Yeah, the quarantine and the nation- and worldwide shutdown is getting to me. Please don't lump me in with those MAGA/KAG protesters that have "popped up out of nowhere" in the past few days; those people are either Republican dumbasses that have been organized by Republican billionaires or hired crisis actors to act as if there is a sizable (and stupid) pushback to all these measures that are being taken to save as many lives as possible. I understand why this is being done. And yet I am restive, and bored, and hoping, probably against hope, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
In the meantime I am occupying/scaring myself with as much coronavirus reading material as I can possibly stand. Several I've come across speculate on the future, and it's not a pretty one. They're thought pieces that basically revolve around the hardened conclusion that this is The New Normal, or that we will never, ever-ever go back to "normal" ever again. Just over this weekend I read one general essay about how we will never be the same, a second one about how the restaurant business will never be the same, and a third one about how architecture will never be the same. To the authors of the pieces and the experts interviewed therein, that light supposedly at the end of the tunnel is in fact an oncoming train.
I'm certainly no expert, and I definitely am not an architect nor a restaurateur. But I live in this world, and the one that was before last month, before The End Times. And while I can't predict the future, the writers and interview subjects in those entries in coronavirus porn, as learned and as thoughtful as some of them may be, can't either. And so I will try an impassioned defense for The Old Normal, and a possible roadmap to the way back there.
I understand that a pandemic like this should make us rethink things. Many people (and at least one of the writers on these stories I read) refer to 9/11 in how things in America have changed irrevocably. After those terror attacks there were new regulations on airport security, a brand new way of looking at surveillance, and, at the attack's immediate aftermath, scrutiny and a concerted effort to hunt down Islamic terrorists. I will submit that things have changed, but beyond hunting down Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, I'm not sure that the changes that have become our New Normal is a good thing.
After this is all over, people are speculating that there will be brand new aesthetics in interior design that will mean the death of (ironically, sort of) both completely enclosed rooms with dangerous, unclean recirculated air and open workspaces. Meanwhile, restaurants may reopen with half the number of tables there before, and the menus that get passed around and potentially pick up germs will be permanently banned. Meanwhile, a new grid of surveillance -- precipitated by technology, birthed by the geniuses of Silicon Valley such as Google and Apple -- will track and trace anyone who may unwittingly have and spread the virus; those people will then be told to quarantine for two weeks while a text will go out to everyone who came within six feet of that germ wagon. Oh, and large crowds at concerts and sporting events may not come back for 18 months, maybe not two years, and maybe not ever. Well, maybe not at least without getting let in by a bouncer who checks your temperature with a forehead thermometer.
OK, time out. There are a couple good things that might come from this. A new appreciation for the restaurant business may finally convince both entrepreneur and consumer to fatten the margins so that chefs and servers can survive beyond a living wage, according to that restaurant piece. And while the ACLU will be all over it, surveillance in the name of public health might be a type of civil liberty that I am willing to cede -- and I know I probably am not the only one. (I know the type of people who will hate such a concession: It's those MAGA/KAG protesters that "spontaneously" came out of nowhere to stand up for their rights and shit. Anything they're against, I'm for.)
But for the other sky-is-falling predictions about what we'll need to do in order to avert the next plague, I think it's a bit of a reach. We don't know if all these measures are going to be acceptable to the public. And we don't know if all these measures are going to be needed, either. We need testing -- nationwide, on-demand, repeated testing, and we need it now. We get the antigen test, we know where the hell the virus is and we can isolate those who have it while letting those who don't get back to their lives. And once we get the antibody test, those who have had the virus and have developed immunity to it (hopefully at least) can not only resume their lives, but they could (or be ordered to) give plasma to help those who are gravely ill.
Finally, there's the weapon that ends our global nightmare -- a vaccine. One expert I came across thinks 18 Months is way too optimistic, and my heart sank reading that. But once we have that, I see no reason we can't flood and crowd public spaces and bars and restaurants and stadiums and rock halls like we did before. At the very least there will be an annual serum that everybody will need to take that will best blunt the effects of a mutating coronavirus. Then and only then will we reach what I think experts and the public agree will be an acceptable amount of risk for us to resume our lives. Then and only then will comparing this to the flu will make sense. Yes, tens of thousands of people die from the flu every year. But we have gone about living anyway. Maybe we should wash our hands more often and be more careful about how we cough and sneeze. But otherwise, although we wouldn't have slayed the virus, we will believe we have tamed it to the point where we will not cower in fear of it anymore.
We're not at that point yet. So those Republican idiots who want to just reopen everything and live like we were before, they don't give a shit about the bodies that will pile up just so we can bring back the economy ... and oh, the economy won't be back because too many people will be too scared to go back to work, and many of them will need to tend to their sick loved ones, and some of them will be dead. No, this isn't the flu. Humanity hasn't dealt with a disease like this yet. If you want to blame somebody for your business shutting down, blame Donald Trump for not believing for 70 fucking days that this could destroy our economy. He could have accepted those tests from the World Health Organization, shut down air travel from all countries immediately, and ordered the mass production of Personal Protective Equipment. Did he?
With that being said, I am kind of at a point in thinking that we are at a Janus point with COVID-19. We don't know how this disease manifests itself, and we certainly don't know where it is. But we all know that it's contagious, that many of us remain susceptible to it, and that it can kill. That's why everybody who's sensible will stay at home as much as possible. Meanwhile, we cannot resume our lives with any normalcy until we get a vaccine. So that's where we are. We hide because this disease is in the air. Once we find a vaccine, we don't hide anymore. That's it. That's the endgame. Hell, that's the whole game.
And so yes, I am pining for a day where everyone will get a vaccine that works perfectly against this coronavirus, and thus we can get back to normal. As a (faux?) progressive I find myself kind of in arrears with fellow progressives in the sense that normal is something you should run from, not to. But what I read over these past few days saddens me. I don't want things to change from what I remember being and living in just 30 days ago. That was nice then, and I think most people would agree that is a life that's worth going back to. So I viscerally push back against any notion that we can't go back to before, especially if I don't know what will replace it going forward.
Maybe I'm not that different from those paid Astroturf protestors that cropped up across the nation this weekend after all. We all want to get back to normal. I just don't invoke racism, stupidly invoke my "liberty" and think this virus is a conspiracy while I hope for that. If I get to stay the fuck away from those Republican terrorists, maybe we should quarantine for a good while longer.
In the meantime I am occupying/scaring myself with as much coronavirus reading material as I can possibly stand. Several I've come across speculate on the future, and it's not a pretty one. They're thought pieces that basically revolve around the hardened conclusion that this is The New Normal, or that we will never, ever-ever go back to "normal" ever again. Just over this weekend I read one general essay about how we will never be the same, a second one about how the restaurant business will never be the same, and a third one about how architecture will never be the same. To the authors of the pieces and the experts interviewed therein, that light supposedly at the end of the tunnel is in fact an oncoming train.
I'm certainly no expert, and I definitely am not an architect nor a restaurateur. But I live in this world, and the one that was before last month, before The End Times. And while I can't predict the future, the writers and interview subjects in those entries in coronavirus porn, as learned and as thoughtful as some of them may be, can't either. And so I will try an impassioned defense for The Old Normal, and a possible roadmap to the way back there.
I understand that a pandemic like this should make us rethink things. Many people (and at least one of the writers on these stories I read) refer to 9/11 in how things in America have changed irrevocably. After those terror attacks there were new regulations on airport security, a brand new way of looking at surveillance, and, at the attack's immediate aftermath, scrutiny and a concerted effort to hunt down Islamic terrorists. I will submit that things have changed, but beyond hunting down Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, I'm not sure that the changes that have become our New Normal is a good thing.
After this is all over, people are speculating that there will be brand new aesthetics in interior design that will mean the death of (ironically, sort of) both completely enclosed rooms with dangerous, unclean recirculated air and open workspaces. Meanwhile, restaurants may reopen with half the number of tables there before, and the menus that get passed around and potentially pick up germs will be permanently banned. Meanwhile, a new grid of surveillance -- precipitated by technology, birthed by the geniuses of Silicon Valley such as Google and Apple -- will track and trace anyone who may unwittingly have and spread the virus; those people will then be told to quarantine for two weeks while a text will go out to everyone who came within six feet of that germ wagon. Oh, and large crowds at concerts and sporting events may not come back for 18 months, maybe not two years, and maybe not ever. Well, maybe not at least without getting let in by a bouncer who checks your temperature with a forehead thermometer.
OK, time out. There are a couple good things that might come from this. A new appreciation for the restaurant business may finally convince both entrepreneur and consumer to fatten the margins so that chefs and servers can survive beyond a living wage, according to that restaurant piece. And while the ACLU will be all over it, surveillance in the name of public health might be a type of civil liberty that I am willing to cede -- and I know I probably am not the only one. (I know the type of people who will hate such a concession: It's those MAGA/KAG protesters that "spontaneously" came out of nowhere to stand up for their rights and shit. Anything they're against, I'm for.)
But for the other sky-is-falling predictions about what we'll need to do in order to avert the next plague, I think it's a bit of a reach. We don't know if all these measures are going to be acceptable to the public. And we don't know if all these measures are going to be needed, either. We need testing -- nationwide, on-demand, repeated testing, and we need it now. We get the antigen test, we know where the hell the virus is and we can isolate those who have it while letting those who don't get back to their lives. And once we get the antibody test, those who have had the virus and have developed immunity to it (hopefully at least) can not only resume their lives, but they could (or be ordered to) give plasma to help those who are gravely ill.
Finally, there's the weapon that ends our global nightmare -- a vaccine. One expert I came across thinks 18 Months is way too optimistic, and my heart sank reading that. But once we have that, I see no reason we can't flood and crowd public spaces and bars and restaurants and stadiums and rock halls like we did before. At the very least there will be an annual serum that everybody will need to take that will best blunt the effects of a mutating coronavirus. Then and only then will we reach what I think experts and the public agree will be an acceptable amount of risk for us to resume our lives. Then and only then will comparing this to the flu will make sense. Yes, tens of thousands of people die from the flu every year. But we have gone about living anyway. Maybe we should wash our hands more often and be more careful about how we cough and sneeze. But otherwise, although we wouldn't have slayed the virus, we will believe we have tamed it to the point where we will not cower in fear of it anymore.
We're not at that point yet. So those Republican idiots who want to just reopen everything and live like we were before, they don't give a shit about the bodies that will pile up just so we can bring back the economy ... and oh, the economy won't be back because too many people will be too scared to go back to work, and many of them will need to tend to their sick loved ones, and some of them will be dead. No, this isn't the flu. Humanity hasn't dealt with a disease like this yet. If you want to blame somebody for your business shutting down, blame Donald Trump for not believing for 70 fucking days that this could destroy our economy. He could have accepted those tests from the World Health Organization, shut down air travel from all countries immediately, and ordered the mass production of Personal Protective Equipment. Did he?
With that being said, I am kind of at a point in thinking that we are at a Janus point with COVID-19. We don't know how this disease manifests itself, and we certainly don't know where it is. But we all know that it's contagious, that many of us remain susceptible to it, and that it can kill. That's why everybody who's sensible will stay at home as much as possible. Meanwhile, we cannot resume our lives with any normalcy until we get a vaccine. So that's where we are. We hide because this disease is in the air. Once we find a vaccine, we don't hide anymore. That's it. That's the endgame. Hell, that's the whole game.
And so yes, I am pining for a day where everyone will get a vaccine that works perfectly against this coronavirus, and thus we can get back to normal. As a (faux?) progressive I find myself kind of in arrears with fellow progressives in the sense that normal is something you should run from, not to. But what I read over these past few days saddens me. I don't want things to change from what I remember being and living in just 30 days ago. That was nice then, and I think most people would agree that is a life that's worth going back to. So I viscerally push back against any notion that we can't go back to before, especially if I don't know what will replace it going forward.
Maybe I'm not that different from those paid Astroturf protestors that cropped up across the nation this weekend after all. We all want to get back to normal. I just don't invoke racism, stupidly invoke my "liberty" and think this virus is a conspiracy while I hope for that. If I get to stay the fuck away from those Republican terrorists, maybe we should quarantine for a good while longer.
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