Day 119

July 8, 2020. The United States and many other parts of the world continues its struggle to control and or lessen the impact of the virus. In India the death toll has surpassed 20,000 and it is now third behind Brazil and the U.S. in total cases. In the United States 37 of which have reported a rise in new cases of the novel coronavirus, which officially became a pandemic on March 12, 2020.  So what of the other 13 states?

Many of the states with the lowest infection rates are less densely populated such as Montana, Wyoming and Maine. Yet some small rural towns in the south and mid-west have been hit hard as well as the major cities where you would expect a mass of transmission simply due to the number of people. The virus in a number of cases has been traced to clusters.  The origin of the spread being born out of a large gathering such as funerals, large factories and plants, nursing homes and cruise ships. Then as people proceed to move back to their lives and interact with others the virus is spread thus so. And yet people in certain regions of the world are having a tough time believing the data.  Nurses, who traveled to New York (an epicenter of the virus in the early months of the pandemic), are having a difficult time convincing their friends and family back home of the dire situation and in some cases the reality of COVID-19.

Just yesterday I spoke to a friend, who lives in the southern region outside of Denver, who was not sure about the use of masks. He did not deny the reality of the virus, but his attitude was flippant about a pandemic. I suppose if people are not getting information from a viable and trustworthy source much of what they hear may be opinions of skeptics and fake news created by rumors and other forms of  misinformation.  It seems to me that without question if you know someone who has been infected and either lived or died then the situation becomes real.  However, if you are not in touch with anyone who has a virus story then it could be hard to fathom the enormity of the situation. 

These moments in time play on our minds.  We all are so specifically wired due to our belief systems and life experiences that all of us process every situation in our own unique way. Something so unprecedented like a pandemic can cause anxiety, disbelief and anger.  Mostly because we do not have any past memories or experiences to relate it to and therefor have difficulty understanding or even believing it. Even though biblical stories may seem fantastical in nature yet many people trust in them and accept them on faith.  For faith is the acceptance of the unknown. Alan Watts, in his 1951 book The Wisdom of Insecurity, says, "The discovery of the mystery, the wonder beyond all wonders, needs no belief for we can only believe in what we have already known, preconceived or imagined. But this is beyond any imagination. We have but to open the eyes of the mind wide enough and "the truth will out". The this he is referring to is the mystery of life, but can easily be applied to the mystery of the current pandemic.