Day 322…
Well, I suppose it was inevitable. Last night I had a dream where I was the only person present not wearing a mask.
In the dream, I was driving an electric convertible through the carpeted back hallways of some sort of large church looking for the box office. As one does. There was going to be some sort of performance and the cast, all dressed in grey knitted robes that looked like armor were all lying around on the carpeting waiting for the show to begin. I had to get them out of the way so that my car could get through. All of them were wearing masks and I wasn’t, so I kept trying to hide the fact by covering my mouth and nose with my hand, but it wasn’t working.
And then I woke up.
As I walk around the city, I have to say that it is extremely rare that I come across anyone who isn’t wearing a mask. The actual mandate says that you are required to wear a mask anytime that you are unable to maintain proper social distancing. What that means is that if you are out and about and nobody is near you, you can drop the mask. In my experience, though, most people are just wearing them all the time regardless of how many people are around them.
Mask-wearing has become habitual. The very few times that I have opened the door to the apartment and started to go out without one, the sensation of air against my face instantly reminds me to go back in and get one. I have a new one available in my backpack just in case I get too far out.
We are probably going to be wearing masks for years to come.
Even before the pandemic, the Japanese routinely put masks on when they felt ill. Tokyo has one of the densest populations on the planet. It is very difficult to get away from people. If somebody gets sick, then potentially everybody gets sick. Somehow, they learned how to take care of each other for the good of all.
Of course, when Michael and I were working there on West Side Story a year and a half ago, we thought that it was all a bit of overkill. When he caught a cold, however, during the run, he wore a mask while he was at the theatre. He never would have done that here, but it would have been completely rude not to do it there. When in Japan…
Now, I will say this to all of our friends in Japan, I freely, and without reservation, admit and state, that you were right. There, I said it.
Even when most people have been inoculated against COVID-19, we are still going to need to wear masks. The vaccine isn’t a guarantee that you will never get the virus. It just means that you will be better able to fight it off. It also still isn’t clear how long the inoculations will last. By the time people further down the list start to get it, the people who were first in line may need to get it again.
Similar to the way we now live with the AIDS virus, we are going to figure out how to be safer from it, but we are unlikely to ever get to the point where we are completely safe from it. What the vaccine will do, is beat back the onslaught of infections to the point that when outbreaks do crop up, they will be easily identified and contained. The Spanish flu kept coming back, albeit in much smaller numbers, for years after the initial high peaks.
The difference between COVID-19 and the normal flu that we all got used to living with, is that COVID-19 seems to have the ability, in some people, to create lasting and potentially serious health issues. We don’t think about that with the regular flu, but we can’t forget that with this one. Even a vaccine that is 95% effective still means that 5 people out of 100 will still get it.
We are experiencing enormous obstacles as the vaccine rollout proceeds. The United States is not alone. The European Union is also experiencing supply issues.
Eventually, we will start to figure this out, but, in the meantime, it’s all a bit of a mess. If we, the developed countries, are having these issues, just imagine what is happening in the rest of the world.
When international travel starts back up again, not only will we need to worry about our immediate neighbors who will likely have some sort of immunity, but we will need to worry about people from places that simply don’t have the access to the vaccine that we do and have no immunity at all.
This morning, there is a coronavirus press conference being broadcast on television with nary a politician in sight. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC and Dr. Fauci and a series of President Biden’s appointed health care experts are telling us what is going on. Imagine that.
Dr. Deborah Birx, who spent this last year coordinating the White House’s coronavirus response for the previous administration was interviewed on Sunday by Face the Nation.In the interview, she dropped several bombshells.
She said that despite assurances to the contrary, that she was the only person working full time on combatting the virus. She said that she would see charts and graphs get distributed that she had nothing to do with. Many times, that material contradicted the facts that she knew, at the time, to be true. Her ideas and strategies were disregarded. She said that she was routinely prevented from sharing what she knew with the American public.
As alarming as all of that is, the response from many people has been to condemn her for not speaking up sooner. She is being blamed for helping to enable this President and his supporters from doing anything to fight the pandemic.
I’ve talked about the French television series A French Village before. In short, it is about a small town in France that falls under Nazi occupation and what happens to both the French and the German people living there during that time.
You are invaded. Do you collaborate or do you resist?
On the show, residents of the town made their choices, and we follow all of them. It turns out that none of the choices, in either direction, are good.
One of the main characters, a prominent village Doctor, agrees to become the Mayor believing that he could protect the town’s citizens by working with the Nazis. He isn’t thanked for it, and the decision affects him for the rest of his life.
As the Mayor under the Nazis, did he make things better or worse? That is one of the questions that the show’s writers ask. The answer isn’t at all clear.
If Dr. Birx had spoken up last year and been replaced by someone like Scott Atlas would that have helped anything? Was it better to have someone like her in there or should she have left?
Dr. Fauci, with more experience and political savvy, may have navigated through this past administration with more skill, but he wasn’t in the same position that she was. He was somehow able to tell us, even when he couldn’t come right out with it, what was going on. Dr. Birx didn’t have that ability.
When I think of Dr. Birx, I think of the press conference during which the then-President suggested that injecting bleach might be a way of cleansing the body from infection. Dr. Birx, who was sitting on the sidelines, startled, but did everything she could to remain neutral in the face of such an idiotically dangerous suggestion.
In a way, that is what she did the whole time. We had to try and glean the truth from what she wasn’t saying.
Was it better to have her in there or did her position give legitimacy to a group of people who should have been exposed? I don’t know that question is answerable.
At the very least, Dr. Birx was witness to what was going on. Dr. Birx was in an impossible situation and regardless of how it played out, I do believe that she tried to do what she thought was best.
Yes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but would any of us have done differently? I’m asking, because I simply don’t know what I would do in those circumstances.
Practically speaking, wearing two masks is a bit more challenging than I initially thought. Our current supply of disposable masks to wear underneath the cloth ones don’t fit as well as they should. I have fairly big ears, but with headphones and two separate mask straps wrapped around them, even they are proving to be not enough of an anchor to keep everything in place.
It’s time for another visit to my mask-guy on Broadway down near Zabars. The masks that I have been wearing are actually already multi-layered, but there is always room for improvement.
However late it is, I am so grateful that we now have seemingly honest reporting coming to us from our health officials.
We can thank ourselves for that. It’s one of the things we got when we went out and voted.
We have the power to take care of ourselves and each other. Wearing a mask is one of the simplest and easiest things that we can do.
Does it solve the problem? No, not by a longshot, but the data suggests that it helps.
We should all be willing to help.
❤️loved your dream...I want to be in that play!!
Isn’t it so wonderful
we are being told the truth...
🙏💕💫
This is the first winter of my life without a cold or respiratory infection of some sort. I love it. As a mom and school nurse, my immune system was pretty hardy, despite or because of the inevitable exposures. My husband and I were just discussing how our view of the Japanese and mask wearing shifted from bemusement to respect. I think it will be part of our lives ongoing as we are also heading into our seventies. We are scheduled for our vaccines tomorrow and filled with gratitude that we have appointments. It was a crazy experience navigating an appointment. We will continue to observe all safety measures as suggested. We all should help, but your reflection on what is “helpful” or “right” was thoughtful. Thanks as always for the time you take writing.