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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
With the mask mandates lifting, cases in the US slowing, and vaccination rates rising, it feels like, if not the end, the beginning of the end of the pandemic. Recently on Kottke Ride Home I heard about how people got through pandemics in the past. For example, students tuned in to school lessons on the radio. Which got me thinking: how will people in the future wonder how we in the past got through the pandemic without the technology they will take for granted? Perhaps they will say, “How could they get through a pandemic without 3-D virtual reality goggle space? They must have been so lonely!” Or, “I can’t imagine being isolated without autonomous delivery vehicles.” Or, “A pandemic lockdown without on-demand printed food is unthinkable.” Best of all would be where competent government, well-supported and regulated pharmaceutical systems, and equitable political, social, and medical treatment means that potential epidemics are identified and shut down right away. Will people of the future say, “That Covid-19 pandemic is completely bonkers, how could something like that ever even have happened.” I hope so.
May 20, 2021
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I am trying to stay balanced. I am trying not to be worried about the big box chains that no longer require masks to enter. Meanwhile I'm trying to be a good mask wearer even though I am fully vaccinated. This struck home the last two days when I left California and traveled to Kentucky to see my family. I was particularly bothered by a man on the flight who continued to wear his mask below his nose. I wanted to scream at him but it was 6AM PT and I was too tired. But I kept thinking "is this what awaits me in Nashville?" I feel this continued anxiety that the US is on the precipice - could we become like India where we proclaim victory against the Coronavirus and then fall victim to not achieving herd immunity? That continues to worry me. That not enough people are vaccinated.
May 24, 2021