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It was announced today that as of April 20th the public indoor mask mandate will be lifted nationwide. I’ve been dreading this ever since they floated this awful idea a couple of months ago. Aside from the risk it places on my health (and frankly everyone else’s if people were honest with themselves) it’s also going to drastically affect my business and, hence, my life. At the moment I am still limiting my tours so as to also limit possible exposure to Covid. Which, by the way, IS NOT OVER. But after the 20th I cannot see myself wanting to be at close quarters for four hours with people who have travelled unmasked from the US or UK on a flight full of other maskless selfish assholes. It also means that my future travel plans (mostly work related) will have to be cancelled because public transport will have become too risky.
A case in point, a friend of mine recently returned from Spain to London and decided to take a rapid test when he got home. Positive for Covid. Without symptoms. And he remained positive for 11 days, during which he cancelled another trip he had planned. In fact, he stayed home for the entire 11 days until he tested negative. He said it really hit home how, if he had travelled, he could have been a super spreader and infected many, many other people. Not to mention that with each infection (with symptoms or otherwise) the virus gets more chances to mutate.
And before people jump all over me saying I’m overreacting or whatever… kindly just fuck off. It’s my life. Though not, as someone pointed out in a very pointy manner today, my choice. It is not MY choice to watch my livelihood go down the drain because of political bullshit I have no control over. Because this is ONLY a political decision. FYI? Hospitalisations and deaths are up in Andalucía, while they keep telling us that new cases are going down. Well, since they have stopped testing and PCRs are now limited to “vulnerable” people, of course the fucking number of recorded cases are going down. Because they are simply not being recorded. Hard to hide those deaths though. In fact, last week we had more new Covid cases in Andalucía than in all of China, which as you know is in a serious lockdown situation. Again. And of course both the UK and US are total political shitshows with hospitals being swamped by Covid patients.
So my “choice” is to either go against my better judgement and pretend Covid is over just like far too many people are doing, or to continue being myself, and true to myself, and a responsible and caring member of this society. This “choice” is shit, it’s a terrible place to find myself, and it’s stressful as fuck. Because I honestly don’t know how I am going to live now. And all because people think wearing a mask during an ongoing global pandemic with an AIRBORNE VIRUS is too fucking hard for them. To all you Covid Deniers who are so keen to get your “old normal” back that you are willing to throw everyone else under the bus as long as you get to do what you want… fuck you.
casa azahar 
As Alice Roosevelt Longworth said, come sit over here beside me. Well, socially distanced. And with a mask on.
Every day I get up and say “well, another day that I’m not going back to work.” Just before I came downstairs and read this, I was thinking about the way the Powers That Be seem simply determined to wait us all out until people are between a rock and a hard place, or just sick of it, depending on how pressing their financial situation is. Our majestic Senate, the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body ™, evenly split down the middle, shot down funding for testing, tracking, antiviral drugs and whatever else is needed to roll back this pandemic. Americans will now have to pay for their own clinical testing in more and more places where you used to be able to drive up to a testing site, done and done. And I’m talking $100 and $120 fees. That’s the weekly food budget or the water bill. They won’t do it, and by magic “cases” will go down and the active variants won’t be recorded.
The last time I sent a short e-mail to my clients explaining that I didn’t consider it safe to return to work, that we needed improved vaccines and N95 masks on everyone and national policy with teeth in it, I got maybe five replies from a list of 25 or so who had been coming regularly, and most of those were brief and disengaged. They have moved on. They are taking trips and going out. And because our area is pretty wealthy (the people who do the shit jobs can’t afford to live and shop here) and heavily vaccinated, the impact isn’t going to show up immediately, but Fuck Around And Find Out is a principle I expect to apply.
I understand a bunch of DC muckamucks brought Covid home from an annual foo-ra called the Gridiron Dinner. Which the head of the CDC attended. Maybe it will make someone think but I’m not holding my breath.
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