Things are getting more interesting as weeks go by… and by interesting
I mean weird, messed up, crazy, etc etc, of course. There is no end in sight,
and things just keep getting worse… places are starting to get their second
waves, numbers are spiking across the board, and India is just about starting
the massive first wave we know is coming. Degrees of separation with affected
people is getting fewer. From just hearing on the news we have got to a place
where I personally know them, or they are a friend of a friend. This shit is
real.
At the same time, “anti-restriction” protests are getting
bigger and spreading. Anti vaxxers, anti maskers, idiots who think a mask will
restrict their oxygen flow, and selfish assholes who simply don’t want the
inconvenience and see a conspiracy in anything they are “told” to do, are out
on the streets en masse, screaming and shouting about their fundamental rights
to have a haircut even at the cost of hundreds of lives. Community transmission
is thankful to these morons who are now the super-spreaders of the virus, they
will be instrumental in bringing the death tally up to the millions and in
crashing entire health care systems. I would say good riddance to bad rubbish,
let them all get Corona and suffer the consequences, but sadly, thanks to these
dweebs, and their idiocy, it becomes more and more likely that the bug will
reach, and often kill, even people who ARE being sensible, who ARE taking logical
precautions. So, we will pay for their shenanigans. And the fact that spikes in
infection DO happen after every major event of this sort with people without
masks completely ignoring physical distancing is no longer deniable. Recent history
of aborted attempts at sports gatherings, religious festivals, and more has
amply proved that whenever morons congregate in large numbers flouting basic
safety in the name of “freedom”, massive spikes in numbers happen.
India is now pretty close to being at the top of the list in
the matter of both new infections and deaths… and this is super scary, because
given the numbers being released, and knowing how much of a gap there always is
in “official” numbers and real ones, the real numbers are likely to be seriously
freaky. And this means so many things. It is not just the fear and real possibility
that every delivery, every trip to the grocers, every time domestic workers or
plumbers or electricians enter the home, they might be bringing in disaster. It
is not just the fact that although I and mine are taking all possible
precautions, we are still hostage to the vagaries of fate and the actions of
millions of idiots increasing our chances of being affected regardless. It’s surreal,
like one of those ethics conundrums I like to pitch at my students, about whether
saving a large number of people – who were doing the wrong thing - justifies
sacrificing the one person who was doing the right thing.
That’s the baseline… this constant anxiety, surfacing or
hidden, ignored or acknowledged about the bug coming home… me, I don’t mind so
much for me, might even welcome it if I was sure to be carried off… but I do
have a partner and a child, both of whom are in the high risk groups. And them
being affected is NOT a pleasant thought, to say the least. But that’s just a
tip of the situational iceberg – isn’t it? What about work, and money? As of
now, unless something drastic happens, some sudden windfall or some amazing
deal going through, not only do I not have any certainty of being able to meet
bills and payments next month, I have no insurance cover of any sort – neither health
nor life – meaning that in a situation of extremity, illness, death, disaster, I
have zero recourse. I am not even thinking of doctors for things that ARE wrong
and going wrong in the normal course of things, as of now, because I cannot
afford the actions which will become necessary, as soon as I do.
And this is just the beginning. Given what the pandemic and
resulting changes are going to do to global economic systems, what is the
future going to look like, work-wise, when it finally happens? It seems likely
that things will remain more or less this way for at least another year. This sporadic
opening and closing of everything… voluntary isolations, lockdowns, and
closures is unlikely to significantly change until a vaccine becomes mass
produced enough to be commercially available and affordable to most people. And
that does not seem possible in any way in any hurry. Under normal circumstances
it takes, what, 10 years to develop, test, produce and market a vaccine. Even with
the pressures of the situation, there is only so much faster that things can go…
so I don’t see an effective vaccine even being discovered before the end of
this year or further along. After that comes the entire process of production
and distribution… with 7.8 billion people on this rock, what are the odds of a
majority being vaccinated, or even vaccines being easily and readily available
in third world countries anytime soon?
And until that happens, I am not sending monkey to school,
or risking any resumption of a “normal” routine. Which means, realistically,
this self imposed situational house arrest is unlikely to end anytime before
mid to late 2021 (if I am lucky) or later (if I am right). Given that I am
barely stepping out of the house now (maybe once a month or so, more of a
drive, with minimum contact with anyone, verbal or physical), I don’t see
social life happening in a big way before then either. While people have been talking
about having virtual “adda” through skype/zoom etc, I find myself strangely
apathetic to the idea, in spite of how depressed and frustrated it makes me not
to have my tribe around and not to be able to vent, bounce ideas, argue, etc.
The head is not doing so well, as evidenced by the fact that I am sleeping something
like 2 hours in every 24, not reading anything significant and barely anything
insignificant because I cannot focus long enough to process a paragraph, mostly
just feeling blank and calmish on the surface, not daring at all to look below
it to the witches’ cauldron of whatever is going on just under the surface,
what manifests as the regular nightmares and the extreme lack of energy for
anything.
The anxiety and stress are surely not helping that situation
either, for me OR for the diabetic hypertensive at home. Things can only get
worse or more damaged – both physical and mental health wise – under the level
of constant, low grade, buzz of worry that most of us are living with right
now. The isolation, the fear, the uncertainly of what happens next, the surety
that things as we knew them are gone, that normal will never be the same, the
complete absence of a sense of steadiness, of continuity, of certainty,
security… it all adds up to a pretty bleak scene.
And then there are the unforeseen, unanticipated effects… Recently
a much loved relative, someone who was like a mother to my fellow and who loved
me and showed me so much love from the day I met her, passed away from cancer. Under
normal circumstances, her last month or more would have been filled with
multiple visits from us. As it was, with lockdowns and such, we only managed to
travel to the village AFTER we heard the news of her passing, and that was just
an evening, where fellow was not even able to go to the cremation because of
restrictions. Her two daughters live farther away, one in a remote part of the
state and another out of state. Both were unable to travel at all, and not able
to see their mother one last time or say goodbye. Sounds like not much, but the
feeling of unfinished business, of an absence of closure is a burden to add to
all the burdens. This disruption of the social rituals and norms we have
created over time to help people deal with so much, both happiness and agony,
sadness and laughter, joy and pain, is going to have some very serious long
term repercussions I think, in the cumulative effect it will have on individual
mental health.
Another side effect of morons and faulty systems has been
the spike in deaths from other preventable causes. Yesterday a young activist
in her 30s succumbed to a lung infection which could have been easily cured if
there were enough beds and equipment available. This is just one of the many
cases happening everyday of people being turned away from hospital after
hospital until they pass away in the ambulance or at home. Or there are the
cases of people dying of Covid-19 related causes, and hospitals refusing to
release bodies until unbelievably exorbitant bills are met (40 lakhs in one
case).
So, even if you are lucky enough to find a bed and get
admitted, quality of care, affordability etc are completely arbitrary and most
likely to be beyond most peoples’ means.
So, as things stand, anything can kill
you because we have for decades allowed healthcare to be unimportant, allowed
conglomerates and pharma biggies to take over things and impose whatever prices
they felt like, have relied on insurance (especially in the case o the employed
middle classes) to happily live in a bubble of imagined invulnerability. Now we
will face the consequences, and they will not be pretty. I would not be too
surprised if things in developing nations at least get to the level of the
plague and Spanish flu days, with bodies piling up in the streets and municipal
sanitation services giving them mass burials or mass cremations.
What will be the long term economic impact, too? How many
people will be laid off? How few of them will find employment again? What kind
of employment? How will economic systems change and how bad will the depression
get? How many will die from the virus? As likely, if most of the dead are among
the middle and poorer classes, what will that do to production, supply chains,
and more? What the hell will the working world even look like once this is
finally over? And given that the crisis itself might take 2 or more years to
pass (the Spanish Flu pandemic lasted a year and a half), and the resulting
global repercussions are likely to last for up to a decade, what does that mean
for monkey’s future? Hell, will I even live to see it? With the forced
isolation and so on, drinking in most houses has gone through the roof, smokers
are going through more coffin nails than ever before, meals are regular, and
likely to be richer because you are trying to bring SOME variation to life, but
exercise and activity are close to zero. All of this is bound to have a serious
negative impact on health.
All in all, I am surprised at how calmly I am writing about
it, talking about it with many people, while all the while being in such a
major panic mode. It’s a bit like functioning on autopilot, seeing and knowing
what I am doing, all the while a part of me, another me, sits in a corner
shaking and screaming and tearing their hair out - having a full out panic attack.
