In times like ours I delight in debate with my grandsons—fifteen and seventeen years old. Until recently we mostly saw the world in terms of common understanding. Lately our debates have become acrimonious, not only because of the corona virus, but because of the statistics the boys use to cement their arguments. Much of their wisdom is cherry-picked from their favorite sites on the internet, and teacher infused, with their particular world view. When I object to data flying the face of what I know to be reality, they overwhelm me with their new-found wisdom. Common sense and factual data from real life, the world of business and knowledge of foreign countries, are relegated to the trash heap of: “unsubstantiated anecdotal unscientific evidence.”
The Chinese virus is point of fact. I am of the “vulnerable age” where science has me surely dying should I be unlucky enough to become infected. Both boys were appalled observing me living life without restrictions. I did not quarantine myself, and have worn a masque only twice, for half an hour each time to enter stores requiring them. I have walked unmasked daily in the fresh air, had like-minded friends for dinner and visited them, and enjoyed myself tremendously. The only concessions made to the virus was under duress—the powers of government closed all the swimming pools.
Believe me, I am not the knuckle-dragging troglodyte a certain segment of society would make me out to be, because I did not fall for the fear-mongering daily horror reports and just did what common sense dictated. I studied the medical reports put out by the government and related studies, compared this material to reports by some of the world’s best-known virologists, compared it to historical data and decided that my environs, my lifestyle and health warranted none of the draconian remedies proscribed by the medical cognoscenti in the media.
I got along just fine but the boys are belaboring me to be more cautious. “Look at the death statistics in your age group! Do you want to die?” I counter their loving concern with, “No, of course not! But I refuse to be a frightened sheep without self-awareness. Wearing the masque makes me nauseous. Furthermore, I do not believe in the efficacy of the flimsy things and there are plenty of scientists agreeing with me.”
Oh, how the yelled. My data was all wrong. Their facts were correct. In the end I peremptorily stated, “It is my life. This how I want to live it—Basta!” Well, that was when they brought the power engine of the lock-down crowd to bear upon me. The power of the crowd that is more interested in the ruin of the economy to make President Trump look bad before the election than anything else.
Their moralistic story is that they guide us with parental zeal through the raging virus-debate with the real facts about the Covid debacle, as they keep us locked up and masked. Their heroes would like us to stay locked up until autumn. If you disagree with their facts and reasoning, you are declared an anti-social, science denier, a money-grubbing capitalist favoring his shop over the death-strewn streets of the city.
And woe, if you do not wear the cursed masque, “you put others at risk” by not wearing it. You are selfish—only thinking of your comfort instead of society. How so? If I am healthy and feeling great whom can I harm? If I felt ill, I would stay home.
However, may this as it be, life has taught me that I am much more likely to die from the bane of my existence—a sinus infection than the Chinese virus. Amen.