THE EARTH IS FLAT, THE MOON IS MADE OF GREEN CHEESE, AND THE COVID VACCINE WILL KILL YOU—PART VI: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED AND WHERE ARE WE GOING?

“Where are you going now my love?/ Where will you be tomorrow?/ Will you bring me happiness?/ Will you bring me sorrow?”  Carry On, by Stephen Stills, from the album Crosby, Stills and Nash

I promise, this will be my last post on the COVID pandemic.  As a nation and a planet, we have way too many other things that also threaten us, and we have to deal with them, too.  But now is a good’s time to reflect on where we currently stand with COVID, and what it can tell us about the future.

As of today, the world has just passed its 5 millionth confirmed COVID death.  I say “confirmed” because the death toll is much higher, based on overall mortality data.  For an updated running world total, as well as a country-by-country breakdown, you can check here updated COVID statistics .

What do we know?  First, research in southeast Asia has found at least 3 similar strains of coronavirus in bat populations in Laos https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21240-1  This seems to make it more likely that the virus started as a natural mutation, and less likely that the disease stemmed from some sort of lab experiment.  But there’s no way we’ll probably ever know. 

Nothing new about this.  For centuries, the French referred to syphilis as “the Italian pox” and the Italians called it “the French disease.”

The issue isn’t where it started.  The question is what will happen now.

Scientists had hoped that COVID would work its way around the world, stall once vaccinations were introduced, and then fizzle out.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like this will happen.

More and more, it appears COVID will become endemic, like influenza.  We can fight it.  We can treat it.  But it isn’t going anywhere.

The Americans can blame the Chinese, and the Chinese can blame the Americans. It doesn’t matter.  We’re stuck with it.  As it continues to mutate (the latest variant has been referred to as “Delta-plus”) additional periodic boosters my become necessary, just like influenza.

So what have we learned from all of this that can guide us in the future?  First, we now know that no matter how dire a situation may be, even when thousands are dying daily, there will be politicians and charlatans who will seek to use the situation for their own political and personal gain.

We’ve seen millions around the world reject science in favor of easy answers.  We’ve seen how a “you can’t make me do this” attitude—whether about masks, distancing or vaccines—can be more important than “can I make a sacrifice to help others?”  We’ve seen how people will deny the truth, then seek out obscure and tangential rumors to support their own version of the “truth.”

We’ve seen millions of Americans use their children as surrogates for their own biases, screaming at everyone from public health officers to school board members, with seemingly no concern for the children themselves. 

We’ve seen millions use their religion not as a tool of faith to help their fellow humans, but as a club to bludgeon anyone who disagrees, even if that results in greater suffering and death. Then they just go home, say grace, and pretend to be religious.

We’ve seen doctors, nurses, and other health care workers ridiculed and threatened simply for trying to protect the health of the American people.

We’ve seen Americans attack, maim, and sometimes kill one another simply because they disagree over wearing a mask.

We’ve seen how the virus’s impact on everything from life expectancy to unemployment has disproportionately landed on Black and Hispanic Americans, once again demonstrating the injustice in our current health care system.  Will we finally have the courage to confront this, and make the necessary changes to improve the health of all Americans? 

Finally, we have seen a disease that should have united all of us and compelled us to put aside our differences, reveal instead just how ugly, divided, and weakened we have become.

But can any hope be found in all of this?  Anything that might guide us in the future?  Yes. 

Applications to Nursing and Medical schools throughout the country have increased significantly.  Decades-old research involving RNA, and especially messenger-RNA, which resulted in COVID vaccine development, has been greatly accelerated because of the pandemic.  This holds significant promise for breakthroughs in other areas, particularly cancer treatment.

We have seen acts of mercy, as neighbors have helped one another while loved ones were hospitalized.  We have seen health care workers, sometimes on the verge of exhaustion, pressing on to care for their patients, even when overwhelmed.

We have seen teachers demonstrate amazing resilience in dealing with remote education to continue their educational mission.  We have seen sanitation workers, meatpackers, store clerks, and others whose labor is frequently discounted and overlooked, carry us forward during the darkest days of the pandemic, despite high death rates in their own ranks.

Will we recognize their sacrifices, and better protect them in the future?  Or will we continue to worship billionaires who simply tell us what we want to hear?  As one front line worker once told me, “when they talk about us, they call us ‘essential’ workers.  But that’s not how they treat us.  They treat us like we’re ‘sacrificial’ workers.” 

 Will we do better by these people in the future?  Maybe even pay them a living wage?

The pandemic has accentuated the gap between rich schools and poor schools.  More well-to-do children had computers, iPads, and a plethora of online learning opportunities.  Poorer kids struggled to get by.  Education, the great equalizer of my generation, has failed to uphold our neediest students during the pandemic.  Will we recognize this and seek to remedy it, or continue to let our neediest students fall by the wayside?

These are just a few of the questions we confront as we begin to come out of this pandemic.  Adversity can make a nation stronger—but it can also be an excuse to point fingers, blame others, and refuse to learn.  Which path will we choose?  Will we pull through this together as “The United States of America,” or will we falter, stumble, and fail, ultimately collapsing into “The Disunited States of Stupid?”

All of this may be premature, of course.  We’re not out of the woods yet.  If you’ve been vaccinated, thank you.  Not just for what you’ve done for yourself, but what you’ve done for all of us.  And if you’ve not been vaccinated, please reconsider.  This virus isn’t going away.  Just like the Battle of the Bulge in the Second World War, when Allied troops suffered a vicious counter-attack when they were plunging forward to the very edge of Germany, things could worsen quickly.  We all need to do our part.

Signing off for now.  Worldwide deaths as of this moment–5,032,168.  American deaths–768,847.

Be careful out there.