Is It Time to Get Back to Normal?

A predicted 48,000+ more deaths might be a reason to hold off

The Sarasota Herald Tribune ran an op-ed of mine (based on an earlier Substack essay of mine) in today’s newspaper (page 10A if you’re a print reader), check it out here online, or just read the essay below.

---

Five hundred and seventy thousand Americans are dead, but people are saying, “It’s time to get back to normal.”  Ah, let’s be sure to put that epitaph on the gravestones of the additional 48,523 people predicted to die from COVID-19 by Aug. 1.

Henry David Thoreau urged Americans to prioritize principle with our entire being; to never leave the fulfillment of principle to chance – or to the whim of a majority. But that’s precisely what we’ve done as a nation: we've left the solving of the pandemic to someone else. For months on end we've prolonged the pandemic by our selfishness – and by disengaging from our own culpability for the nearly 600,000 already dead.

We see delusional thinking play out in politics and living rooms every day. We wring our hands and deplore the “crazies” who show indifference to facts and human suffering. And then we go right out and do it ourselves.

How many Americans say some version of the following:

"Yes, I was one of the ones who didn't think the CDC guidelines applied to me, but I wasn't involved in the deaths of over a half-million people.”

Or: "I didn't get the vaccine because enough other people were getting it that I knew I'd eventually be safe."

Or: "I'm not getting the vaccine because I don't trust what's in it" – echoing the sentiments of the rocker Ted Nugent, who insists he won't get the vaccine despite testing positive for COVID-19 and acknowledging that the virus caused him to become terribly ill.

Our country has been spiraling down in out-of-control selfishness since World War II. Before COVID-19, this decades-long pandemic of selfishness wasn’t so much deadly as it was annoying.

Brief moments in history, like 9/11, could have jump-started the failing engine of American “togetherness,” but even that tragedy couldn’t disrupt the trajectory of the contagion of Americans’ self-centeredness.

Most of us, through literature, college, news sources or even the Bible, have been exposed to ideas of justice, inequality, logic, statistical probability and ethics – and to the great writers and thinkers who tried to teach us the overarching truth of life: what matters is love. Not love of self. But selfless love for others.

But if we deny that truth by refusing to act in ways that manifest that truth, we’ll never break the shackles of self-interest. We’ll never live up to that education. We’ll never become what Ralph Waldo Emerson called “a great soul”: an individual who has the strength to not just think about but to live what they’d learned through vital action.

If only all the book learnin’ and Bible thumpin’ we’ve done could actually make a difference in how we act. Because this thing isn’t over until it’s over for everyone. For all Americans. 

We don’t have to let the predictions of nearly 50,000 more dead Americans be an accepted inevitability. We don’t have to shrug our shoulders and say the worst is over, let’s get back to normal. We can do more. Be more. Love more. Not for ourselves, but for others.

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation suggests that if 95% of Americans would simply continue wearing masks through July, we could save over 14,000 people from dying of COVID-19. That’s 14,000 friends, neighbors, family members, strangers, grandparents, little kids, young adults. Think about it.

Thoreau face masks … wow … who knew?

In her early April press conference, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said, “While we believe that fully vaccinated people can travel at low risk to themselves, CDC is not recommending travel at this time due to the rising number of cases.” 

Roughly 30% of Americans are vaccinated against the coronavirus. While it might be safer for a fully vaccinated individual to travel for leisure, it doesn’t stop potential disease spread to the vast majority of Americans still unvaccinated or who simply refuse to get vaccinated. More spread equals more deaths.

So with the CDC still asking you to delay leisure travel . . . with doctors and scientists still pleading for appropriate mask-wearing and social distancing . . . with variants gaining traction and half of U.S. states reporting recent significant increases in COVID-19 positivity . . . with the stark prospect of nearly 50,000 more Americans dying from COVID-19 in the next three months and the equally stark awareness that we could all do something to prevent 29% of those deaths – what are you going to do?

Selfish or selfless . . . it’s your call.

P.S. Today is World Book Day, if you’re looking for reading material, and haven’t ever read my 2008 collection of “Reality Chick” newspaper column essays — Sideways in Sarasota, I invite you to order a signed copy.