“It is necessary sometimes to take one step backward to take two steps forward.” — Vladimir Lenin
“Captain, May I take two steps forward?” — Childhood backyard game
Yesterday, I traveled to Racine, Wisconsin to visit my 91-year-old father who gratefully remains independent, vaccinated, and healthy as he continues to live alone. Since I live 100 miles away, I can’t just drop-in for a quick visit and check-in on him. Prior to the pandemic, we scheduled a weekly phone date every Sunday, and I’d visit him in-person at least once a month The COVID-19 pandemic changed all that.
The Backstory
Our monthly visits ceased and I added a midweek phone date on Wednesdays. Sometimes we didn’t have any news to share, yet we would make sure we both remained healthy, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. I’m grateful that my father, who is a widower and never lived alone until his wife, soulmate, and best friend died in 2016, continues to thrive.
Dad’s age has affected his mobility and muscle strength, yet his overall health is good. My sister Kelly and her husband Bill, who live in Racine, are his primary caregivers. My brother Rick who now lives in Colorado visits two or three times a year and is his handyman foreman and landscaper. Rick also manages his finances, etc. My sister Tami and I who both live in Madison, help out as we are able, and along with Kelly, call ourselves the Tag Team Sisters.
From the beginning of 2020 until we were both vaccinated in 2021, I only saw Dad in-person twice. Beginning the end of May 2021, I visited him with chosen Loud Family Members, Leanne & Rene, then on Father’s Day with sister Kelly and husband Bill, and yesterday a one-on-one visit.
Dad & I, 5-30-21
Dad, Leanne, and Rene, 5-30-21
I posted this on Facebook for my weekly TGIF Update:
Today, I’m off to Racine to visit my father. Prior to the pandemic, I’d visit him once a month. During 2020, and until we were both vaccinated in 2021, I only visited twice. Grateful.
When Dad and I visit one-on-one, we do lots of reminiscing. In our family, they’re referred to as our ‘cracker barrels’, since in the past, cheese, crackers, and beer were involved. Mom and I would sit in the kitchen for hours and Dad would make us coffee in between the beers. Now, it’s Dad’s turn. I love his stories about when he grew up, especially those when he and Mom first met and married. We keep her alive in our stories and Dad still talks with her every day.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
When I drafted the most recent Dispatch from the Hideout installment on May, 31,2021, Dispatch from the Hideout: My Post-Pandemic Life, like many others who were fully-vaccinated as the summer approached, I was optimistic about the future. We seemed on our way to reaching President Biden’s vaccination goal of 70% immunization by July 4th— until we weren’t.
A little background for those new to my Dispatch from the Hideout series:
I began my Dispatch from the Hideout as a one-off essay in July 2017 to describe my reaction to events in the world and my need to retreat. I was also grieving the losses in my life, the most recent at the time was my mother’s death in 2016. I introduced the series as follows:
Now, before I go any further, it’s important that I share with you that my hideout is a virtual one. I don’t have a cabin in the woods, or a bunker in the basement, I only have my home, a 645 square foot apartment. It’s where I wake up in the morning, retreat at the end of the work day, hideout on the weekends when I’m writing or feeling introverted, and end my days, often falling asleep on the couch watching TV. Yeah, I’m that girl. I live alone and most days I’m happy with that choice.
I discovered that the Dispatch from the Hideout metaphor was a useful vehicle for me to express innermost feelings, like grief and gratitude, moments when I faced my shadow, or questioned my choices, plus the times when I reflected on the larger world of which I’m simply a member, navigating things outside of my control, yet still have an impact on my heart, mind, and spirit. The Hideout metaphor served me and soon became a series.
Circling back to the end of February and the COVID-19 pandemic I was forced to spend more time in the Hideout to protect my physical health, safer-at-home, I soon discovered that the isolation also affected my mental. emotional, and spiritual health. When the Wisconsin Historical Society launched the Wisconsin Historical Society COVID-19 Journal Project, I was all in and to date, including this essay, I’ve contributed seventeen installments, about my experience as I shelter-in-place, plus the four musings that preceded them.
There are links to the entire Dispatch series at the end of this essay plus related reading.
One Step Forward
In the spring, as people became vaccinated, and later children over 12 years of age, we made a giant step forward in protecting our health and returning to some semblance of a new normal. People took a maskless sigh of relief. Vaccinated people were told we could remove our masks, both outdoors and indoors, eat in restaurants, visit friends and family who were vaccinated that we haven’t seen for over a year, travel again, return to work, and the list goes on.
The unvaccinated were encouraged for their own health and protection to continue wearing masks in public, especially indoors and outdoors when in crowds that may include unvaccinated people. Better yet — the simple solution — and another step forward — get vaccinated.
Two Steps Back
In the past couple of weeks news outlets, opinion writers, and health experts began calling the increase in COVID-19 infections, the pandemic of the unvaccinated, since we’re far below herd immunity. As of July 21, 2021, only 49% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and 57% have received one dose.
Vaccinations – NYT 7-31-21
Research of the Delta variant raised additional alarm for its dramatic increased transmissibility and breakthrough infections of the vaccinated. From a study by the Guangdong CDC in China:
This all suggests a faster replication rate, a reduced incubation period, and greater viral shedding — all factors that contribute to Delta’s increased infectiousness and transmissibility, said Angela Rasmussen, PhD, of the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, in a twitter thread.
“If people are shedding 1000X more virus, the probability that a close contact will be exposed to an infectious dose is much higher,” Rasmussen tweeted. “If people become contagious more quickly after exposure, they can have more opportunity to infect others.”
If you do the math, it’s clear we’re all at risk, not only the unvaccinated if infected for serious illness, hospitalization, and possibly death, but also the vaccinated for breakthrough infections which though they may be asymptomatic, yet if not tested and quarantine, risk infecting others to whom they come in contact.
CDC Guidelines & Prevention Strategies
Today, 100,000 new cases were diagnosed, the most infections in a single day since February 2021. Health experts believe that the Delta variant is as transmittable as the common cold or chicken pox, and if you’re infected, you can spread it up to 9 people.
Like the results of the 2020 Presidential Election, rampant unchecked conspiracy theories on right-wing news outlets and social media, and the January 6th Insurrection, both masks and vaccinations have become politicized to the point that the COVID-19 virus and ignorance are literally killing people.
From the NYT’s:
As coronavirus cases rise rapidly again, the fight against the pandemic is focused on an estimated 93 million people who are unvaccinated.
They largely fall into two groups: those who are vehemently opposed to the idea, and a second group that is still deciding, according to surveys. Health officials are making progress in inoculating this second group, but those who are firmly opposed to the vaccines outnumber them by two-to-one. Understanding what might persuade them to change their minds will be crucial to fighting the highly contagious Delta variant.
The Stupid Olympics
The short-term solution for long-term sustained health to prevent both the transmission of COVID-19 and the rise of new variants is two simple steps:
Wear masks in public and get vaccinated.
Dispatch from the Hideout Series COVID-19 Journal
(In order of most recent to oldest)
Dispatch from the Hideout: My Post-Pandemic Life
Dispatch from the Hideout: Exit Strategy
Dispatch from the Hideout: A Shot in the Arm
Dispatch from the Hideout: Love in a Pandemic
Dispatch from the Hideout: The End Is Here!
Dispatch from the Hideout: Riding the Coronacoaster
Dispatch from the Hideout: Staycation Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Letter to Loved Ones
Dispatch from the Hideout: Quarantine Bubble Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: What Was, What Will Be
Dispatch from the Hideout: Back to Life
Dispatch from the Hideout: Stirred Crazy
Dispatch from the Hideout: Home Alone Easter Holiday
Dispatch from the Hideout: Home Alone Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Pandemic Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Social Distancing
Additional Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Dispatch from the Hideout: Premature Hibernation
Hibernation & the Holidays: Retreat to the Hideout
Another Dispatch from the Hideout
The Loud Family Loses a Loved One
Related Reading on COVID-19: Two Steps Backs
Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count
The surge of COVID-19 infections for unvaccinated people is only beginning
What’s This About Delta Being 1,000 Times More Infectious?
What You Need to Know About COVID-19 Mandates
CDC Guidelines for Implementing COVID-19 Prevention Strategies