Tag: facemask

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travel in the time of covid

On Thursday, I got on a plane for the first time in almost 2 years. I flew from Oakland to Austin on Southwest. To accomplish this, I had to walk a half mile to the BART station, take two BART trains to get to the airport, check in, get through security, get on a plane, land in Austin, retrieve my checked luggage, get in a Lyft to the airport, and check in at the hotel, all while wearing my mask.

It may have been the longest period of continual mask wearing for me since this whole thing began. On the plane itself I was double masked.

I had no trouble breathing or getting enough oxygen. I did sweat a fair amount under my mask, especially when getting out into the muggy Austin air.

I saw no one behaving badly, though there were often people who needed to be reminded to cover their nose. No fights, no temper tantrums, no screams of FREEDOM!

I knew that everyone I planned to spend un-masked time with was vaccinated, and whenever in more company than theirs, I masked up. Was it weird and inconvenient? Yes, it was, but you know what else would have been weird and inconvenient? Getting sick, or getting someone else sick.

We still had a great time. We got to cruise the river with dinner and music. We went axe throwing and took a tour of a brewery (the cooler is always the best part, because Austin is hot and muggy).

I even ate inside a restaurant. For the first time since this whole thing started.

I reveled in being with friends I haven’t seen in two years. I hugged people. I relaxed. I did my best not to worry, despite the fact that the day I landed, Austin moved into Stage 5, and I was in a state that would NOT issue a mask mandate. Everywhere we went, business had signs up asking folks to wear masks if not vaccinated and I’d estimate that about half of the people I saw didn’t mask up at all.

I got home last night and my current plan is to quarantine myself for 14 days, as well as to go get a Covid test this week because as careful as we were, this delta variant is a sneaky bastard, and I want to make sure I’m not passing it around my neighborhood.

Hope y’all are safe and healthy, Readers! Now I have to get back to the job search.

Photo by Wolfgang Fürstenhöfer on Unsplash

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put a little love in your heart

My faith in humanity has been sorely damaged in 2020. I try to believe that people are inherently good, that for the most part we would all do what we can to spare others pain, illness or death. Here lately though, I’m finding it hard to hold on to that belief.

For the last twenty years or so, the guiding force of my life has been kindness, unconditional love for my fellow man. I believe that it is my duty to help care for others, to at the very least not be the cause of their pain.

I look around me at the world and I can’t understand where the absolute disregard for others comes from. How do you reach adulthood without some semblance of compassion?

Where does the fury come from? How is this who we are as a country? As we slink closer to 300,000 people dead from a virus that we can control, why are we not doing it? Why is the outrage about measures to control it rather than about the number of American citizens are dead and dying? How many deaths will it take for us to realize that the simple steps of wearing a mask in the presence of others, keep yourself distant from others, stay home if you can are not evil machinations attempting to rob you of your civil liberty.

They are meant to save lives! If you can not wear a mask, for real or imaginary reasons, most places that require one will do no-touch curb side delivery. Just order online, drive up and get what you need put into your trunk.

There is no need to demand to enter a building of any kind without your mask. There is no need to harass store employees, or threaten them with a bad interpretation of what the ADA actually is. These are people who are working minimum wage jobs that put them in a very high risk category for catching this virus. They are there to help you.

My heart weeps. Please put a little love in your heart. Save lives.

Cover Photo by Aung Soe Min on Unsplash

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in numbers too big to ignore

As we barrel on toward the holiday season, the coronavirus is barreling through our country with no sign of stopping. Each day this week we have seen new records for the number of new cases. Yesterday alone we had over a hundred and eighty thousand new cases, and we sit at a total of two hundred forty nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety eight deaths in the US as of the time I am writing this.

Two deaths away from a quarter of a million deaths.

That number is unfathomable.

That is the population of Boise, Idaho. Or Winston-Salem, North Carolina. That is more than the population of Rochester, New York. More than twice the population of Vacaville, California.

And still we have people saying that this thing is a hoax, or it’s no worse than the regular seasonal flu. Still we have people demanding that we open restaurants and bars, that we send our kids back to school.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, we’ll still see people gathering. With Christmas and other winter holidays a little more than a month away, we see people shopping, handling things others have handled, and more gathering.

I get that we’re all tired of the restrictions. I get that we’re bored and we miss hugs. We miss our people. I get that we need to be working and we need to kick our economy into something that resembles functional.

But what good is any of it if our people aren’t there when this is over?

Please take care, Readers! Wash your hands, wear your mask, stay home. Save a life.

Cover Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash