Here some of us are, waiting fearfully for the Thanksgiving surge of the coronavirus. Hospitals are full. New cases are setting records. Deaths are soaring. And then, Christmas is coming. What a holiday season, right? But it’s our own fault. We’re impatient. Some of us don’t even take the virus seriously. Until it directly impacts us or a family member or a friend. And then we speak with regret.
I’d rather regret a disturbed holiday season than regret losing my wife, who has underlying health conditions that could make a bout with COVID-19 deadly.
I was on the Next Door website the other day, and I saw somebody asking for recommendations for a personal chef who can cook a Christmas dinner. At her home. For her family and 10 to 12 other couples. That’s more than 20 people, gathering inside a home, at dinner, on Christmas.
Don’t do it, I wanted to respond. But I didn’t. If that person wanting a Christmas dinner is planning a meal for two dozen people, a suggestion that she postpone wasn’t going to do anything but make her angry.
I get plenty of pushback already because I always wear a mask outside my home or car, or when I’m at a drive-through, or when I meet a delivery person at my porch. I hear from readers who, after one of my columns warning of the consequences of letting down our guard during the pandemic, tell me I shouldn’t be afraid of a virus that the vast majority of people recover from.
Yeah, that’s true. And it’s also true that the virus kills at higher rates than the flu or many other diseases. Yeah, no need to be afraid. Unless it’s you who brings the disease into an environment where at-risk persons live. Or unless it’s your wife or mom or dad or brother or sister or good friend or another relative that gets sick. And dies.
I have a close friend who is about to enter her fifth semester of nursing school, and she’s already told me, with resignation, that she expects that she’ll get COVID at some point. And she’ll be in line for an early vaccine.
Why are we so impatient that we cannot bear to postpone big Thanksgiving Day lunches or Christmas night dinners? What is it about us that we refuse to look ahead, knowing that if we do contract the virus, we could beat it and still have chronic health problems that dog us for the rest of our lives?
Why aren’t we more afraid? So afraid that we don’t look at wearing a mask as giving up some constitutional right, even as we wear shirts and pants and shoes every day?
As of this writing, the virus had claimed more than 271,000 lives in the United States. It has killed more than 3,630 in Alabama. In the state’s largest population area, Jefferson County, more than 500 people have died.
Does that matter to the great majority of people? You wouldn’t think so by looking at how our national and state leaders are handling things.
Children tend to recover quickly from the virus; well, at least those who it doesn’t kill. But pushing to keep schools open during a huge surge without the proper PPE, social distancing, and safety measures in place, isn’t going to protect the teachers, janitors, school nurses, and administrators who have to be there with those kids.
Yeah, I miss going out to eat, watching UAB play basketball, visiting with friends, and going to a play or movie. But I don’t miss them enough to give in to my wishes because I’m just tired of the pandemic.
Holding classes on Zoom is exhausting. Attending classes on Zoom isn’t the best way to learn.
But you can’t learn anything if you’re dead or, even worse, you get the disease and kill somebody else because you’re careless.
A personal chef for 10 to 12 couples at a Christmas dinner? What in the world are people thinking?
