When my brother informed me that his kindergartner came home from school the other day and asked him “When will the sickness be over? I miss playing with the toys and my friends,” I decided I have had enough. I mean, what the hell are we doing to our children?! You know I’m a believer in science, but something just isn’t sitting right with me about this “pandemic.” And before you play some political card with me, go back and read some of my other posts and you will see that I lean left, both fiscally and socially. So, don’t even bring that crap with me. If we’ve lost our ability to look at issues apolitically, then we’ve just plain lost.
When we first started seeing a rise in cases here in the U.S., I was concerned just like everyone else. I was more than willing to limit my travel, wear a mask when I did, and forego some of freedom to do my part in combatting this unknown danger. But that was when, like everyone else, we thought it would only take a few difficult weeks of sacrifice to get ahead of this thing.
They told us we would be unable to avoid spreading the virus, but if we just “flattened the curve” to buy hospitals more time, we could get back to our lives. They said it would be a temporary lockdown that would put us in a situation to be able to manage the spread. It would be about mitigation, not elimination. Almost everyone was on board and willing. But here we are, a half a year later, and we are still shut down and locked down.
People are still without work. Sure, the stimulus packages helped ease the burden, but at the same time, they just kicked the economic impact down the road. I really don’t think our economy has had a chance to begin the recovery. They said schools would be closed only as long as it took to buy our hospitals more time. And even though they are “back in session” to some extent, it is nowhere near enough at the level our children need for proper social and mental development. Add to that the trauma their underdeveloped little minds are experiencing as they try to process what is going on around them.
They see their classmates wearing masks and are told to stay away from them. They see adults, the very individuals tasked with their protection cowering behind regulations, social distancing, and again... masks. They can’t even read our facial expressions when we try to give them a reassuring smile. We took Easter away. We took the 4th of July away. We’re about to take Halloween and Christmas away. These children... our most vulnerable... are suffering and we’re just letting it happen. And I fear the ramifications of our ineptitude at finding an appropriately measured and dignified approach is going to haunt us for years to come, if not decades.
We’ve become so preoccupied with stopping something that cannot be stopped, that we’ve prioritized its seizure over the overall well-being of our citizenry; especially our youngest. But I’m not convinced that our seniors want this to continue either. Many of them were already in the last years of their lives and we are robbing them of any contact with their loved ones. This is a segment of the population that already battled depression and seclusion and all we’ve done is exasperated it. Not to mention those that have taken their last breaths these past several months not being able to say goodbye to their loved ones and their loved ones unable to say goodbye at their funeral. Seriously... what’s wrong with us?! Why are we letting this happen?!
If that’s not enough to convince you that enough is enough, look at what this is doing to the age groups in the middle of our children and elderly. Severe depression. Increased opioid use and overdose. Suicide. All numbers are increasing and beginning to approach an exponential incline. We’ve got to stop. Life has risks. Pre-pandemic, we all faced those risks every time we left our house. We knew that driving 70-80 mph on the freeway was a risk. So, how come we aren’t reducing freeway speeds to 40-50 mph? We knew that going to the store during flu season, which is way more dangerous for our children, was a risk. So, why doesn’t the world shut down every flu season? Our world is full of risks that we willingly accept and deal with. So, what’s changed? Even if this disease is as bad as they keep telling us it is, the collateral damage we are leaving behind is way worse. We need to wake up and we need to do it now!