Pandemic Lenses

 

I recently re-watched a movie I hadn’t seen in a while called “In the Land of Women.” I won’t bore you with the plot, but in one sequence in the film, the male protagonist accompanies a teenage girl to a high school party at her friend’s house. The kids were packed into a small space like sardines; most couldn’t even sit down. SUPERSPREADER was the first thought that came to mind.

Now, that word just didn’t exist, at least in common use, when this movie was released in 2007, and when I first saw it, I wasn’t thinking of cootie transmission. Now, of course, it’s a thing. The movie isn’t bad, by the way, and I recommend it, even though most critics panned it.

This is a clear example, though, of how COVID has changed the way we look at things – and other people. I personally hate the blame game. If someone tests positive for the Omicron variant, they will probably blame it on their Aunt Minnie, who had the sniffles during a recent visit. Because we don’t have much of a testing and tracing system, folks do their own amateur tracing.

The fact is, vaccines do a great job of keeping many of us out of hospitals. But they don’t keep us from getting the disease. Omicron blew down those doors long ago, and in some places, one in three people has it. If you look at the New York Times color chart of US disease hot spots, there are no colors anymore. The entire map of the United States is black. So, unless you live in a 1960s bomb shelter, you could get  it from almost anyone.

It seems a little silly to me that they do constant news stories about which athlete or movie star or member of Congress has tested positive. There is no reason to gasp anymore when we hear these accounts.

Nobody “deserves” to get COVID. Certainly, small children don’t, and there is yet no vaccine for the youngest. As for adult anti-vaxxers, many will survive, but could face big medical bills, for those of you into karma.

Is there any good news here? According to Mike’s Unscientific Virology Institute, or MUVI, Omicron is going to run out of gas in the US, as we will reach herd immunity whether we recognize it or not. We will likely have the first true breather in two years. What happens after that? I don’t know – but I’ve never been very comfortable in crowds anyway. it will be nice, though,  when the sniffles are just the sniffles again.