Editor’s note: This commentary is by Bob Stannard, an author, musician and former lobbyist. This piece first appeared in the Bennington Banner.
During the past five and half years or so that we’ve been locked down from one of the worst pandemics of our lifetime we’ve learned a lot. The first thing we’ve learned is that time is much more elastic than we thought. Morphing from a life of structure, patterns and activities to one of, well, none of these things changed our perception of time.
Have you found yourself asking what day is it? When you’re grounded, locked down, socially isolated/quarantined or whatever you wish to call it, the days run into each other. One minute it’s Wednesday. The next minute it’s Sunday. It makes you contemplate how those who came before us lived. Did they pay any attention to what day it was? Did it matter? Did they have weekends? Did time matter to them? Were they better off not having such a rigidly planned life?
Now that we have no idea what day it is, because we don’t have all that much to do, or can do, what’s next? Right, there is no “next.” We hang around hoping that everyone else is hanging around and wait for a nasty, invisible, high-contagious bug to float to the ground and die. Had everyone done the same exact thing at the same exact time then this predictable pandemic might very well be in our rear view mirror by now. But, alas, we didn’t all do the exact same thing at the exact same time (and still are not) so here we are in “Limbo Land.” We don’t really have a clue as to what we should be doing, how we should be doing and when we should be doing it, do we?
For example, should you wear a mask when you leave your house? In addition to wearing a mask should you wear rubber, surgical gloves? When you see thousands of medical workers all wearing masks to prevent them from becoming contaminated, it seems kind of reasonable to think that maybe you should wear a mask, too. We are, after all, dealing with a virus that is highly contagious and transmitted by other people either coughing and/or sneezing, or have the virus on their hands and leave it everywhere they go. Protecting yourself from this nasty, little plague doesn’t seem like an irresponsible thing to do, does it?
That depends on who you talk to. First we were told that we should wear rubber gloves to keep the virus off our hands. Then we learn that wearing gloves might be the wrong thing to do. Why? Because if a person goes into one store wearing gloves, picks up the virus, leaves that store and gets in their car and goes to another store they’re carrying the virus around on their hands. Instead of wearing gloves, just wash your hands. OK, but if you were wearing gloves couldn’t you just wash/disinfect your gloved hands?
OK, gloves are a little complicated so let’s move on to the wearing of masks. Pretty much everyone in the world agrees that we need to wear a mask, right? Not so fast. We are now hearing anecdotal tales of people getting into confrontational discussions over masks. One person walks into a store wearing a mask; another person refuses to wear a mask. The mask wearer says “Where’s your mask?” and off they go. Is the store owner obligated to break up the fight? Is he/she liable if he/she tosses them out on the street? Why are they fighting over mask-wearing anyway?
We’re told that a mask should be worn so that we can protect others from getting the virus in the event that we might have it. Well, that sounds reasonable. I mean, if I have a cold I have no desire to have you get it, right? However, inasmuch as I have now been quarantined for what feels like five and a half years there’s very little chance I would have the virus, right? Hmmm, I did go into that store the other day and the guy next to me sneezed. Did he have it? Did he give it to me and do I have it now? How long before I’m contagious? Oh brother, this is complicated.
As if this isn’t enough we have what I will call “mask protocol.” We’ve made it through the “when” and now we move into the “how” to wear a mask. You don’t wear it as depicted on the cover of The New Yorker magazine showing the president wearing it over his eyes. You wear it over your nose and mouth. The idea here is that you keep the microscopic particles to yourself. No sharing. You don’t wear it over your mouth with your nose sticking out like the lady you just saw in Aisle 3. You don’t have it dangling off your ear like the guy at the gas station.
“But,” you say, “how am I supposed to eat, drink, smoke, bite my nails because I’m nervous that I can’t eat, drink, smoke or bite my nails?” Life is full of little dilemmas, isn’t it?
Wear a mask. Don’t touch your face. Good luck remembering what day it is.
