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Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Rant #2,647: Pleasant Valley Sunday (?)



The world is finally beginning to open up.
 
During the next few days and weeks and months, we will all be able to do things that we enjoy doing, with fewer restrictions.
 
This is happening in most of the country, but in other parts of the U.S., like Oregon, the coronavirus supposedly is running rampant, and in those areas, increased restrictions are supposedly being put in place to stem the tide.
 
I wonder if the “Occupy” protesters—those that took over cities like Portland last year—are also part of these restrictions, or, like the protesters in New York, somehow they are thought to be immune to getting infected.
 
Whatever the case, in the New York Metropolitan Area and other nearby states like Pennsylvania, within a few weeks, you will just about be able to do anything you want, even though you will still have to wear a mask … and you know that those days are coming to an end too.
 
It all has to do with infection rates, those nebulous numbers we have been hit with since day one of this supposed pandemic.
 
Once they got below 2 percent, all of a sudden we are supposedly in the clear, and we can do anything we want to do again, as if by magic.
 
It just tells me that those infection rates were taken too literally to begin with, and they meant little to nothing.
 
When the infection rates were 9 and 10 percent, what did that actually mean?
 
Yes, 9 and 10 percent of those being tested supposedly were infected, but again, what did that mean?
 
Since most people who got the virus had few or no effects, which meant few went into hospitals that couldn’t have been prepared for this whole ball of wax to begin with, of course it created a panic.
 
The images of stacked hospitals, with patients seemingly all over the place, didn’t make anyone feel good, and even scared a lot of people into thinking that the end of the world was near.
 
But again, 99 percent of the people getting this scourge were able to weather it out at home, with few or no effects.
 
I am not downplaying those that got hit hard by it. My sister had it so bad during the height of this thing, so bad that she really should have been hospitalized; my brother in law is in full recovery mode now after getting it just a few weeks back; and my father in law died of the disease while in a nursing home, which is another story for another time.
 
But to me, we were sold a bill of goods by medical experts and our elected officials that we were forced to buy, and now, all of a sudden, workers are going back to their jobs on site, restaurants can serve to almost 100 percent capacity, and you will be able to see you favorite sports and movies and Broadway and concerts in a blink of an eye.
 
Kind of strange, isn’t it?
 
Again, I do not believe like some do that the virus experience was some sort of mind control initiative launched by the government to see what ends they could go to literally force us to do things.
 
The virus exists, but I do think that it, itself, is a virulent variant of the common flu.
 
We get different flues each and every year, so the coronavirus is a variant of the basic flu bug that hits us every year.
 
We, as a civilization, were taken unawares by it, and it put us in this mess that we are slowly crawling out of.
 
The problem is that going overboard in its enforcement has ruined businesses and ruined lives, but those in charge who went completely overboard in its handling would call all of that “collateral damage.”
 
Yes, I got the vaccine myself, got it for my mom, so I guess I am a bit of a hypocrite, as I was taken in by a lot of the blabber myself, but I do believe that restrictions will continue to be in place where you are going to have to prove you have had the shot to do certain things, like taking a cruise, and I just wanted to get this out of the way for myself.
 
We have a cruise planned for next year—it has already been postponed several times during the pandemic—and this way, I am done, or at least done until I have to get a booster shot.
 
Look, we are NEVER going to reach that herd immunity of 85 percent that our officials feel that we need to reach to completely hold off this disease.
 
We are lucky to get to about 30 percent or 40 percent, to be honest with you, because not everybody is gung-ho about getting the vaccine, and their reasons are valid.
 
When we had the last pandemic 100 years ago, it took roughly 25 years to create, test and validate a vaccine—this time around, it took about maybe six months.
 
Based on this and based on this alone, I can understand why people do not want to be vaccinated. We don’t know what we are being injected with, and we don’t know the long-term effects, if any, with these vaccines.
 
And then there have been the scares, like with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, related to even their short-term effects on some people.
 
Roll that up into a ball, and all I know is that the world is opening up to such an extent that even the Monkees are going out on tour again.
 
Yes, the two remaining Monkees—Micky Dolenz and Michael Nesmith—are revving it up again for their final, farewell tour, which was announced yesterday, and yes, they are coming to my town.
 
Now, do I get tickets for the October show, or do I not?
 
Ah, that is the rub!
 
Will we be safe enough, as a culture, to do to concerts again?
 
I just don’t know at this point.
 
Funny, my family has had tickets to a postponed Tommy James and the Shondells concert for about two years now, and it has been postponed about four or five times at this writing. It is now supposed to be held in March 2022, and presumably by that time, everything will be copacetic again.
 
October 2021? Is that doable?
 
I have no idea, none at all, so what do I do?
 
I don’t know at this point, I really don’t know.
 
My family has been vigilant in holding off this disease … we haven’t actually eaten in a restaurant for about a year, and while everyone around us has gotten the virus, my wife, my son, myself, and for that matter, my mother, have not gotten it.
 
Do we venture out into the wild blue yonder on this?
 
I don’t know, I really don’t know.
 
I know that my wife has said that she had hoped to celebrate her next birthday in November in her favorite restaurant with others.
 
It is a big birthday, and her hope was that by November, she could do this.
 
Well, how about pushing it, and doing something “outside the box” a month early?
 
That is the $64,000 question, and I simply do not have a final answer to it yet.

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