2 months. Two months. II months. Two fucking months! We didn't need a vaccine. We needed 2 months. 2 months of EVERYONE staying in, wearing masks, washing hands, doing what the science says. 2 months of not providing the virus with a means of transmission and it would have died out. It was that simple. That short an amount of time. That many lives saved. Be good, be compassionate, do the right thing for only 8 weeks. 60 days. 1,440 hours. 86,400 minutes. 5,184,000 seconds. America couldn't do that.
We are at almost the 1 year mark for this pandemic. The deaths have become like reporting the temperature. What's yesterday's number? How many more infected? A numbness sets in because really, how many days in a row can your soul handle the reality of those totals? Your mind steps in to try and preserve you. Adapts to the situation on a survival level. But periodically things come up, reminding you, snapping you out of the monotony and repetition your brain has created to buffer you from it. A funeral you are all unable to attend when a family needs your support. Remotely trying to connect, but unable to be there in person as a friend is in need. Dropping a loved one at the ER and not being able to join them, help them, comfort them in the hospital.
Asking people to not destroy our own (and only) environment was too overwhelming a task for them, but it would have prevented this pandemic. Focusing on smaller, seemingly more attainable goals resulted in asking simply to stop murdering animals as a food source still remained too large a sacrifice, but it would have prevented this pandemic (end every other pandemic - past and future). Breaking it down to an easier, bite size ask of staying home, wearing a mask, and washing your hands for 2 months was more than the selfish nature of humans could abide. At every turn, the very core of homo sapiens has defied its own best interest.
So a tiny, miniscule group of people are tasked with using all their combined intelligence against overwhelming odds to develop a means of protecting the rest of the population from itself. AND THEY DID IT! They created successful vaccines to combat this pandemic. But even now, they are forced to rely on others to get it distributed. Others to administer it. And ultimately they need to rely on EVERYONE to do the absolute simplest thing you can be expected to do and just show up when it's your turn to get poked. Already there are indications that even that is too much to ask of some.
i was angry when i started this, then i became so... so... so deeply saddened, but i end feeling the anger which began this writing. All the death, all the suffering, all the struggle - all because at every opportunity the selfishness of the human race outnumbered both kindness and logic. If we cannot get 2 good months out of our civilization, what can we really expect from it at all?
