We're All The Lone Ranger Now

I remember how my parents were amused (and maybe bemused) by videos and photos I'd send of my daughter riding her bike. They were remarking on her helmet. It felt odd to them, I think.

They weren't we rode our bikes all day as kids and never wore helmets and we were fine! people, just surprised by the image. Although there are those people. I rode a bike a lot and never wore a helmet, not once as a kid or teenager or young adult. I never had a traumatic brain injury.

But some of us did, and if everyone gets in the habit of wearing a helmet then nobody's brains seep out onto the sidewalk. It's herd immunity to childhood tragedy. It worked.

So did the polio vaccine, although maybe we were smarter in the 1950s, dunno.

I don't know what to think when I see people not wearing masks. I'm not really out that much, and there's so much virtue signaling out there in the social media world that I tend to shut down. Mask-less people do look a little self-conscious, and sometimes I wonder if they just forgot them, and they were already at the store, so, you know. In and out. Try not to look at anyone.

And some are certainly making a statement, although I don't know what that is.

I don't know if they help. There are questions now about the cloth ones, as opposed to the paper and plastic ones. These are behaviors we're supposed to model that are based on math, on statistics, on predictions and curving lines. It's not necessarily reality.

We don't know why some people get infected but not sick, or barely sick, while others die and some have lingering effects that are debilitating and have an uncertain future. At first it was all about old people and sick people, but now we have the horror stories of young, healthy and fit people who are cut down. We really don't know anything.

I wear a mask mostly to show other people that I'm paying attention, that I'm probably not the kind of person who would go out with symptoms, that I take public health seriously. I hope I'm helping to mitigate transmission, but I really have no idea. Maybe in a year it will all feel silly. No idea at all.

But if I had to put money on it, I'd say that in a year from now, we'll still be reeling. Our economy will be in shatters. Our political leaders will be behind, and flailing. Our systems will be catching up constantly. Pockets of the country will be just fine, and others will be devastated. The rural communities are now apparently being slammed, and their medical infrastructure is far less robust than the large cities. This is not going to be good, I think.

I'm not frightened at all. I get anxiety in stores, and a little claustrophobic wearing the masks, but the transmission numbers in this area continue to look very good. For all the political posturing and astroturf protests, polling shows the vast majority of Americans are wary of returning to normal anytime soon. We're all taking this seriously, it seems, yahoos not withstanding.

And whatever the future holds, we're already seeing a glimpse of it.

If you don't do this, things are going to be horrible.
EVERYONE DOES IT.
Look! Things didn't get horrible! It was all pretend!

Sigh. Time to wash my masks.