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Lynn James: Everyone’s anxious to get outside and see end of isolation from covid (small caps intended)


Summer is almost here! The best season of the year! Spring storms are ending. The summer heat is slowly and graciously coming our way. Everyone is anxious to get outside after a dark winter, and a windy and rainy spring. 

The month of May started with a preview of two wonderful June like days, both sunny and warm, for all of us to enjoy. As a bonus for me, I watched a drive-by Birthday Party for my 5-year-old neighbor led by a police cruiser with its lights flashing and its sirens sounding. We’re all anxious for more of these sunny days and a few more “street” parties too.

This year everyone is anxious to get outside for another reason – the end of the isolation in our homes thanks to covid-19. Notice I write that word with lower case letters instead of upper case.

Why? Because I’m not going to give the coronavirus the honor of standing out in all caps. I’m not going to let it dominate me. And I’m not going to let it oppress me. But that doesn’t me I don’t respect the coronavirus. I respect it very much. I wear a face mask when I go into stores (color coordinated with my outfit, along with a multi-layered filter inside it).

I wear it to protect others in case I have it (although I know I don’t have it). I also wear it to protect myself in case others have it (because anybody else could have it).

Protecting ourselves and others has nothing to do with being submissive to the coronavirus. On the contrary, it shows we know what it is – a germ. A germ that is debilitating for some and deadly for others. There have been too many times in the past history of our nation when invisible germs have fatally or “near fatally” harmed us in major ways.

The most recent was polio. As a child, Gov. DeWine remembers when their family would skip a ball game because his dad said there was a reported polio outbreak in the area. DeWine shared this memory with us during one of his daily press conferences. His dad wasn’t being submissive by acknowledging the polio attack. He was respecting the germ’s invisible power over us. He accepted that we were not immune to disease – not polio – until a vaccine was developed. Gov. DeWine remembers his father’s wisdom well.

Before that was TB – tuberculosis. This hit my mother’s generation, specifically a classmate during high school and her best friend’s father. Both recovered from it. Both stayed in a sanitarium during their illness and recovered away from others, and therefore helped slow the spread. Those sanitarium days ended once a vaccine was developed.

Do you see the pattern? Here’s one more example. What wiped out our native American Indians back in the 1500’s? Bullets from Europeans? Yes, but what was the bigger threat to their lives? Small pox brought over by the Europeans. The native American Indians had no immunity to small pox and countless of them died from this invisible germ. No wonder they fought back when their country was invaded.

Now do you see the pattern? Germs are a natural part of life. Germs are invisible and deadly. Germs need to be respected and dealt with the same why they deal with us. A sneak attack to wipe them out just like they try to wipe us out.

Herd immunity seems to be the best sneak attack and has worked well for us fighting other germs in the past. But what is the right or best way to create herd immunity? 

Some say by letting everyone catch it and build their own self-immunity – if recovering from the virus provides that. Others say a vaccine – if our scientists can create one. It should come as no surprise that we are in the process of accomplishing both.

Wear a face mask

Slowing down the self-immunity route is best for our hospitals. In other words, slowing down the spread. This allows hospitals and our healthcare workers to not become overwhelmed in capacity, physical ability, and mental stamina. We have seen the NYC hospitals become overwhelmed. Slowing the spread also saves the lives of people of all ages, in particular healthcare workers who are not immune from it and contract the virus too. Some recover; some do not.

We saw one NYC doctor contract and then recover from the virus. She then returned to the hospital to treat and help heal others again. Shortly thereafter, this doctor succumbed to the mental devastation of the pandemic – dying by suicide. A young talented, healthy, knowledgeable, valuable, loved, and irreplaceable woman. Survivor guilt is as deadly as the virus.

Efforts to slow down the self-immunity route can only do just that – slow down the spread, not stop it. We have seen this as new cases of the virus are found day after day, and hundreds continue to die from it.

Speeding up the vaccine immunity route is best for the economy. Pres. Trump is trying to accomplish this with his Operation Warp Speed plan which has been praised by governors of both parties including our Gov. Beshear. Other countries are also joining the quest to develop the vaccine which will ultimately benefit the entire world.

Either way, herd immunity will happen. Just depends on who we are willing to sacrifice to get there. Looks like we are implementing both strategies at the same time. Looks like all of us are affected by both of these strategies by some extent, in one way or another.

Maybe that’s the best way – an odd sort of balance. And it’s happening naturally. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to happen.

Lynn James is a lifelong resident of Northern Kentucky and has lived in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties. She enjoys living and observing real life with real people.


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