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Maybe I shouldn't be using the word viral right now to describe things.
I feel a great deal of empathy for the class of 2020. Not everyone is overjoyed with their high school experience, but it's hard to see it peter out like this, just when some of the best memories are formed in the last couple of months. Prom may be an angsty overblown thing, but it's hard to miss not because you chose not to, but because it was canceled altogether. Graduation ceremonies are an important rite, a symbolic passage from one era to the next. Picking it up in a face mask, or having it mailed to you, is just not the same thing.
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Benjamin was class of 2019, but this was his first year at college. He was talking to it so well. Mama and Daddy were so proud of how he was taking flight on his own. His grades were excellent, and he was participating in more activities than he did in high school. Now he's back home. We get along well, but it's hard to see him lose that experience.
Every student learns in different ways. Benjamin does not take well to learning solely online. His grades have suffered some, but he is working hard to get his rhythm back.
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This is the big week for our faith, Holy Week, as it is for many Christian denominations. Reverand Kit and a small group of helpers have arranged it so we can get services online, and it has been a blessing in our family. It has helped us stay connected to our faith and faith community.
As difficult as it is, it is necessary to not worship assembled together right now. That is how outbreaks happen. Right now, Pierce County, in terms of percentage of population, is suffering disproportionately compared to other Georgia counties. This stems in large part to area churches that insisted on having church gatherings.
I don't understand the impulse to give religious gatherings a pass, as the Governor of Florida has done. Even more confusing is Kansas, where the Governor banned them, and the Kansas legislature voted to restore them. That is ridiculous and dangerous. What kind of constituency is there for that sort of madness? I would have thought that even most religious people would have understood the necessity for it.
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I hear people talk as if they think this going to be ending soon. I don't try to argue with them much because I don't have the heart to tell them otherwise.
We are just beginning to see the benefits of social distancing. We may have begun to see the turn of a corner, a reduction in acceleration enough so that there is a good chance that our medical facilities can handle it (although PPE, masks, and ventilator needs run critically high). But it is just the BEGINNING. If we remove restrictions too quickly, this will come roaring back in intensity, and the system will be overwhelmed.
We'll know more when some parts of the world, where the curve is ahead of us, come out of self-isolation and start to resume normal life. We'll find out how intense a second wave might be. The second wave of the Spanish Influenza (1919) was much more devastating than the first. We'll also soon find out if people who have had it once are truly immune, or whether they are susceptible to getting again.
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Even though this is the day I usually do my Saturday Political Soapbox, my political thoughts have been disjointed, and I've said much of them already. I'll try to be more thematically sound next time.
Make no mistake, however. The shadow of his idiocy hangs around us all. It endangers each and every one of us.
Save democracy. Support mail-in ballots.
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