week about how to handle the fall school semester have also reinforced the realization that we are still very much in the thick of the pandemic. A number of major universities have said they will not be back on campus by September, something that would have been unthinkable back in early March. Likewise, New York City — the largest school district in the U.S. — has confirmed that students will not be returning to in-person class five days a week in the fall. That life will remain suspended for thousands, if not eventually millions, of students, seems the biggest indicator so far of our indefinite limbo. What is certain, though, is we're not talking about only six more weeks or even six more months. For many, July has been when that realization has emotionally sunk in; that it's useless to project ahead in the short term, and less maddening to accept that life is going to be different for a while yet. Ultimately, though, this shouldn't mean our resignation. If anything, it should stoke our determination — that we have far to go, but we approach it as a collective. That we're buckling up for the long-haul, yes, but even the lengthiest journeys eventually have an end. Of course me, I'm worried about what else Xi's bio-wizards have in their labs. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #31 For me, In February it made sense to call the fire department. In April, I was wondering why we were ventilating the roof for a smoking power outlet. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-07-12 21:27 |
| #30 Thank you very much, TW. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2020-07-12 19:13 |
| #29 Thanks, TW! |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2020-07-12 17:11 |
| #28 Dave D, Whiskey Mike, the article is COVID-19 May Soon Lose Status as an 'Epidemic' Under CDC Guidelines A PJ Media piece. I posted it on the 8th. There is a search thingy on each page in the right margin above the list of most recent commenters. Enter your desired key words, and you’ll get clickable articles back in 100 piece lots. I use it so often I have the search page saved in my favourites. Nota bene: it only searches the text within articles, not comments. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-07-12 17:08 |
| #27 Pretty sure the DNC and G(r)om issued a joint statement denying that :-) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-07-12 16:54 |
| #26 Yes, I read that as well. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2020-07-12 16:44 |
| #25 Sad to hear you were being worn down, TW. Lex stepping back will be good for Lex. Question to all: I read the other day (and failed to bookmark it) that the Chinese virus is no longer a 'pandemic', and is falling to marginal epidemic status. Does anyone else recall this news item? It was in a CDC statement, iirc. |
| Posted by: Whiskey Mike 2020-07-12 16:21 |
| #24 Hope Lex comes back. He will, when he is good and ready, methinks. |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-07-12 15:24 |
| #23 do you know what happened to Lex? Lex got tired of refighting the same battles about the coronavirus, and took a vacation before he said something we’d all regret — on the opposite side of the argument as you, g(r)omgoru. My personal position is that both sides are right, and it would be very helpful if all involved could apply their serious intelligence and deep knowledge to work on ways to accommodate both sets of very real needs instead of staking out maximalist positions and refusing to budge. If the solution should happen to involve isolating all Black Bloc activists on Alcatraz for the duration, regardless the banner they happen to be doing the usual under, I am open to throwing a dinner party as a reward. Y’all have been upsetting me. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-07-12 15:23 |
| #22 No thanks. Now, as the government ghoulishly prioritizes the economy over American lives If the WuFlu is the nightmare as advertised, there would be no need for scare sentences. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2020-07-12 15:14 |
| #21 @ #19 - NICE!! |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-07-12 14:06 |
| #20 Lockdown was a mistake and the virus is vastly overblown in terms of threat. It's as simple as that. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2020-07-12 14:04 |
| #19 Lex departed graciously. The serial agitator is still here. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2020-07-12 14:02 |
| #18 This is the far lefts best chance to cripple mid America into the welfare state the coastal cities have become. |
| Posted by: 49 Pan 2020-07-12 12:41 |
| #17 /\ Je sais, grom...it is someone else. |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-07-12 09:00 |
| #16 I never thought that, Klement. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-07-12 08:57 |
| #15 g(r)on, I was wondering the same about Lex the other day. Hope he didn't get frustrated. One poster thinks Lex and I are the same. LOL, ridiculous. |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-07-12 08:56 |
| #14 Nope. |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-07-12 08:52 |
| #13 ^p.s. Frank, do you know what happened to Lex? He suddenly stopped posting. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-07-12 08:50 |
| #12 So you're a victim now? Right |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-07-12 08:44 |
| #11 #9 Cancel culture comes to the "right"? |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-07-12 08:43 |
| #10 @#8 - Keep feeding that squirrel, B! |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-07-12 08:41 |
| #9 G - your Catastrophe Celebrationâ„¢ is tiresome and self-destructive. F off |
| Posted by: Frank G 2020-07-12 08:36 |
| #8 Ref #6: A porch squirrel told me just yesterday that "the globalist agenda is all that will save us." Some people don't hold much stock in porch squirrels, but this one is seldom wrong about anything. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2020-07-12 08:02 |
| #7 The long pandemic, indeed. Per the 'historians' at the CDC The 1968 pandemic was caused by an influenza A (H3N2) virus ... The H3N2 virus continues to circulate worldwide as a seasonal influenza A virus. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2020-07-12 08:00 |
| #6 Some have argued climate change agenda was flailing, and this plandemic gave it a boost. Listen to the nonsense coming out of AOC's & Pelosi's mouths and also Europe. Also a "sudden" push to digitize currencies (Europe & Pelosi again). Other items as well. Something is horribly rotten in the state of Denmark. |
| Posted by: Clem 2020-07-12 07:35 |
| #5 "Now, as the government ghoulishly prioritizes the economy over American lives..." I'd like someone to explain to me why this version of the flu virus (and few or none of its predecessors) requires killing large swaths of the world's economies. |
| Posted by: Raj 2020-07-12 06:54 |
| #4 Bully for you! |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-07-12 05:44 |
| #3 "Now, as the government ghoulishly prioritizes the economy over American lives..." I stopped reading right there. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2020-07-12 05:36 |
| #2 Of course, some are still in denial phase. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-07-12 05:25 |
| #1 Im curious what the need is for a vaccine for a virus with a death rate of 0.2%. I seems to my unedgumacated mind that a peeps immune system is adequate for this. For those at risk it might be a proper choice. |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2020-07-12 05:18 |