Covid is the plague that just won't leave, so we can get on with living our best superficial lives.

It's been four years since COVID-19- rolled into our world like a marauding army. It's still killing people- the old, those with underlying health issues and the sick. I wear a mask in shops because I am one of those who has underlying health issues from a dodgy heart to fibrotic lungs. In the before times, I'd probably get to live into my late 70s before clocking it. But in this present reality, who knows.

Few wear masks in stores or anywhere now. People cough and sputter out airborne pathogens and claim, "It's just a cold or that flu going around." It's surreal the capacity of people to make believe all is normal. The absurdity of it- reminds me of those sad stories of children who witness their parent's death but think they can urge them to wake up from their eternal slumber.

In 2020 I began writing a book about trying to survive alone during a time of plague while battling rectal cancer. The book was long since completed. I just wish Covid was as been there done that as this book for me. Here is a selection from that book..

Photo by Paulo Silva on Unsplash

Since the era of the “before times, ended, I have witnessed two seasons of spring emerge from the snows of March that are as grey as soot. I have been exiled from human contact for so long now; it is hard to believe all can ever be well with me or the world again.

Through the winter light, I followed with the fervour of an orthodox religious devotee- every public health measure because it promised the best safety against COVID before vaccines were available. I masked up, kept my social distance from everyone, and scrubbed my hands with the diligence of someone with OCD.

My chance for inoculation came in April. It was liberating when the jab went into me. For the first time in over a year, my odds against the vicious mortality of Covid 19 for those who are old or have a weakened immune system were even. In June, I received my second dose, which was Moderna, due to fears by government scientists about the long-term efficacy of AZ.

Yet, as I stand battered and breathless on the cusp of August 2021, normalcy doesn’t feel near. The wait was too long for that “light at the end of the tunnel,” our politicians promised us since the end of last year.

I am unsure how long people can keep their faith. Society has lost the little discipline they had to keep themselves alive. Bars again are full; nightclubs are busy. People are even travelling abroad for the summer holidays. Humanity in wealthy countries wants a return to the before times, regardless of the consequences. We are like the people of Pompeii who notice Vesuvius smoking in the distance and feel the earth tremble from the magma building up below the surface, but suppose we are safe. So, we indulge our habits to shop for slave labour goods at bargain prices and celebrate our purchases with a congratulatory meal in a chain restaurant that serves processed food. This is our normal. But it is a trick the 1% has to make us conclude we are immortal.

I know society is only a few steps into our journey to normal, and many will never know its return. The death count won’t stop soon due to vaccine hesitancy among the ignorant and radicalised. Two thousand people still die weekly in Biden’s America and seven hundred in the UK. The USA is 60% fully vaccinated, while 40% of its population is either too stupid or too indoctrinated to understand that the only quick way to a normal life is vaccination. This pandemic will stick around with the vehemence of the swine flu because right-wing politicians help new variants spawn, harming not only the unvaccinated but also the inoculated. Covid is here to stay like a smouldering bushfire that has the potential to be lethal and destructive.

So far, only 10% of the world’s population has been doubly vaccinated against the coronavirus. Most of the developing world is unvaccinated due to the grotesque inequality between rich and poorer nations. Mass death is a real possibility in all of Africa, Central America, and many parts of Asia. We are on the verge of a global political crisis, not even seen after the First World War concluded. Nations are unravelling, and geopolitical earthquakes will occur. Yet, the news media perpetuates stories of a return to normal by showing pubgoers enjoying a pint at their favourite watering holes as if humanity were in a state of Zen.

Besides Covid, this summer is dying in a catastrophe of climate emergencies that have flooded much of Europe and bred raging forest fires across North America. Yet governments are too timid to enact climate-friendly policies because it means the end to consumerism and unsustainable growth that profits the entitled.

I am grateful I have been vaccinated, but I am also scared, shitless, for what lies ahead for me and our society. I am exhausted both physically and emotionally from everything I have experienced over the last few years. I know my chances even if COVID didn’t exist of living to a ripe old age rather than a scattering of years depends on so many factors outside of my genetic makeup. Being poor and being ill is a life shortener. At 57, despite employment as a radio news reporter, 15 years of work as a program coordinator at a community channel, being an owner of a wine and spirit agency, a caregiver, and an integral component of your Harry’s Last Stand project, I am superfluous to the modern working world.

Hi all:

Thanks for reading and supporting my substack. At this time of the month it is always a bit of an SOS with the rent. I really need your help and need 20 new subscribers to keep me under a roof. Your subscriptions to this newsletter do that. They also help keep my housed which has become a precarious thing- thanks to getting cancer along with lung disease and other co- morbidities as I age in these cost of living crisis times. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John