Resent all you want, but do the right thing

It’s not going away if we accept defeat, it will just keep attacking. Complaining about the unfair, changing “rules” is useless. There are no rules but one: Don’t give up.

A good friend who knows better couldn’t help recently expressing that feeling of resentment, which is held by probably everyone who’s been alive over the last two years.

No, it isn’t fair, whatever you imagine that might mean in the context of a non-thinking clump of reproducing molecules that can make you or your loved ones sick to death, literally, not just of masking your face.

When London was repeatedly bombed during World War 2, it might have struck many in England as completely unfair of the Nazis. It was, of course, and that was totally irrelevant. Casualties stacked up anyway. Sticking a middle finger toward the sky might have provided exactly the same triumphantly rebellious feeling as does wearing a mask below the nose today for those who resent the unfairness of it all. But it would have been somewhat less harmful to others.

So here we are again, facing another round of coronavirus restrictions as the Omicron variant ramps up, spreads through cities, then hits the rural areas, starting now. The danger this time seems to be less from the severity of the illness for most, and more from the ease of spread through the population, overwhelming health care to the point that people sick from anything else can’t be assured of getting care. Many regional intensive care units in surrounding cities were full last week, which is where you’d need to go if you had a bad accident or stroke or case of covid.

Getting through this has always been about not overwhelming those systems. Sooner or later, most of us will likely contract the virus, but the strategy is to prolong the game until the bug becomes less severe or is defeated. The latter is looking less likely all the time, but perhaps Omicron might actually be the start of such a downturn in severity (my speculation). Let’s hope so.

In the meantime, do the right thing, please. Mask up in public, at the very least. You know the rest.

Scott Hunter

editor and publisher