Day 383…
Flowering trees and shrubs have started to bloom in Central Park.
A few days ago, when I was in the park, their branches were still bare, but yesterday, even in the rain, there were finally some lightly shaded swaths of color to be seen.
We had forsythia bushes alongside our driveway at the houses that we lived in in New Jersey when I was growing up. Their yellow flowers always seemed to herald the end of the winter for me. For a moment, that yellow is the only other color in an otherwise black and white landscape. Then, slowly at first, it is joined by the purples and pinks of the crocuses and flowering trees, and before you know it, everything is out and loud and green and new.
Last year at this time, by the time I started to be able to see what was going on around me, everything was already out. I missed this moment of beginning. This year, I’ve been waiting for it.
We celebrated our 2nd virtual Passover Seder last night with much the same group of friends and colleagues that we celebrated with at this same time last year. There is another group of people that we have gathered together with online every Sunday and yesterday, we realized yesterday that it was exactly a year ago when we first started doing that, too.
The Seder ends with the the wish, ‘Next year in Jerusalem.’ Last year that didn’t really seem likely. This year, it does. Last year, living the way we are was still very new and we were all still reeling with the shock of it all. This year, the celebration was lovely but not as much of a desperately needed lifeline that the previous one had been.
At this time last year, George Floyd was still alive. He had just about two more months left to live.
This morning, the trial of the officer charged with killing him begins in Minneapolis. Despite all of the reaction and attention to his death, despite the multiple videos that we have all seen countless times of Officer Chauvin kneeling on the already handcuffed George Floyd’s neck until he died, there is a chance that he will be exonerated. Given the history of our criminal justice system in this country when the victim is a person of color and the accused is white, that chance is very good.
It remains to be seen whether everything that we have learned about the flaws in the very fabric of our society over this past year will finally allow a measure of justice to be served. George Floyd was not the first man of color to lose his life at the hands of a white law enforcement officer. He was, however, the first to have been murdered when all of us had nothing else to do other than watch and listen.
Michael got his second jab of Moderna on Saturday. I got my second shot of Pfizer a week ago. As of this morning, 143,462,691 Americans have been given at least their first shot of one of the vaccines. As of this morning, 15.5% of Americans have been fully vaccinated and 28.2% have been partially vaccinated.
The CDC released a study this morning saying that both the Pfizer and Moderna shots are proving to be as effective in real world conditions as they thought they might be. Two weeks after the first shot, people are 80% immunized and two weeks after the second that rises to 90%.
By the end of this week, vaccinated New Yorkers will be able to pull up a certification called an Excelsior Pass on their phones. The Excelsior Pass will be proof of either having been vaccinated or having recently tested negative for the coronavirus.
It is envisioned that this app will function in much the same way as an airline boarding pass. When you go to a theatre or sports event, or, indeed, an airline flight, you will be required to either show a printout of your pass or a virtual version of it on your device along with your ticket.
There are going to be hiccups as this app rolls out. Connecting up all of the data from individual pharmacies and national chain stores who are providing the vaccine along with state-run testing centers is going to be challenging. The Federal Government, already foreseeing issues with interstate movement and international travel are in the planning stages of a national version of a COVID passport.
There are going to be lawsuits.
Earlier this month, a Monmouth University poll showed that one in four Americans say that they will not get the vaccine. Unsurprisingly, the greater percentage of people who say that they will refuse to get it are Republican. They vastly outnumber those deniers who are Democrats.
Will airlines and theatres and sports arenas and cruise ships actually turn people away who have not been vaccinated? If those people have tickets, will those tickets be refunded? Will we need to get COVID insurance when we purchase our tickets?
Many are going to argue that forcing people to reveal their COVID status is an invasion of privacy. The Excelsior Pass, anticipating that, will not distribute any information other than a simple OK to enter. IBM, the company who created the system, will not have access to anything other than a yea or a nay from the testing and vaccine centers.
As our society begins to open back up, the people who have been the loudest in their protests of shutting down in the first place are likely going to be the very same people who will refuse to be vaccinated. To them, the virus is a hoax, and the current federal government is illegitimate. What is going to happen when these people arrive at an airport or an arena and are denied entry?
Studies have shown that a new strain of the virus now called B.1.526 is on the rise in New York City. It contains the E484K mutation that was thought to have originated in South Africa and Brazil. People infected with this version tend to be older and to have been hospitalized at some point which is where they likely originally encountered it. This variant is now spreading among us like wildfire.
The CDC is saying that it is OK for small gatherings of fully vaccinated people to occur in pre-COVID mask-less and un-distanced conditions. They are not saying that it is OK for vaccinated people to move freely through a crowd of unvaccinated people.
The case rate here in New York City while not rising, is not appreciably declining either. It is still very much out there and very much still spreading. More than a dozen other states, including our neighbor New Jersey are seeing rising case numbers.
Nationally, we are now at over 30 million cases. In a very short time, we will reach 550,000 people dead. We are not through this yet. In the exact same way that the Spanish flu had a third wave, at almost exactly this same time of the year, so are we, likely to get one now.
In a televised interview a couple of days ago, the former director of the CDC, Robert Redfield, said, "I still think the most likely etiology of this pathogen in Wuhan was from a laboratory, you know, escaped. It's not unusual for respiratory pathogens that are being worked on in a laboratory to infect a laboratory worker." He can provide no evidence for this at all.
Blame.
Dr. Birx, who was the virus response coordinator for the former Administration, is speaking out about what she witnessed, now that she is free of governmental pressure. She says that, in her opinion, after the first wave of 100,000 deaths that the rest could have been largely avoided or at least contained at a much lower level. The lack of action on the part of the former President and the Republican-led government made that impossible.
Blame.
Dr. Birx has been criticized for not speaking up while this was happening. Should she have? Was it better to have her in the White House and muzzled than it would have been to have her get fired for speaking the truth? She is being blamed for being a collaborator.
Having a person as respected as she was standing silently next to the former President as he lied to us, gave what he was saying some credibility that it may not have had for some people. As I have said previously, Dr Birx is not the diplomat that Dr. Fauci is. Dr. Fauci, however, was kept away from what was happening more than Dr. Birx was. At least in her we now have a credible witness to what was going on inside the White House last year. If the MyPillow guy had replaced her, we might never have gotten a clear reckoning.
Blame?
President Biden called President Putin of Russia a killer. To be fair he didn’t say the words himself but, when asked by an interviewer if he thought that Putin was a killer, he replied, “I do.”
On the other hand, he refuses to say the same thing about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. This despite a report from US intelligence that the Crown Prince is responsible for the 2018 death of journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi.
Blame is a useful and powerful political tool.
As opposed to our former President, President Biden thus far has said nothing that appears not to have been fully considered.
We need to maintain a relationship with the Saudis, calling the heir presumptive to the throne a killer will only jeopardize that.
We do not need to maintain a relationship with Russia, and, in fact, we need to defend ourselves from their attacks. Acknowledging Putin as a killer puts him on a global defensive. It was a concerted retaliatory shot of blame and, judging by the angry and indignant response from Russia, an effective one.
I had a meal on Saturday with two friends that I hadn’t seen in over a year. They have been fully vaccinated as have I. While I still have another week left before I am considered fully inoculated, we, nonetheless, made the decision to hug each other. It was a calculated risk, but one that we discussed and agreed to accept.
Those hugs felt good.
As much as assigning blame can be a way to avoid personal responsibility, it is also necessary for us to be able to move forward.
The only way that true reform will start to happen in our law enforcement agencies will be if someone like Officer Derek Chauvin is blamed for someone like George Floyd’s death. If he is let go, despite all of us being convinced of his guilt, the message will be that others can do the same.
Our former President has to be blamed for his criminal inaction so that future leaders don’t do the same.
Blaming the Chinese for the virus without any evidence, however, does nothing more than increase an already lethal level of anti-Asian bias.
That said, if any evidence ever does surface that the Chinese actually allowed this virus to escape - either on purpose or accidentally - then the balance of power on the entire globe changes. China opens itself up to an unimaginable backlash - both politically and financially. That the former director of the CDC said this, himself, seems the height of irresponsibility. That level of blame is not his to assign.
I am going to download the Excelsior Pass and sign up for my passport. When the federal version is released, I will upgrade to that. I don’t want to go into a crowd of people without knowing their statuses, so I am more than happy to provide them all with that information myself.
I may be greedy, but after two great hugs, I want some more.
Next year in Jerusalem? I honestly don’t much care where I am next year. If I can hug my friends and family then anywhere is fine.
Chag same’ach.
So enjoyed reading your post again, Richard. Hugs good Lies bad
Jx
💞❤️ trying oh so desperately to have faith and look towards the sun
I have my own experience of the “law” having nothing to do with truth or what is right. It’s exhausting. Lies and manipulations are so depleting of energy. Truth gives way to inspiration
Thank you for your truthful and inspiring post today. however painful some of it was. Hugs are becoming the sacred essential. 🙏💞