Compassion for the Immune Compromised
Yesterday one of my friends said her favorite uncle died from Covid — both too early, and a horrible way to go. He was boosted but booster shots work with your immune system, and there are lots of us who could spend a good few more years with grandkids but are vulnerable. Meanwhile I'm feeling pretty relaxed, healthy enough (and to be honest, previously exposed enough from having housemates even when I try to be cautious) not to worry.
A whole lot of us have now reached a point of compassion fatigue. Much of America is bringing death upon themselves, their neighbors, and leaving their kids orphaned for reasons that defy easy explanation — but every case I've witnessed involves a mind-boggling lack of humility. And at the same time, a very large number of our neighbors and often family are truly endangered: flu was a major cause of death for the elderly, and now we face something that even boosted (if your body can handle and use the booster) is like a flu that spreads like the measels, and is spread everywhere.
It is time to come back to life AND shift our attention
I'm not entirely sure what this means. But Omicron is out there. It's not killing people fast enough to isolate for years, at this point. It's time to find ways back: perhaps I'll wear a mask on the bus; I hope my favorite restaurants keep their outdoor dining in lovely California; I wish restaurants and everywhere else would improve their indoor filtering. Stay the hell home if you are sick, please. Those changes would slow diseases (Covid and others), but also bring us back to life. Kids in particular need to get back to school: not by turning teachers into sacrifices, but by funding what we need to fund so there are enough resources to do this as safely as possible.
What would it mean to stop arguing, as we needed to last year, to just stay home and then get vaccinated, and moved to a new conversation about how to come back? It's time for isolation to end, and turning up the volume of the same arguments isn't winning the vaccination mind-warp: where to now?