There is No Getaway

I’m staying a few days in my godfather’s cabin on a lake in far upstate New York. I took a drive, looking for something to eat but am not ready to do indoor dining and no one here has outdoor seating. I considered take-out but all the restaurants were surrounded by mask-less white men on Harleys which for me is an unsafe vibe on several counts, so I went to an organic farm market and eatery for some stuff to take home. Hippies are safe, right?

At the checkout there was a flier with bullet points putting 200k Covid deaths in a diminished context with other larger health and social issues: flu, heart disease, cancer, suicide, abortion, missing kids. The closing point on the printout, to provoke discussion, was: shouldn’t we be more focused on Monsanto, substance abuse, nutrition to boost immune system, mental health…?

I wasn’t going to say anything, but she saw me reading it, said she just did the research herself last night, and I read the words: “this new flu.” 

“But…it’s not a flu.”

“It’s not? I thought it was.”

I wasn’t going to say anything but then I said everything, which I will say again here.

“No. it’s not. It’s not a flu. Some early symptoms in some people look a bit like flu. Trump calls it a cold or flu to minimize it as you have also done here. No doctor or scientist calls it that. Now they know, it is not even respiratory. It’s vascular, affects blood as it flows through every part of your body. And people who get it, even if they don’t die, may have a lifetime of other health issues: compromised breathing, heart and other organ failure, amputation, stroke, other things we don’t even know yet. Flu doesn’t do any of that. Flu mostly kills when it overwhelms a person with other health issues, it’s not especially deadly itself, and many flu deaths can be avoided if more people get a flu shot. But there is no vaccine for Covid. Covid kills and affects the healthy who have no underlying conditions, and we know it can last up to 9 months, or more, we don’t know yet, not the few days or weeks of the flu and then you forget you had it. It’s not a flu.”

She took it all in as her preteen kid came in and out of listening range. She put on her mask after I told her I was from NYC. (I tested negative a few days ago, and was of course wearing my mask I mean come on.) She seemed to be very affected by all I told her, as if she was hearing it all for the first time. She asked me about how things were in NYC, then, and now. I told her honestly but also that there is no before and after. It was bad, it got better, but it’s not over. It is spiking again in neighborhoods and places throughout the country where people don’t take it seriously because they let their politics, religion, or self-interest interfere with common sense, scientific truth, the collective good.

She didn’t find this info even when she was doing research on it. The info is there, but many people aren’t reading actual news, instead getting disinfo from foreign enemies’ memes, clickbait headlines, and angry opinions. Am I adding to the disinfo, the noise right now? I am not a doctor or scientist. I’ve read a few articles. My only Covid agenda is trying to understand and fight this, which should be everyone’s agenda unless you are rooting for Armageddon, which I know so many are. I can’t think of any other explanation for the covid denial, climate change denial, electing Satan himself. That means Jesus is coming!

I suggested she do more research and encouraged her to continue to care about her other issues and work for them in her community but that we need to amplify and keep this issue first, and elect people who take it seriously or we are doomed, if we aren’t already.

It was actually a nice talk. It’s good to get away.

We need to have more of these conversations. We can do this. One person at a time is the new social platform. It might take some time. Can someone else go talk to the Harley guys?