Is the Pandemic Canceled or Nah?

Today is the day beaches and most non-essential businesses in Baja California Sur reopen with limited occupancy rules based on a color coded system. This strikes me as odd since the Ministry of Health has predicted COVID-19 cases will peak this week as well. I totally get the argument for opening up and restarting the economy. I don’t get why we were on lockdown for months, having to sneak around to get exercise, and now it’s totally safe to go about our business while taking precautions. Yes, I understand the “flatten the curve” mentality. It just rings hollow when I see different rules for different types of activities. Everyone wants to carve out their own little niche exemptions. It’s like the people taking private jets to raise awareness for climate change. What you need is a bit more self-awareness.

Anyway, a few months of quarantine have been enough to cause this natural born social distancer to seek the outside world, albeit in small doses. We went to a beach yesterday where there is a ton of fishing and it looked like a normal day. Kids were riding kneeboards in the ocean. People were sitting under umbrellas living their lives. There was no law enforcement presence of any kind at the beach or in town. There were also no Marines in the freshly painted barracks guard towers. A lot has changed in the past few weeks.

I keep reading that quarantine fatigue is a very serious problem and it contributed to the high Spanish Flu death toll. Honestly, I’m feeling it. I was hypervigilant until a couple weeks ago and I’m not exactly sure what changed. Maybe it has something to do with seeing all of the protests on the news. Even some epidemiologists are saying these demonstrations take priority over staying home. I think there are quite a few people who would argue saying goodbye to dying loved ones and attending funerals should have taken priority as well but here we are. It kind of feels like the pandemic has been canceled but we should remember the pandemic also gets a vote.

We were told new cases would dwindle over the summer but then we were told a lot of things. I lived in Arizona for seven years and I’m telling you June is the hottest, most unbearable month of the year. Arizona’s new case stats are going bananas right now. We don’t have to wait for winter for this thing to cycle through again. Look at what’s happening in Beijing; they’re contemplating another lockdown due to a sharp increase in confirmed cases. I honestly do not believe Americans will entertain another lockdown. We tend to frown upon the government picking winners and losers and that’s exactly what has been happening.

I think we’re all just very, very tired. Our brains are being overwhelmed with stimuli and it’s too much to process. I can’t remember another time in my life when we were so close to a presidential election and it barely registered. Like, I seriously keep forgetting it’s a thing. Maybe I’m in denial in the face of two terrible choices. I can’t keep track of all the violence which merits a reaction of outrage and maintain my social distancing vigilance and function like an adult. As if all of that weren’t enough, this morning I learned Mercury is about to go into retrograde. Now’s probably a good time to buckle up and assume the crash position. 2020 isn’t finished with us yet.