Over recent days and weeks, plenty of pundits have been marking the passage of one pandemic year, and there are at least 2,612,526 such tragic reasons to do so, if you rely on Johns Hopkin’s reported number of deaths worldwide, since COVID 19 emerged from a source and place we may never know. For me, today marks one year since we went out to dinner at a restaurant with friends. Even then, we were careful to distance from others and used hand sanitizer, relying on the advice of health experts that the virus was primarily spread by touch, though I was even then skeptical, and rightly so.
Since then I haven’t been closer than ten feet from pretty much anyone, and then only masked and in passing. We were fortunate enough to be able to quarantine at home, teaching by Zoom and venturing out occasionally to have groceries delivered to our car. Many now recognized as essential continued on with the necessities of life. Most where we live abided by mask and sanitizing sense, which could only be considered political statements in these existentially absurd times. We did so out of good sense and also because of conditions that put us at greater risk than most.
Fortunately, no one I’m close to has died, but I know many who have been ill. We have now been vaccinated, but have continued to stay safe thus far, since we are all only beginning to discern what that can safely mean for ourselves and, of course, others. We do plan to meet the same couple we last sat down with a year ago for outdoor dining soon, which though a tentative step, will be a happy one.
Tomorrow will mark a year from the day the WHO formally declared a pandemic. COVID 19 may never fully go away, but I hope for the time when we can all declare it under control and perhaps even over. There is much we all will need to do to tend to the too many wounds that have distanced us, not just physically, but in every way in this past year.
