Pandemic Fatigue

A general malaise overtook me in early July and only now do I feel like I am rising above it all.  This does not mean I did not get anything done; quite the contrary.   Yet often it did not seem like there was any rhyme or reason to it.  I attribute this mainly to pandemic fatigue. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has now dragged on for 22 months.  Thankfully effective vaccines and boosters have been developed which have allowed us to return to a small degree of normalcy.  Even though we are finally moving in the right direction, we are still far from vaccinating the entire US population.  With the arrival of the Delta and now the Omicron variant and its mutations, we are once again facing an uncertain future as countries begin to once again lock down, re-instituting travel bans and quarantines while mandating that face masks be worn in all public place.  Still there are those who continue to flaunt these rules and refuse to get vaccinated thus prolonging the greatest worldwide public health crises in more than a century; not since the so-called Spanish flu / H1N1 virus pandemic of 1918-1920. 

According to the US Department of Health & Human Services, approximately 105 million Americans became infected (ca. 28% of the population) with the Spanish flu and over a half million died.  To date there have been just over 48 million cases of COVID-19 reported in the USA and ca. 777,000 have succumbed to the virus.  There has been 263 million cases and 5.3 million deaths worldwide.  Here in Maryland there have been over 586,000 cases and 11,206 deaths and the numbers keep rising. This is an incalculable loss and I venture to add it has been an unnecessary loss.  And this is all far from over.

At a time when this country is still experiencing thousands of new coronavirus cases daily requiring hospitalization and resulting in further deaths, there are communities and states that have decided they are tired of the restrictions and are abandoning them in wanton disregard for public safety.  This ignorance does not only endanger these populations, it endangers us all.  This pandemic is not going to be vanquished piecemeal.  It will take all of us working together as we take care of ourselves and those with whom we come in contact.  There is an old Chinese proverb that tells us that one moment of patience may ward off great disaster, but one moment of impatience may ruin a whole life.

This pandemic has nothing to do with politics or political affiliations.  The coronavirus is an unbiased killer.  Yet partisan differences continue to exist.  There are those who agree with health experts who say that social distancing, masks, and above all a course of vaccinations and a booster, slow the spread of the virus while also believing that only by working collectively can we protect ourselves, our families and our friends.  Others believe that government-invoked restrictions and mandates limit individual freedoms and endanger our democratic form of government.  What they seem to forget is that we are not debating the survival of a form of government.  We are talking about the survival of our population whether it be red or blue.

We are all tired of the isolation and the loneliness.  We miss our families and our friends whom we have not seen in almost two years.  We all miss the things we used to take for granted that we are now unable to do, or only after logical and logistical planning.   We all miss traveling, and going out to eat, or to the movies or a concert.  And when we do we have to go armed with proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID test.  The only way we will ever get back to whatever will be the “new normal” is to work together and trust each to do what is necessary to restore the health of our country and our neighbors near and far.  Don’t forget.  We are all in the same boat.