by Mary Wakefield Buxton –
URBANNA — Amazing is the word that comes to mind as our county sees evidence that COVID-19 is finally waning after several years of pandemic plus “pandemic panic.” I don’t know what was worse — COVID-19 or the COVID-19 panic.
When one thinks of what we have experienced and suffered it’s amazing so many were able to survive. Yet so many people died from this disease not to mention those that were harmed by economic loss of earnings due to shutdowns, depression caused by isolation, loss of academic development due to schools being closed, and even ostracization from families and friends over who were vaccinated and cut off relationships with those who were not. We have no idea of the overall and long lasting damage that has been done to society from this disease.
Perhaps COVID-19 was not the only cause of the high number of deaths as many who died were battling other serious diseases like diabetes, heart failure and cancer with weakened immune systems that could not withstand a new virus. Still, each death was heartache to someone and it seems equivocating about what actual disease caused death.
It is amazing that our drug companies were able to find an effective vaccine so quickly and also private and public agencies were able to deliver the vaccines to millions of Americans with rapid fire speed. Hats off to our own Marshall’s Drug Store in Urbanna and other area dispensers that were a part of this nationwide effort.
Amazing how irritating the enforced mask wearing became and especially for those like myself that suffered with severe allergies and struggled with breathing. Rather than wear a mask, I simply stayed home, which worked for me but how about those who had to continue struggling to breathe at work and wearing a mask?
Amazing how quickly the mask wearing and vaccinations became so politicized, the President Biden crowd wearing masks even after mandates became optional as if to prove they had not voted for Trump and the Trumpers taking them off if only to prove they hadn’t voted for Biden.
It struck me as comical how the masks became a flag for one’s political affiliation. And then became obsessions. Masks were almost like security blankets and people actually suffered at the idea of giving them up. I saw one person riding a bike in an empty street in Urbanna with a mask on as if she was terrified she might pass a lethal germ on to a squirrel.
Amazing how good manners so quickly dissolved. The eruption of public shouting if a masked person saw an unmasked person in a store or vise versa.
Amazing that so many chose not to be vaccinated and especially amazing when public and private employers threatened to fire employees that were not vaccinated.
Amazing that churches were shut down, but liquor stores could stay open.
Amazing that people had been sent home to work discovered so quickly that they preferred to work at home. Amazing when we called the utility company or insurance agent and heard dogs barking or babies crying in the background.
Amazing how few employees wanted to return to work when requested to do so. Amazing how many people up and quit their jobs rather than submit to what became a dreaded outcome — going back to the office.
Amazing that Dr. Fauci contradicted himself so many times in his advice on how to cope.
Amazing so many Americans chose not to take their doctor’s advice and get the shots.
I have wondered why so many Americans refused to be vaccinated and even to wear masks. Truth is we are a rambunctious and cantankerous people (some might add bone-headed) that do not like government (or any other base of power) telling us what to do.
I think this trait is written in our genes. Think about it. Most Americans living today had ancestors that packed up and left the “old country” because they didn’t like the system: Kings, Popes, Lords, Ladies, Dukes and Duchesses, totalitarian governments, pervasive class systems that held people down, like slavery, communism, socialism and fascism.
My ancestors, like millions of Americans, left the old country to start a life anew in America along with millions of other oppressed people. Like Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest, America was mostly settled by headstrong people who would not be ruled. Many of us still have this gene and that is why we are so difficult to govern. We are not malleable, folks. Think of a herd of feral cats and someone trying to round us up.
It’s fun to look back on troubles we have endured with a light heart and a dash of humor. Still, it is even more fun “the COVID-19 Era” is passing us by.
Yet, one must wonder what horror will hit us next? As Yeats asked in his poem “The Second Coming,” … “What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”
©2022.
