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Talk about what is most upsetting or scaring you right now about the coronavirus pandemic.

It scares me, and confuses me, that people are so much less cautious now, when the pandemic is worse than it's ever been, than they were in March, when one local case would cause people to panic. We need to be every bit as panicked as we all were in March. I know we're tired of it, and it no longer seems novel (no pun intended), but we need March energy right now, desperately. It doesn't make any sense that there has been an inverse relationship between number of cases and amount of caution people take. I don't get it at all. I'm also scared that people will drop their guard once the vaccines roll out. It will take some time to develop herd immunity even after many people have been vaccinated. I'm scared that people will start partying without masks and the like too soon, and it will be devastating. It scares me that by the time spring comes, it's pretty likely that almost everyone will know someone who got very sick, or died. I had my first personal connection to the disease. My cousin has it. We're not close; she's about ten or fifteen years older than I am, I can't remember exactly. I remember being a very little kid hanging out in her teenage bedroom. I've had very little contact with her since I was little. She hasn't been being careful; she's a Trump supporter who thinks all of this is a hoax. But now she's sick, mild at first but getting worse. I'm scared for her, for our family. I'm also scared that the economic fallout of this pandemic will only continue to get worse, and people will only continue to get more desperate. The rich will keep fortifying their shelters or whatever because they know the world is ending--they even seem to wish for it. The rest of us will continue getting poorer. The numbers support this, but even anecdotally, I know that actual hunger has penetrated my educated, middle-class bubble. I've only told one other person about this because I'm so embarrassed that it happened, but I got robbed recently. This is a situation I never, ever imagined growing up as a middle class kid in the 1990s. It's only going to get worse.

December 8, 2020

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