Lockdown: Year One

It's been a full year now that Genieboy and I have been in "lockdown."

First time I've used that term. We haven't thought of it as being locked in anything, to us it was just staying at home. Like during a rainstorm, or a tornado, or an outer space alien attack.

For us, it's been a bittersweet year.  We're loving this time together, but we haven't seen our four children, or eight grandchildren, for a full year now.  It's hard.  It's hard on us, but everything about the pandemic is so much harder on them.  They're young - they were all in the middle of life - first day of first grade, first day as a college freshman, first romance, first job, first basketball game...

They all seem to be in good spirits though, living life with as much gusto as ever, belly-laughing, taking care of each other, finding ways to stay in contact with friends, doing online courses (our three-year-old granddaughter in her tiny karate uniform, lined up with her three sisters in front of the monitor, nearly toppling over performing sidekicks and hand chops, so funny and beautiful;) all seem to be making what could have been miserable into something resembling a year-long pajama party.

So here we are.  One year later, and not a single day, not even once in the past year, have we entered a single store. We've used a service here in our part of the US called "Instacart" for food deliveries - such a disaster for the first six months that we began saving stories. For all other supplies we use Amazon. With the exception of one frightening medical emergency (we're all okay) where we spent three days in the hospital, we have not left our house. 

Genieboy found a mile-long grassy area nearby, where he runs every day; and I walk in circles in our back yard, listening to audiobooks.  When we realized last January that the pandemic was coming, we cancelled our gym memberships and decided that our physical health took precedence over everything else, and that daily exercise was from now on non-negotiable, period, no matter what.  So we both exercise in the house, every day without fail.  We bought an exercise bike immediately, early last February, and a door-attachment thing with cables; I do pilates every morning; Genieboy made a set of dumbbells out of concrete; on rainy days we go up and down the staircase.  We're both feeling like we're in better physical shape than we've been in for years.  Which is strange. But what isn't?

Anyway, here we are, one year later, still inside; and now waiting for a vaccine roll-out that will require Americans who hate each other to cooperate.

Like many have said, the movie version of this would have the entire country turned into a mass vaccination event - every sports arena, convention hall, train station, parking lot - a vaccination spot; Rosie the Riveter and Uncle Sam posters everywhere; our nation united in defeating the common enemy.

But we Americans don't like to be united. And we don't like government.

We used to like government.  

Genieboy and I are lucky to have been kids during a time when Americans believed in government, a time of great optimism and promise, when our government was accomplishing great things for Americans:

• Voting rights, 
• Equal access to public spaces, 
• The reduction of disease (all schoolkids our age received the first polio vaccines, and the smallpox vaccines;) 
• Food and water safety, 
• A national highway system, 
• Health care for older Americans, 
• Financial security for older Americans, 
• Support and training for veterans, 
• The space program and moon landing, 
• Investment in public schools, 
• The spectacular growth of the NIH (from $4 million in 1947 to $1 billion in 1966), 
• Protection of air quality, 
• Reduction of hunger, 
• Improvement in nutrition,
• Access to high school, 
• Expansion of foreign markets, 
• Protection of wilderness areas, 
• Protection of endangered species, 
• Reduction in exposure to hazardous waste, 
• Increase in availability of health care, 
• Human rights advances, 
• Transparency of government, 
• Assistance for the poor, 
• Reform of the welfare program, 
• Expansion of job training and placement, 
• Creation of mass transportation systems, 
• and tax reforms...

Just to name a few. 

Genieboy and I are lucky beneficiaries of that time, when even disadvantaged minorities believed that a strong, effective government, was the vehicle for progress.

But government - government in a democracy - is the enemy of the rich, the greedy, and the corrupt. Government is the roadblock. Government does not help the rich to get richer, or the greedy to steal and hoard, or the corrupt to cheat.  In fact, it does the opposite.

And so, beginning in the 80s, and increasing in clout and ferocity to this day, the American system of government has been deliberately and loudly demeaned, degraded, crippled, impoverished, and so effectively incapacitated that it is now largely ineffective. 

Using a distortion of the concept of "federalism," responsibility and accountability have been passed from our once-proud federal government out to the states, commonwealths, territories, free states, and US outlying areas.  And passed from there to county governments. And from there to the tens of thousands of quarreling, antagonistic local jurisdictions, that are besieged by lack of funding, infighting, incompetence, and unending turf-wars. 

What was once, when we were young, a model for governments around the world to emulate, is now a non-functioning, demoralized, mess.

That picture - the fragmentation and weakness of our government - has been laid bare, under bright lights, by the pandemic.

It's taken me this long to see what's been hiding in plain sight: that the reason there's so much confusion about how to get tested, or treated, or vaccinated - is just this.  We don't have an effective federal government that can enact a national vaccination plan, because every one of those tens of thousands of uncooperative jurisdictions has its own set of rules.  And there are even more entities than these - just yesterday I heard the CEO of CVS pharmacies speaking about his plan for vaccinations at CVS stores.  In our neighborhood there are totally different rules at ten different sites, some state, some county, some corporate, and none with any actual vaccines to give, and each with its own eligibility requirements, and rules for appointments.  It's pure chaos.

We've been lucky here in America, in that, unlike Europe, for instance, we haven't had to face a war on our own turf. But because of this, we haven't been forced to overcome our differences and our very American "independent spirit" to unite against a common enemy.  Despite many warnings, we ignored the likelihood that something like this would come along, something that would require an immediate, coordinated, national response.

So now, here we are! It's been a year so far, and Genieboy and I and the kids and grandkids, are all still in our houses; and now it's starting to feel almost normal.

Will there be a vaccine against all the new variants that are sure to emerge?

Will we be able to get the entire world's population vaccinated against whatever new forms the virus takes?

Will we be able to reduce the worldwide numbers of infections low enough that we might dare to venture out of the house one day, to find what remains of the life we left behind?

Will we be better prepared for the next pathogen that's sure to arrive at our door?