WISHING AND HOPING

All of us are sick to death of “sheltering in place” and having our lives disrupted by COVID-19. My situation is not that difficult (my fixed income keeps coming and I don’t have children to home school or worries about whether I can pay my bills). Most of the population is under far more stress than a couple of retired people living in the mountains. Still, I wish it would be over.
As I see states rushing to reopen the economy and people protesting having to wear masks or stay away from their favorite activities I secretly hope that a month from now the risk will have dissipated and that those governors and protestors will have been right. That is the wishful side of my nature; the side that believed all of those diets were going to effortlessly melt away the fat, the face treatments were going to clear up my acne (or, more likely now, get rid of my wrinkles). I really wanted those get rich schemes and investment tips to make me wealthy and for the latest tips from Cosmopolitan magazine to make me popular, smart, and irresistible…
There is a little sign over the bar in my family room. It says “Dear Wine, we had a deal. You were to make me funnier, sexier, smarter, and a better dancer. I saw the video. We need to talk.”
The optimistic, and I admit, gullible side of me always wants to believe the promises and I am not the only one. For most of my career I conducted clinical trials of drugs, devices, and cellular therapies. I hoped they would all work and help people who were sick, discouraged, afraid…some helped, but many did not. I hated knowing that dying patients were pinning their hopes and lives on untested therapies. But they were desperate to do something, anything, to make the future better.
Right now, everything we have learned over the history of mankind; all of the science, experience, and observations, are testifying mightily that COVID-19 is not gone. It is not a known enemy that has been vanquished, never to darken our lives again. There isn’t a shred of evidence (scientific or otherwise) that we have things under control or that we really even know what we are dealing with.
I suspect (and fear) that the next month or two of people defying the guidelines, shooting $15-an-hour employees for enforcing masks, breaking someone’s arm in Target over our “rights” is going to put all of us in a worse circumstance than ever. More people will get sick, more people will die (the new model says 147,000 dead in the U.S. by August).
We have heard the argument that we can’t sacrifice the economy for the sake of a bunch of sick and older people who are at higher risk of dying. We cannot worry about our health providers being driven into the ground or made ill from their burden. As one of the many who fall into the group of “at risk” folks I must say I am not enthusiastic about that take on things. One Texas legislator said the “older folks should be glad to sacrifice their lives for the economy of their grandchildren.” I say, “you first, buddy.”
Another person asked us each to look around at our neighbors, family, co-workers, and friends, select 100 of those, and determine which 2 or 3 we are willing to have die so that we can go clubbing, or shopping, or get our hair cut.
As for me, I am staying home and waiting to see what happens. I am hoping (and wishing) that all will be well, but I suspect that will not be the case.
In the meantime, whatever path you are taking, please take the safest one you feel you can. Protect yourself and others as though lives depend on it (mine as well as yours).