Is It Over?

    It was two years ago that I wrote my first blog on the Coronavirus epidemic. At that time, businesses and schools were shut down, case rates in Michigan were up to 3,000 a day and even churches closed for services. Limits were put on the number of shoppers in a store, aisles were marked one-way and special hours were set aside for seniors and others vulnerable to serious illness.

    My older son and his wife began working at home. We watched their three children while schools were closed. I learned how to use Zoom. You were lucky to find toilet paper in the stores. Restaurants provided curb-side service and we took advantage, getting family-sized dinners from our local microwbrewery that lasted us days. Masks were worn everywhere. Some drive-through restaurants even required them when ordering through your car window.

    Two years later and it's all changed. In some stores and restaurants we visit there's not a mask to be seen. The local library stopped requiring them last month. Our schools dropped their own mask requirement about the same time. Our local parish has begun passing the collection plate at mass, something not done these past two years because of fears that this custom would promote the spread of the virus. Our local McDonalds still has its children's playspace closed, one of the very few holdovers from the pandemic restrictions we've been living with the past two years.

    Along with loosened restrictions, attitudes towards the pandemic have changed too. There was no better example of this than the experience of my wife's friends who took three short cruises back-to-back-to-back in February and early March.

    During the first cruise, masks were required everywhere except when in your room and when dining aboard the ship. No more than four people could be in an elevator at the same time. The ship carried about half the number of passengers as normal. During the second cruise, the mask requirement was dropped except for the casino and theatre venues. Still, most people wore masks everywhere anyway. Again, the ship carried about half the number of passengers. During the third cruise, the ship was near capacity with passengers crowding into elevators and other common areas. Only about ten percent of them bothered to put on masks.

    Proof of vaccination is still required to cruise, however. I might have a problem there as I've lost my vaccination card. I've looked in places it should be, in places it might be as well as in places not as likely but still possible. I'm down to places where “I can't understand how it got there.” And it's still missing-in-action.

    It's not that unusual at my age to lose things like this. What I like to do when I find something we've hunted for everywhere is to place it near my wife's family room recliner (while she's away), then point to it later with a “J' accuse!” directed at my better half. Wendy never sees the humor in that.

    So is it over? Have we conquered the virus and are now celebrating and doing a victory lap? I'm afraid the virus is still very much with us. My brother and sister just tested positive with symptoms during the past week. The Centers for Disease Control now advocates a fourth dose of the vaccine for those of us over 65. Hundreds of new cases of the virus are being reported in Michigan every day. People are still dying from it.

    Despite all the advances in testing and treatment, the development of effective vaccines and the promise of herd immunity, we're really not that much better off than we were two years ago. If anyone is doing a victory lap, it's the virus. It's still here and I doubt it will go away anytime soon. Maybe it will just return in the form of a new sub-variant like the one my ten-month-old grandson Lewis had when we visited his family in St. Louis this past weekend (see picture).