If you recall, I started this series as a way of detailing how things that could have always contributed to the need for emergency preparedness were getting worse. They were...
- more extreme weather due to climate change
- more attacks on government and infrastructure due to white supremacy
- more work force loss due to COVID deaths and disability
Working on your emergency preparedness is an obvious thing to do. There are things that have changed and I can write about that, but the main thing keeps feeling like our hearts. Maybe that is more obvious with COVID.
I can tell you to wear your masks; I believe I have. We can talk about things like improving ventilation and practicing social distancing. Doing things outside is going to get easier as we get into warmer weather, but do we even care?
You can argue that it's not about caring. Right now I know a family with multiple COVID cases because with people visiting Grandma, one of the visitors had been exposed. He knew, but he didn't say anything. Is that because he didn't care, or because he just didn't believe that COVID was real or that it was anything worse than a cold?
My first thought there -- besides hoping that everyone recovers -- is remembering an awful cold I had several years ago. Even a regular cold can be pretty miserable, but that one that lasted a month, and brought on a secondary pneumonia infection. Even when the antibiotics cleared up the pneumonia and I could lie down without suffocating again, I still had a miserable cold for the rest of the month.
I would not wish that on anyone, and it could potentially kill an elderly person.
But of course, at the start of COVID there were people deciding that losing seniors was worth it.
I remember at the start I was frustrated how so many things were pulling us in the wrong direction. For example, locally we had just passed rules to limit use of plastic bags. Suddenly there was the concern of the reusable bags spreading the virus, so that went out the window. Also, there were really good reasons for avoiding each other, but it felt awful.
But then, we did things that were better. More people were working remotely and it allowed more people with disabilities to participate in the work force. More restaurants created take-out options. New flexibility was permitted. The government gave people money and children were doing better.
Now we're doing away with all that.
Yes, I still wear a KN95 mask. I do it to protect others and to set a good example and to stand for what I believe is important.
It feels alienating to see so many who don't. It feels more alienating because I know how closely that was tied in with Trump support.
It feels alienating at church.
Did we decide that, since masks are more effective at protecting others from us than protecting us from others, that it's not worth it?
I do not want to cause any harm.
I could have it much worse. I still can go out, and I feel reasonably safe, although the immunity issues that come with diabetes could make for complications if I do get infected.
There are many others, including cancer patients and people with autoimmune disorders and children too young for vaccines and elderly, who are at much worse risk. Their social and travel options are limited. Now the old job limitations are coming back, because on a societal level we are more interested in controlling than helping.
The general message being sent is that we don't care.
Let them die now and decrease the surplus population! But what if they just get disabled?
In one of the other posts I had referenced it being right to do something even if it is too late.
We do not always know how much good we can accomplish. If we can help some other people, though, if we save one starfish, or even if we only keep our own heart soft and humble, that is worth doing.
Yes, wear your mask, but it is so much more than that.
This is probably going to be a very serious year, but I will post about something easy next week.
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