Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
Americans watched the stages of grief play out. At the very beginning we saw Trump deny COVID. There was no COVID here. Then it was barely here. Don't test so much, he said. That is Denial.
Then Anger. At first Trump gushed at how cooperative China was, and then turned to anger at the "China virus." It was a deliberate attack by our enemy, he said. And maybe Andrew Fauci was in weaponizing it. Anger.
We watched Bargaining play out in the efforts by Trump and then Biden to control the disease. Bargaining is the long, exhausting period in the war on COVID. COVID had its early streak, then we got vaccines and it looked like we had won. Then delta turned the game for COVID. Then boosters evened the score. We are stuck in midfield, with more-virulent but less deadly omicron. The vaccinated felt personally safe, mostly, then felt the let-down realizing the vaccinated could get COVID and spread it. Meanwhile, the COVID-concerned see the maskless stand next to them in stores and gather at events.
The Bargaining phase is deeply unsatisfactory, breeding discouragement and the Depression stage. Being COVID-compliant feels like being the designated driver at a party. The unvaccinated gather and want schools open and maskless. They don't seem to worry about COVID, and still almost none of them die. Some do--like my anti-vaxxer cousin--but by dying he disappears and people remove his anti-vaccination and pro-Trump signs. Herman Cain probably caught COVID at a Trump event in Tucson, then died. We don't hear from him anymore. Meanwhile, the people who got COVID and lived are on TV and podcasts saying COVID is overhyped.
Bargaining frustrates the COVID-compliant. We are impatient and feel helpless to motivate the unvaccinated. They fill the hospitals. I feel flashes of anger at them. Meanwhile the COVID-unconcerned resent vaccine mandates and the public health scolds. It is lose-lose. No wonder we are Depressed.
Acceptance is where Americans are. A college classmate said "Shame on you, Peter," when I wrote about acceptance two weeks ago. He works in an overcrowded hospital.
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| Monmouth Poll |
Monmouth University polls have credibility and rigor. Their survey reported:
Fully 7 in 10 Americans (70%) agree with the sentiment that “it’s time we accept that Covid is here to stay and we just need to get on with our lives” – including 78% of those who report having gotten Covid and 65% of those who say they have not been infected.
Americans do not think we won the battle against COVID. They think we lost. They don't care. It is like our leaving Afghanistan. The war is hopeless. Stop fighting. Move on. Monmouth reports:
Only one-third of the public (34%) feels the country will get the outbreak under control and return to normal by the end of the year. In fact, more than 1 in 4 (28%) now believe a return to normalcy will never happen, which is up from 22% who felt this way in September and just 6% who were similarly pessimistic exactly a year ago.
My cohort of friends are mostly older Boomers, educated, and politically liberal. We got immunized and boosted and are careful in public spaces. We are in the minority who have not yet accepted. I expect another "shame on you, Peter," letter. I am not happy with Acceptance but I recognize it as the new political reality. Another reality is that if Democrats don't adopt something like the position taken by Colorado's Democratic Governor Jared Polis, and end mandates and masks, going "back to normal," they will have badly misread the American public.
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| Polis: Acceptance |
Acceptance means more anti-vaxxers will die. So be it. It means more vaccinated-but-vulnerable people will die, too. They deserve better, but Americans are OK with that. All of us run a greater risk of new variants from the unvaccinated, but the disease is worldwide and we will face new variants when they come. COVID won. COVID is everywhere.
Democrats could easily misread the moment and mood. It is still a democracy. There is an election coming up. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
11 comments:
When the doctors and nurses tell us it's over, it will be over.
Not the (insert expletive) politicians.
I read Camus’s The Plague in high school and then again in college. The people described did not resonate. Today I understand. We’re looking for heroes but find only people, just like me. Years later lesson learned. Bury the past. Nothing more to say. Nothing more to see here. Move along now death awaits us all.
After hundreds of thousands of lives lost out of sheer stupidity, I have far more sympathy for health care professionals doing the impossible for the ungrateful than I do for the idiots who ignore their advice. It’s hard to imagine “just moving on” while our hospitals are overflowing with idiots.
It brings to mind the anti-vaxxer Washington state trooper who told Gov. Inslee “Kiss my ass” over the vaccine mandate. It went viral and he became the darling of wingnut media for a brief period. Then he caught COVID and died. In contrast, I’m fully vaccinated and boosted but got a breakthrough case of Covid. I was sick for one day. Anti-vaxxers can “Kiss my ass.”
This should be a separate paragraph all by itself:
The vaccinated felt personally safe, mostly, then felt the let-down realizing the vaccinated could get COVID and spread it.
At this point of the pandemic, let's not forget that both the vaccinated as well as the unvaccinated can contract COVID, as well as spread it. Fortunately for many, those who have been vaccinated and/or boosted will be less likely to suffer ill effects from the continued mutation of the COVID virus.
My wife and I are fully vaccinated, boosted, and healthy, but continue to wonder why neither of us have contracted COVID, while surrounded by neighbors and friends who've had mild cases, though also vaccinated and boosted. Even two who recovered and survived, have contracted it again.
The current situation can't be the new normal. Perhaps nature is confusing to evolve the human race, fully engaged with Darwin's theory.
That last paragraph should be:
I don't want the current situation to be the new normal. Perhaps nature is continuing to evolve the human race, fully engaged with Darwin's theory of evolution, survival of the fittest.
"Anyone who's responsible for that many deaths (220,00+ in October 2020; 425,000+ since January 2021) should not remain as president of the United States".
"Unlike my opponent, I have a plan....I'm not going to shut down the country, I'm going to shut down the virus".
I wouldn't call that "Bargaining". I'd say braggadocio, perhaps also hubris.
"Look, there is no federal solution"...ignoble Acceptance?
The lesson from Covid is, it's more than medical care and vaccines. It's what are you doing now? What are your contributions, small as they may be, that will improve the lot of us or just your immediate circle? There's no longer a reason to argue amongst ourselves and cajole the resistors. Covid19 is only one of the many causes of death. We all die, some violently, some of natural causes, some through disease, some doing exactly what we love. You too will die, so what are you doing on your journey from birth to death? You have free will to help where you can. Moralizing the human condition is unkind and counterproductive. Quite simply it is our judgmental nature that is now separating us. To state the obvious, it's that separation that is tearing us apart.
Face it:viruses and bacteria are here to stay, and they will eventually kill off the human race.
That is inevitable.
COVID provided a rehearsal and we kind of learned how to fail at mitigating a pandemic.
Nature always bats last.
Only in America: We require proof of vaccination for people flying into the country, but only for non-citizens – as if unvaccinated Americans were any less dangerous. Nor do we require vaccination for domestic flights, thus giving the coronavirus a free ride around the country.
We effectively surrendered to the pandemic a long time ago, when we didn’t put mandatory vaccination and COVID precautions in place as soon as we were able. So, we might as well just throw up our hands and move on, especially now that acting like idiots has become such a defining feature of being Republican – Florida’s Governor and so-called surgeon general being prime examples.
Which raises an interesting question: Considering how many of our fellow Americans they’ve killed, what’s the difference between anti-vaxxers and domestic terrorists?
Now do the death numbers for the vaccinated. Then do hospitalizations for the vaccinated. You won’t/can’t because it won’t reconcile with your ‘should not remain as president’ absurdity.
People are getting sick and dying mostly by choice and therefore the President should step down so his VP can take over? Your acceptance is that stupid people will overwhelmingly strengthen the gene pool so enjoy that.
Ps.Trump lost, how’s your 401k?
Yeah, no not only in America do we let only vaccinated travelers in. I can reel ten countries off the top of my head that aren’t letting you in unvaccinated and even then you’ll be jumping through hoops and spending lots of hard earned $cratch you’d rather keep for the privilege.
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