"Where I Live, No One Cares About COVID," reads the headline in The Atlantic.
Outside the world inhabited by the professional and managerial classes in a handful of major metropolitan areas, many, if not most, Americans are leading their lives as if COVID is over, and they have been for a long while. …
This is true not despite but without any noticeable regard for cases; hospitalization statistics, which are always high this time of year without attracting much notice; or death reports. I don’t mean to deny COVID’s continuing presence. What I wish to convey is that the virus simply does not factor into my calculations or those of my neighbors, who have been forgoing masks, tests (unless work imposes them, in which case they are shrugged off as the usual BS from human resources), and other tangible markers of COVID-19’s existence for months—perhaps even longer.
To put it flippantly, Covid-19 has killed 800,000 Americans, with no end in sight, millions more are left behind mourning those losses, and still millions more are suffering through the debilitating effects of long Covid. And as a nation, we've stopped caring. In fact, I don't think some of us ever cared in the first place.
Don't believe me? Then explain this abomination of a Chrstmas song parody.
I’ve never been more ashamed to be an American. pic.twitter.com/jkeWa0bzQD
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) December 9, 2021
Friends, readers, followers, it's going to be a loooooooong winter. Delta is surging, hospitals are at capacity, and Omicron is looming. What I'd like this to be is our last Covid winter, but that largely depends on us. Ignoring Covid or wishing it to be over won't make it so. Thus, despite my fear of sounding like a broken record, let's do what we can to put Covid in our collective rearview mirror — get your vaccines, including boosters, wear a mask, avoid large gatherings, practice good hygiene practices including hand washing, and do all of the other things we're supposed to have been doing for the past 21 months.
At this point, I don't know what else to say, and I don't know what will change minds and convince people that we still need to take this virus seriously. I hope and pray that you don't have become a statistic to understand the magnitude of that which we still face.