Enforced Isolation–Jail Without Bars?

The corona virus has required something from all of us: isolating ourselves to the greatest degree possible so the pandemic can run its course without infecting more people.

 

It isn’t a long-term condition: 15 to 30 days should do it, so it’s doable.

 

So, most of us (I believe) are doing that. Why? Because most of us have loved ones in the “high risk” category whose deaths would devastate us, especially if we felt we were in any way responsible for infecting them.

 

But it seems there will always be the jerks whose disregard for others knows no bounds. The fresh-faced teenagers who consider themselves immortal don’t give much thought to how exposing themselves to the virus can affect the people around them.

 

Spring break in Florida this year looked just about like spring break in Florida last year. How many of those people will pass around the virus without even knowing they’re afflicted? Young, otherwise healthy people experience very few of the symptoms and get through it just fine.

 

What’s particularly telling, and equally unconscionable, is  that the federal pandemic response team standing with Trump to address a roomful of reporters included 18 people, eight more than the 10-people assemblies mandated by Trump at the time they all stood crowded together talking to probably at least 30 reporters (unseen) in  the same room.  (“Do what I say, not what I do.”)

 

What kind of story does this tell the viewing audience? “Rules are for everybody except Trump and his sycophants and supporters.”

 

In sharp contrast, governors and mayors–when giving press briefings–are standing or sitting the requisite eight feet away from everyone else, and only essential personnel are with them: sign language experts, medical experts and the like.

 

Is it only the truly awake among us who notice these things? Are Trump’s people just watching Trump and no one else? If they are, they aren’t comparing the way he’s behaving with regard to social distancing to the way others are behaving under similar circumstances. And that’s tragic, with potentially deadly consequences.

 

Isolating oneself from friends and family isn’t comfortable. I’m an introvert, but I’m missing my hugs from loved ones.

 

I miss not being able to stand closer to them.

 

I miss not having to hold my breath or not worry about not washing my hands immediately after coming closer to a loved one than six or eight feet.

 

I miss not being able to go to a grocery store without wondering how many of the shoppers have been exposed to the virus and which of them are spreading it every time they touch an item on the shelves or come within several feet of me.

 

I miss not having to wash my clothes, take a shower or scrub my hands every damn time I go out in public (on the rare occasions when I feel I must, to shop for groceries or order take-out).

 

It’s incredibly inconvenient. But I wouldn’t under any circumstances just say “the hell with it” and throw caution to the wind because people’s lives are at stake (including my own: I’m no spring chicken).

 

So, I try to imagine bars around my property and between my side of the place and Jackie’s. I feel free within these boundaries to do what I want to do as long as it doesn’t involve close contact with other people.

 

I can read, write, sit with the critters, nap, clean my house, and do anything else that cannot harm someone else.

 

It feels “okay”–far from optimal, but okay.  It doesn’t feel like prison as much as it feels like an isolated sanctuary. A place to be safe.  A boundary that protects me from harm, and from causing harm to someone else.

 

The people who are flaunting their freedom and exposing themselves to the virus without consideration for the most vulnerable among us have earned my indignation.  They’re either ignorant or willfully sociopathic. They have zero regard for anyone other than their own hedonistic pleasures and pursuits.

 

If they caught the virus and became deathly ill and it went no farther than that, I could almost agree that it would serve them right.

 

But the fact is, it does go farther: it infects people whose immune systems aren’t as robust and it kills a lot of them.

 

And every single one who dies is deeply loved by someone else, and usually by many others.

 

But right now you can’t even gather for a memorial or to bury them (in this state; I’m not sure about other states, but I presume most of them have similar restrictions): they have to go into the ground, or get cremated, without bereaved loved ones in attendance to share their memories and get help and support as they traverse their pain…

 

Selfish people don’t think about any of this. Their preferences trump everyone’s else’s needs.

 

It really chaps my hide.