We’re All Totally Fed Up With Covid. But Covid Doesn’t Care.

We’re All Totally Fed Up With Covid. But Covid Doesn’t Care.

I had the old-fashioned flu (yes, I was tested for Covid) and I recovered completely in a few days. My friend Cat was hospitalized for Covid and we were all joking about Cat having nine lives, but she died two days ago.

Corrine died too. Corrine had just moved in next to Cat and was on 14-day quarantine when she got sick. As far as I know, she kept the quarantine, but what are the chances that two people died from Covid, two people living next to each other, and those facts are unrelated? I’ll never know.

It’s been a long, hard slog, hasn’t it? Seven months now of covering your face, not touching anyone and compulsive hand washing. The economy is shite and the repercussions from that will stretch far into the future. This will be a world-changer, but we humans are not good at seeing world changes when we are in the middle of them. Do you think humans entering the Ice Age noticed? “Dang, it’s cold today, let’s move the family to that nice valley, the one with lots of roomy caves…”

Humans reacted to this pandemic as humans have always reacted to pandemics. The Black Death in the 1300s brought out the same set of reactions. It took them by surprise, then the OOTs (Oligarchs on Top) tried covering it up for the sake of money-making. This happened with Covid, too. Then they started quarantines, (which word comes from ‘quaratina’ meaning forty days.) They cleaned and aired all clothing and tried to separate the sick from the healthy. They did not know plague was caused by bacteria transferred by the bite of a flea, they thought it was caused by bad air, miasma. Do we feel superior to the ignorant folks of the 1300s? All these years later and scientists do not seem to know a lot about viruses, either.

Black Death killed a third of Europe and acted quickly, many dying within a few days of infection. They kept logs of cases, as we do. It traveled, inexorably, about three miles per day. The world was globalized, even way back then. Whole villages were wiped out. In a later plague wave in 1666, London tried locking families in their homes, posting guards and bringing food to them. Some inmates sneaked out the back window and ran off, spreading it further. 

We humans are rather predictable. “Something is wrong! Who is to blame?” Perhaps our own sinful practices have brought this plague? Perhaps Jews were poisoning Christians? The Pope pointed out that Jews also died of plague, but many Jews were attacked anyway. But wait! It came from the East, like the Mongols, those Scourges of God. The Yellow Peril idea is buried deep in our collective unconscious. President Trump tried to get us all to call Covid the China Virus for political reasons. The much deadlier 1918 pandemic (more deaths than all of WWI) probably sprang up in Kansas, but we won’t hear much about that. 

In 1918, schools, churches and public gatherings were canceled. Some religious groups protested “freedom of religion!”, as did some in our day. Orthodox Jews saw a tremendous spike in cases, both in the U.S. and Israel, before they started following guidelines. In India a Muslim gathering defied the ban early on and as of right now, India is reeling under a massive case and fatality rate. One day last week, 90,000 new cases were reported. But remember, the population of India is 1.3 billion and their health care infrastructure is not the best. This pandemic has tested the medical system in every nation. The US scored about C-, and we should admit that and work on better preparation and better health care in the future.

Various quack remedies sprang up in 1666 London, like our current president’s hydroxychloroquine and his brainstorm of getting disinfectants or sunlight inside us somehow. In London, misery and despair spread among the living. Some stayed drunk and refused to follow plague measures. Some took advantage of the chaos to commit crimes. After a year or so, a strange thing happened in class-ridden London. People decided they were dead men walking and began gathering on an equal footing for companionship before they died. When the plague passed, they went right back to their snobbery and deference.

The aftermath of the Black Death; of losing a third of the population, was profound. Serfdom was struck a mortal blow, because laboring men were at a premium. They could now go elsewhere to get better compensation. The OOTs tried to pass laws against vagabonds to make them stay and serve their masters. It didn’t work.

Imagine… grotesque humans staggering stiffly around town, delirious, out of their minds…if they infect you, you become one of them…does this sound like the Zombie Apocalypse? We seem to have a collective memory for this as well. The Zombie Apocalypse could happen. It happened before.

We’re All Totally Fed Up With Covid. But Covid Doesn’t Care.

Covid is totally unaware of us. We are just a new, unexplored universe for it to romp in. If it gets a chance, it will do it’s thing. We are not in control of nature, painful as that may be to admit. But we are in control of a few things: like the policy priorities we place on good medical care for everyone; like comprehensive, strategic plans for mobilizing when the next pandemic hits. We wouldn’t think much of a leader who, after we were invaded and colonized, said, “Gee, I didn’t see that coming.” Their function is to protect us even as they parasitize us. This time they were too busy parasitizing us to protect us in most nations.

Failure to protect from invading enemies makes you an Loser leader, however big or small the members of the invading army are.