How things have changed -- and not all for the better.

 Yesterday, Facebook provided me with this memory: 

My comment when I shared it: "Narrator voice: She never went back..." 

In other words, it's two years to the day since I last worked in an office building full-time.

A lot has changed since then -- and yet, a lot hasn't changed. We're still dealing with the virus, although now we have tools to battle it: vaccines to prevent it and medications that have been proven to make breakthrough cases less severe (unlike the quack "cures" that have been promoted in certain quarters -- worming treatment for horses? Seriously?). We also know more now about how the virus doesn't spread. For one thing, it doesn't live long enough on surfaces to do much damage. (Hint: You can quit wiping down your groceries with disinfectant, if you're even still doing that.) Transmission, we know now, is typically airborne, which means good ventilation is key -- and yes, masks work.

Something else that hasn't changed: The pandemic is still being politicized. Probably the most recent incident is the "people's convoy" making a daily nuisance of itself around the Capital Beltway in Washington, DC. They're supposedly protesting mask mandates -- which, by the way, have been rolled back in virtually every state now that omicron's on the wane. The protest was doomed to fail from the start anyway; the organizers hoped to block several lanes and slow traffic to 45 miles per hour. Little did they know that you're lucky to get up to 45 miles per hour on the Beltway on a weekday. Now, after several days of driving around DC, some of the participants are getting frustrated by regular drivers giving them the finger and cutting them off. I have a suggestion for them: Go home. The Beltway always wins.

On a serious note, we have a new thing to worry about: Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and whether Russian President Putin is crazy enough to, say, fire off any nuclear weapons. The West, led by US President Biden, has avoided direct intervention to keep from giving Putin an excuse to push the button. But human rights advocate and former chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov tweeted a chilling comment the other day: 

Putin will escalate every time. It's his only strategy. He will escalate if you intervene and save Ukraine and escalate if you don't. So you must reduce his capacity to do harm.

— Garry Kasparov (@Kasparov63) March 11, 2022

It's starting to feel like World War III is coming, whether we want it to or not. In fact, it may already have begun.

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These moments of bloggy reflection have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Get vaxxed! And have a sunflower or ten thousand.  

Taking a pandemic breather to review.

geralt | Pixabay

It sounds like most folks had the same reaction I did to the CDC's recent declaration that anyone who's fully vaccinated can (mostly) stop wearing masks in public: Eh, not so fast. We're now at the point where either you throw caution completely to the winds and go without, or wear one anyway and risk those you meet thinking you're either: a) an anti-vaxxer or b) a Republican. I feel like I need to get a t-shirt that says, "I'm fully vaccinated but I have trust issues about everybody else."

I'd get a button, but I don't think all that would fit. Or at least not in a big enough font to be readable from six feet away.

Anyway, it appears that in the US, at least, as vaccination rates go up, the number of COVID-19 cases is going down, and the death rate attributed to the virus is going down, too. I don't want to jinx things by speaking too soon, but we may be emerging from the woods.

Regardless of how soon our lives can safely go back to normal, this seems like a good time to sit back, take a deep breath (masked or un-, your choice), and see whether we've learned anything from the past fourteen months. Robert Reich, who was Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, wrote a Facebook post earlier today that's a pretty good summary of the economic lessons learned due to the virus. While I agree with his list, I decided to come up with my own. There's some overlap, but I think he missed a couple of things.

1. How nice was it to show up, get your government-provided vaccine, and not have to pay a penny for it? Nobody asked for your insurance information. Nobody asked you for a co-pay. You didn't even have to contact the vaccine administrators to find out whether they were in-network or out-of-network. You just showed up, got the shot, and went on your way, right? Now think about how wonderful it would be if all health care in America was offered the same way. It can be -- if we would just institute universal health care. We're the only major nation that doesn't have it. It's beyond ridiculous. We need to do whatever it takes to get this done.

2. We need to continue to appreciate our essential workers -- and by "essential workers," I mean all the people who had to show up for work during the pandemic while the rest of us stayed safely at home: the health care providers, the delivery drivers, the warehouse workers, the grocery store clerks, the cashiers at stores deemed essential businesses, and the teachers who had to go back to in-person instruction not knowing for sure whether it was safe. Other than teachers and health care workers, most of these folks don't have job security -- they're typically not full-time employees and they receive minimal, if any, benefits from their employers. We need to fix that. At least give everybody free health care (see point 1).

3. I have zero patience for people who made a buck off of others during this trying time. I don't mean just the idiots who bought up all the hand sanitizer and wipes at the start of the pandemic and then tried to sell them for a premium -- although they're on my list. Nope, I'm also including the billionaires who have increased their wealth by more than $1.6 billion over the course of the past year and change. In many cases, their gain has come at the expense of their employees, many of whom are considered essential workers. Economic inequality was already off the charts in this country before the pandemic, and now it's worse. There's no excuse for that. 

4. As for the employers who tried to roll back hazard pay for their essential workers after a couple of months? Hello, the pandemic is still happening -- they still deserve that extra pay. And if you can't get people to come to work for you now? Maybe don't be so chintzy with your pay and benefits, and treat your employees like they're human beings and not interchangeable cogs.

5. When it comes to those who've been working remotely for the past year, now that they've had a taste of the good life, employers are going to have a hard time convincing them to go back to the office full-time. It was gospel at my old law firm that secretaries would never be able to work from home. Our job duties simply wouldn't allow it. Well, here we are, fourteen months into the pandemic in which everybody's been working remotely -- including secretaries at my old law firm. Not everybody thrives in the office fishbowl. Employers need to be flexible when it comes to bringing people back into the office.

6. I admit I wasn't nuts about the idea of having to wear a mask when it first came up. But when it became apparent that either I needed to mask up or hermetically seal myself in my apartment to avoid getting the virus, I got on board. But some people have been absolutely desperate to avoid reality, to the point where they have convinced themselves that masks are useless and the vaccine is dangerous. I'm all about "live and let live," as long as people's choices don't impact me. This does. If you're not going to get the vaccine, wear a mask. If you won't wear a mask, get vaccinated. And for gods' sake, don't lie about having gotten the vaccine so you don't have to wear a mask. 

7. The January 6th insurrection happened. It was not a "normal tourist visit." It seems logical to assume that anyone who objects to an investigation into what happened that day, including a thorough probe of who was behind it, probably has something to hide. 

Okay, that last point doesn't have much of anything to do with the pandemic. I'm leaving it on the list anyway. After all, this is just a draft. I'll come back to it once the virus has well and truly ridden off into the sunset.

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Speaking of lists: How's your progress on our summer reading list? I'm not nagging, I swear.

In case you're wondering what I'm talking about, here's a link to the list and info on the contest. That's right! Prizes! Now go forth and read!

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These moments of bloggy listicle creation have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Get vaccinated and good luck!

Mask whiplash.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention threw us quite the curve ball this week. Just a couple of weeks ago -- on April 27th -- the CDC issued an infographic with cute red, yellow and green icons that described the situations in which fully-vaccinated people could go without masks outside. We had barely parsed that news by this past Thursday, when the CDC basically said never mind: If you've been fully vaccinated, you don't need to wear a mask at all. You can also drop the physical distancing. If your local or state ordinances require you to mask up, you still have to. But otherwise, go out and live your life like it's 2019!

copyright Lynne Cantwell 2021

I don't know about you, but this has given me a case of whiplash. It feels a whole lot like the case I had in March of last year, when suddenly we were all either working from home or, if we couldn't work from home, hoping we didn't catch the virus and die.

CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky says the decision to drop the mask requirement isn't a surrender to the mask-averse or a nefarious way to encourage people to get the vaccine if they haven't already. Instead, she says, it's grounded in science. Results of numerous studies announced over the past several weeks have indicated that vaccine immunity is lasting longer than some had expected, and that the vaccines approved so far are effective against at least several of the virus's variants. Moreover, while a fully-vaccinated person can still catch the virus, the odds that he or she will need to be hospitalized for it are pretty darned small. For example, at the Cleveland Clinic, since the start of this year, just one percent of patients admitted because of the virus had been fully vaccinated -- and among their employees, 99.7% of cases of the virus occurred in those who hadn't been vaccinated.

All that's swell news. But I've still got that case of whiplash.

How are we supposed to know who's been vaccinated and who hasn't? Dr. Walensky says it's going to have to be up to individuals to be honest. My immediate response: Because that's worked so well so far. The federal government decided against creating a database of those vaccinated, citing privacy concerns, but that leaves us with no official way to keep track of who's gotten the jab and who hasn't. The card you get when you get your shot is not an official government record. Even so, people reportedly have been trying to counterfeit the cards ever since states began rolling out the shots -- to the point where the FBI had to announce that it was illegal. 

If the vaccines are as effective as the research suggests, and if the mask-averse are likely to lie anyway, I'm inclined to let the liars play their stupid games and maybe win the stupid prize. But that's easy for me to say; I'm fully vaccinated and I live in a state where nearly 63% of those eligible for the vaccine have received at least one shot. New Mexico has been doing so with with the vaccine rollout that our governor had been planning to lift all restrictions next month anyway.

But then Thursday happened, and now I've got this case of whiplash.

The Wall Street Journal ran a story yesterday called, "How to Handle Your Re-Entry Anxiety as the Pandemic Recedes." They talked to several experts -- a neuroscientist, a therapist, a behavioral scientist and a psychologist -- and came up with some tips for easing back out into society. Here they are:

• Set boundaries. Decide what you're comfortable doing and let folks know. If they push back, stand firm. And don't push others to do things outside their own comfort zone.
• Calm your brain. Relaxation exercises can help here, as can repeating a mantra like, "I'm fully vaccinated, my friends are fully vaccinated, and the danger in this situation is minimal." Another suggestion, which I really like, is to approach situations that scare you with curiosity. One expert says, "Curiosity feels better than anxiety."
• Look on the bright side. That's what the WSJ article called it, at least. I kind of hate the phrasing. But the idea is to talk yourself into looking forward to a get-together or event and anticipate having fun. Then, at the event, pay attention to the fun you're having, and replay it later by thinking about and talking about how much fun you had.
• Don't let life get too hectic again. Which kind of speaks for itself.

Now for my two cents: Change is hard, transitions are hard, and they're harder when changes are sprung on us. It's going to be tough for all of us to find our comfort zones in the post-pandemic future, so be kind to yourself and understanding of others. And if you still feel the need to wear a mask, you'll be in good company -- I'll be wearing mine for at least a little longer, too.

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These moments of scary blogginess have been brought to you, as a public service, by Lynne Cantwell. Get vaxxed!