A Light At The End Of The Tunnel

COVID-19 isn't over, but perhaps the worst might be

I finally figured out that not every crisis can be managed. As much as we want to keep ourselves safe, we can't protect ourselves from everything. If we want to embrace life, we also have to embrace chaos.

Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Breathing Room

Oregon’s state mask mandate ended Saturday at midnight. After two years of seeing people behind a piece of cloth, I find myself getting used to seeing people smile again. It seems silly, but for so long now, the only way I’ve been able to know that someone is smiling is by looking at their eyes. So few of the visual cues I’ve spent my life using to gauge what someone was trying to communicate were available. For so long now, when I’ve met someone, all I’ve seen was the top half of their head. It was a frustrating way to get to know someone, but it was what we had.

Yesterday, I walked into our neighborhood grocery store without a mask, and I felt like a rebel. I walked in through the front door expecting to be reprimanded for not wearing a mask. Instead, no one said a word. I looked around, and most of the people in the store were maskless. I felt…strangely liberated, which seems silly because my wife works in an oncology clinic in full PPE every day. I learned early on not to complain about wearing masks, not to someone who wears one 8-10 hours a day.

I’ve become conditioned to taking a mask everywhere- and catching myself going back to my car when I’ve forgotten to take one with me. So I’ve had spare masks in my car, my backpack, my briefcase, and my jacket pockets. It’s what I’ve had to adjust to over the past two years, and I suspect it’s going to be some time before I go anywhere without having a mask with me.

Of course, not everyone here in Portland is quite so sanguine about suddenly going maskless. I have a part-time job that still requires employees to wear masks. Many restaurants in town are wrestling with how to approach the issue. The bottom line is that there really isn’t a right or wrong answer, so at least carrying a mask is still a good idea.

COVID-19 is still with us, and will be for the foreseeable future. No one knows what the future holds. Will future variants be as hellacious and deadly as Delta? Or will they be as relatively easy to manage as Omicron? Will the pandemic transition to being endemic? Will next winter herald a return to the worst days of the pandemic?

No one knows, of course, but we can continue being smart about how we go about life in the here and now. Here in Portland, the vaccination rate is, if memory serves, over 80%, which should help to keep future outbreaks under control, but no one should be throwing out their N95 masks just yet.

With the state’s mask mandate being removed, the temptation is to think that we’re out of the woods, that COVID-19 is a thing of the past. That seems optimistic, perhaps overly so, but after two years of living in fear, or something close to it, optimism of any flavor is a welcome change. It’s nice not to have to fumble around to make sure I have a mask with me. It’s good to know that the choice is mine, and that I can wear a mask if I choose, but in most cases there won’t be a requirement to do so. Sure, there will still be the odd business that isn’t quite comfortable with the idea of going maskless just yet, and that’s their prerogative. I have no problem with that, because after two years of being cautious, not everyone will find it easy to let go of that.

I hope that humanity will be able to move forward conscious of what we’ve lost and how we’ve changed. Where we are now may or may not be our “new normal.” It may be months or years before we know or can recognize what that is and how we must adapt to it.

For now, I’m wondering how we can feel normal when we’ve lost nearly one millions of our fellow Americans. There are so many families with empty places a their tables, so many holes in so many hearts. Those of us who’ve survived this pandemic are not only incredibly fortunate, but we owe it to future generations to carry this memory forward. No, we shouldn’t be comparing COVID-19 to a war, not with what’s currently happening in Ukraine, but the death toll here in America represents our battle against a silent, deadly enemy. We can’t move forward without carrying the memory of where we’ve been with us. We must learn what lessons there are to be learned and hope that we never have to face such a threat again.

I can only speak for myself, but I know I’m not the same person I was in March 2020. I don’t know how one endures what we’ve been through without been damaged and profoundly changed. With so much death, strife, and political conflict occurring during the pandemic, I’ve seen sides of my fellow Americans that have left me stunned and saddened. The selfishness and lack of concern for others has been something I’d never expected. The conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccines that were designed to protect us from the virus came as a shock. Surely, we couldn’t possibly be that stupid or unwilling to listen to reason?

Yeah, I was WAY wrong about that. What’s worse is the large number of people who died because they couldn’t/wouldn’t listen to reason. Thousands died because they fell for the conspiracy theories and for information they found on social media. They refused to listen to scientists and medical professionals who’d worked long hours to develop vaccines that would save lives.

Not to be flippant about preventable deaths, but after awhile I came to see it as natural selection at work. People were presented with options that could help save their lives. Most took advantage of the opportunity, but some refused- and many of those died. While the death of anyone is a sad event, I quickly because inured to the passing of those too ignorant, arrogant, and/or self-absorbed to grab the brass ring that could’ve saved their life.

I’m happy that the pandemic has diminished to a point where Oregon’s mask mandate was deemed no longer necessary. I hope this is a harbinger of good things to come, but I’m not doing cartwheels just yet. COVID-19 is still among us- former President Barack Obama tested positive over the weekend- so caution and vigilance are still warranted.

Two years. One million lives. America is not the same. We’re not the same. I know I’m certainly not. That said, those of us who’ve survived have to get on with the business of living. Let’s hope that we can do so intelligently and cautiously.

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