So Weird...

We are living through a pandemic right now.

One of those things you read about in history books.

But we are in the middle of it.

Watching it unfold has been really interesting. The panic on one end and the denying it's an issue at all on the other.

It's difficult. You want people to take it seriously but you also don't want people freaking out unnecessarily. Where is that balance?

Part of it is temperament for sure. Are you a panicker by nature? Are you prone to anxiety attacks? This is a bear for those people. Are you just super chill by nature? Just nothing phases you at all? Then you are really puzzled right now by why people are hoarding TP.

I'm pretty much in the middle, maybe leaning toward chill. But still trying to be prepared. And still really puzzled by the TP hoarding.

Though that's not actually true. I completely understand what has happened there. It's social science stuff. For the most part people don't believe they will need all of that TP but what they are reacting to is seeing other people grab all the TP so their brains are creating scarcity scenarios and thinking "Oh my gosh! If they take all of it then there will be none for me so I need some too!" It's pretty much what happened with Beanie Babies in the 90s, and you could use those to wipe your ass right now as well...

Anyway...

In the US we have a different challenge. We have a President who is pretty much allergic to the truth. He's been down playing the risks of the novel coronavirus and the chances of people getting sick with COVID 19. He has been more worried about the numbers staying down than he has actually testing and treating people. This is a man who didn't want to let people off of a cruise ship and put in quarantine on land because it would make "our numbers look bad through no fault of our own." He's looking for blame instead of looking to take care of people.

And as all things Trump does the messaging has shifted over time from nothing to worry about (which there was), to everyone can get tested (which was just a lie), to close the borders and we will be fine (it's already here, how will that work?), to it's OBAMA'S FAULT!  Seriously...he's on to blaming Obama for not having a test for a virus that didn't exist before last year.

A few weeks ago (I want to say two but things have changed so rapidly that it's hard to keep up) I had a conservative friend post about a news story he had heard about H1N1 and the response and results. I linked him to a couple of things showing that the story's facts weren't actually facts. But that story (the false narrative) has spread (like a virus) so thoroughly through the conservosphere that the President was tweeting about it just yesterday. It's not any more true than it was a few weeks ago, but because he's saying it there will be even more people who believe it.

I read a story yesterday about a retirement community in Florida that is still holding all of its social activities and how people there aren't worried because they watch Fox News and Fox has told them that the media is hyping this up to try and damage Trump and there is nothing to worry about. That's just dangerous and irresponsible. They are the age group most at risk. They are the ones who will face the most issues, up to and including deaths. But Fox is out there amplifying the president's everything is fine!

Now today he is going to declare a medical state of emergency for the US so maybe Fox will start to shift its tone and say it is an issue and people do need to be careful. Of course, they will pretend that they never said anything else, as is the way with most things out of this White House. But at least we may now be at a place where the right message is out there. As long as he can still blame Obama...

So the US is in a weird space. We can't trust the government to tell us the truth and give us the information we need. We can't even trust them when they say things like testing kits are widely available. They aren't. Hopefully they will be soon. It would be nice to know how many cases there really are. And not just in the NBA.

It's also showing how woefully inadequate our medical system is. And how poorly structured our social safety net is. I'm hopeful that people remember these things in November and vote accordingly. And I'm hopeful that Congress remembers this lesson and actually passes some bills that will address what is needed for We The People instead of Citzen$ United.

We will see...

But anyway. We are in the middle of a pandemic. How does history feel from the middle looking out instead of in the future looking back?

I'm going to try to write more about this over the next few weeks. Just for my own record. I want to be able to look back in a decade and see what it was like, not just what I now remember or what we all think it was, but really what was it like during everything. I think Future Me will be surprised at what she thinks she remembers vs. what Present Me is actually doing.