SARS-CoV-2 triggered

The world is a different place than it was just a month ago, just a week ago.

This shock, this surreal feeling, this grief.... it's actually an old friend.  I remember you.  You've been here before.  But before it was just me.  Just me, my whole world suddenly upside down, suddenly nothing would ever be the same again.
Now.
Now.
Now it's all of us.  together.  Our worlds won't be the same.  This feels even bigger than 9/11, which happened only in the U.S., only in NYC.  Here in Colorado we cried, tucked in for a bit, then poked our heads back out of our shells comparatively quickly and carried on.

This will not be quick.
This will last for a year, or more.
A lifetime, or more.
Many lifetimes all at once
I find myself wondering...

Will this be what kills my 98 year old grandfather?  Will I be able to go to his funeral?
What about my 72 year old mother?

when my youngest graduates from high school, how many memorials will there be for the kids who didn't make it to graduation?  Will one be his?


40-70% of the population will get SARS-CoV-2.
1-4% of those will not survive not survive it.
Are you good with math?  Can you run the numbers?
I will help you.
329.5 million x .4 x .01 = 1.32 million people just in this country will not be here next year.  Because they'll be dead.  Everyone of those  will leave behind people who loved them and will never be the same.  That's the conservative estimate.  The other end .... the other upper end number is more than 9 million.

This uncertainty is something that other humans in other countries, other humans in most of all our history, have lived with.  But it't not something a privileged U.S. citizen has had to think about since vaccines for polio and measles were available.  Even if you are so privileged that you could chose to opt of of vaccines, you've had the benefit of the rest of us getting them and not exposing you to these diseases.

This surreal waiting, this almost nebulous fear?  That's an every day occurrence for some folks, even today.
The undocumented immigrant
The compromised cancer patient
The parent of that wee little premie

Most of us will survive.
History will record what we did, how we handled this huge test of our collective character.

We'll figure out what worked, what we could have done better.

I hope one thing we get right, or at least learn is that
we're all in this together, and we help each other out.