Dr Fauci says to hunker down. Life won’t go back to normal until the end of 2021.
Doctor, I love you, but I cannot hunker any harder. I’m already doing extra hard hunkering. Way harder than a person with an immune system operating at 100%.
But solidly at home for another six seasons? Is it possible?
2 responses to “Can I Take Another Year?”
We are at Near Maximum Hunker, but lots of people… aren’t. (an elderly relative who is theoretically “playing it safe” is hoping to get to an estate sale this week because they’re advertising an item he wants. AN ESTATE SALE. INDOORS. and the local university is remaining open with in-person classes even though about 2% of the student body is known to be active with COVID right now; it’s probably substantially worse than that since the testing positivity rate is abysmal and thus there are probably at least as many people as that sick-but-presently-unaware [in other words: 100-person lecture classes: statistically likely to have 2 cases in them].)
So! Yes. That’s… a thing. That many people are really not hunkering at all, and thus, hey, now two of the local nursing homes have rampant infection. So I am guessing Dr. Fauci was not telling the people who *really* already hunkering (who are staying in their homes and backyards and quarantining everything that comes into their house for three days before touching it with their hands) to hunker harder, but telling the people who are making all sorts of “exceptions” (ESTATE SALE) or who are not hunkering at all, to hunker harder.
I do think we’ll need a fair bit of… adjustment… to our economic and other systems to actually manage the pandemic with fewer people dying. With current attitudes in the executive branch, I doubt that’ll be happening before January. BUT maybe if we get actual federal pandemic management starting in January, then we’ll be able to have a less “hunker or probably die” situation for those with less than stellar immune systems in the US? At least enough that getting in-person medical care isn’t a life-or-death risk? Maybe? (I threw out my shoulder this week badly enough that I would normally have wanted to go in to see a doctor and get guidance on what to do with it in terms of stretching/exercise/immobilization, because I had no clue what to do. But looking at the known local infection rates right now: nope; instead I got what turns out to have been fairly good advice from Dr. Google. But Dr. Google’s advice is… not always great… so there is that. I am really happy my shoulder is improved! But I would like it to not be as risky of a choice as it currently is to go sit in a waiting room with maybe 25 local people sharing the air for half an hour or so.)
I guess: there are a lot of things that seem impossible that can in fact be done. We’ll see what ends up being necessary, and I’ll remain extremely grateful for both the internet and a yard. 🙂
KC – at least people in a waiting room are not singing or talking. At least, they weren’t last Tuesday when I was there.