Loving Pandemic

Loving Pandemic

The wave is cresting. 76.8 million infected globally (just under 1% of the world) and 1.69 million deaths (most likely severely understated at 2.2%). In the U.S. 17.9 million infected (a whopping 5.5% of the population) and 318,000 deaths (slightly better at 1.8%). California is an extreme hot spot with 1.89 million infected (also high at 4.8% of the population) and 22,735 deaths (1.2% but one of those right next door). San Diego is less hot than L.A. with 123,000 infected (3.8% of the county’s population) and with 1,280 deaths (a mere 1% of those infected). The wave has crested WAY above anything anyone other than the most dire Casandras predicted and the gatherings around the Christmas holidays are not yet calculated into these statistics. Some suggest that at the current death rates (they hit 3,054 daily deaths in the U.S. this week) will bring the national death toll to 400,000 by the day Biden/Harris are installed in the leadership of our country. The statistics on infections per million are so far greater in the United States than any other region or country in the world that the United States has to hang its head in shame. About the only country looking to be more irresponsible is the U,K., where the infection rate runs second to the U.S., but where there is also a new strain of the virus that is even MORE infectious that is causing everyone (except the U.S. so far) to quarantine themselves from the already isolated island nation. That reality is that turning this pandemic into what immunologists call an endemic (who knew there was something worse than a pandemic?) What’s not to love.

I have discovered a new COVID problem that I’m not sure I fully appreciated before tonight. We have all had our lives constrained by COVID in some ways and to some extent. Some have lost their jobs or had their businesses fail. Some people have been put into harms way every day on the front lines of the healthcare industry. Children are suffering under the rigors and boredom of the virtual classroom either in total or in part. Moms are pulling their hair out trying to juggle the increased parenting load with the stay-at-home work load. We are all trying to get used to wearing masks day-in-and-day-out. Some on the front lines of retail are laboring under the hardship of facing off against a public that is politically divided and some times ornery about being constrained by local, state or federal regulations related to the COVID pandemic. As we head into the teeth of the holiday season and this new potential endemic, we have mostly all seen our Thanksgiving plans dashed and largely demurred on most Christmas plans. This new problem is managing our most intimate relationships with everyone making their own quarantine decisions.

For Kim and I, we have cancelled a planned trip in October to the East Coast to see the kids, thinking we would reschedule in the later part of the year (NOT happening). Then we planned a repeat trip north to visit friends Frank and Loretta (pseudonym), planning to visit more than a dozen California Missions along the way. Besides many of the Missions being closed due to COVID, what kiboshed this plan was the spike in infections in California (admittedly centered around Los Angeles, which we had planned to avoid) and the subsequent announcements by California Governor Newsom that residents should avoid travel of all unnecessary sorts. When speaking with a family member after an overnight to the L.A. area right after Thanksgiving (almost hard to believe we did that in hindsight), we felt guilty about our travel plans and promptly cancelled our trip. When doing so, it was interesting that Frank and Loretta, who are technically even MORE vulnerable than we are, were not only not disappointed with our decision, they seemed almost relieved that we were declaring the cancellation.

Now, looking forward to the plans we have for Christmas in the next few days, our only plan is for an intimate dinner with Kim’s brother Jeff and his wife Lisa (they live 10 minutes away). We asked my sister Kathy and her husband Bennett (they live 20 minutes away) to join as they have had to cancel with their nearby children due to one free-range, school-attending grandchild and two high-vulnerability other grandchildren. They have yet to declare if they will join us. This example of screwed up family plans and the dynamic of confusion it is creating brings me to to my main story for today.

We had planned a post-Christmas visit from friends Gary and Oswaldo (highly vulnerable on account of age and medical history) and their friends Patrick and James. G&O have become very dear and close friends and P&J have, due to their closeness to G&O (they literally lived next door to them in Staten Island and took care of each other all during the COVID lockdowns earlier this year), have become friends of ours. With all of our family cancellations and the bad news of these surging infections and COVID deaths, we have been stopped in our tracks on visitation planning. We have heard of friends and family (I choose not to call out anyone in this story since we all live in glass houses on this issue these days) who are traveling over the holidays. This has brought up very conflicting emotions as we watch others in our family and friend group commenting on other family and friends’ plans. Everyone is so on edge about COVID that they cannot help but criticize each other for whatever gaps exist in their COVID quarantine plans. Everybody’s program during this pandemic is different and challengeable by someone. This is, in many ways, driving bigger than normal wedges between friends and family that can easily turn into direct finger-pointing should any of it turn into actual infection or, God forbid, serious illness or death.

Last night, we bit the bullet and called G&O and told them that all this “dust in the air” about holiday travel was wigging us out and making us want to call an audible of cancelling their and P&J’s visit next week. We told them that we even felt that P&J should postpone their visit for a better time. In normal times or with people of alternate priorities, this is the sort of plan disruption that can lead to hard feelings and strain relationships. But a funny thing happened, G&O called P&J and talked this all out and it turns out they all agreed that our instincts were right and the entire trip West needed to be postponed. G&O called to tell us and to thank us for helping them all come to a good conclusion.

I am a less touchy-feely person than Kim and I always notice that she ends all calls with friends and family with lots of “I love you’s”. I am somewhat more reserved, even though I learned long ago to overcome this silly barrier with my children. But I am still more hesitant to get that intimate with friends, whether they engage in the ILY program or not. But when G&O called to tell us that all was well and they felt good about the decision we had prompted, I ended the call by saying “We love you” to them. So, this has caused me to declare COVID as the Loving Pandemic. What’s not to love?