Farewell to Covid

Mr. and Mrs. Yours Truly, earlier in the pandemic.

To the best of my knowledge, I still haven’t gotten Covid. I would like to thank my superhuman immune system, my strict adherence to scientific protocols, and a social circle that could fit comfortably in a Mazda Miata. Oh, and the Academy.

Just kidding. At this point it’s all down to luck. Nearly everyone I care about has had at least one case of Covid. Most took the pandemic seriously for the first couple of years, but then, like me, quietly and gradually said to hell with it. Now it seems that despite all the masks and vaccinations and social distancing, it’s less a question of if you get infected, but when. Turns out you can’t put out a fire if half the onlookers keep tossing books on it.

I know: simply writing about this probably guarantees an epic case of Covid within the next few weeks. And some of us still don masks once in a while. Last week I went in for a blood test at Quest Diagnostics, a venue usually jam-packed with shambling, sneezing hordes of the halt and lame. Covid aside, a mask in that situation is just common sense.

Is the pandemic over? Which one? Don’t forget the flu, RSV, and shingles. Measles and polio are back in the game too, thanks to the same MAGA mindset that neutralized any unified response to a public health emergency. Hell, let’s get smallpox trending. Come on down!

So here we are. This pandemic is over in our minds, if not in the real world. On the bright side,  I don’t miss hating the people who refused masks from the get-go.  That was just exhausting. Now we’re back to judging people mostly on their bumper stickers and dopey hats.

On the dark side, future pandemics will probably be worse, since we learned all the wrong lessons from this one.