Mike's Thoughts: Quarantine

by Mike Lunsford, GGR Editor-In-Chief

Boy has this last 2 plus months felt like forever! I know that not everyone has had the same experience with the quarantine that this epidemic has created, but for me and my family, we have not left the house much. We will get out occasionally, whether it’s for staples or just a drive to get out of the house. We as a family have settled in and accepted that the stay at home concept is what is best for everyone. Have we all gotten on each other’s nerves? Yeah, for sure. No family on the face of the planet can HONESTLY say that they haven’t annoyed each other. But when we do go out, we’re using the curbside pick up options or only one of us goes into the establishment. Whoever does go in is wearing a mask and is keeping their distance. Why do we do this? Because none of us want to get infected and either 1. get sick, or, 2. get others sick. So all of this cabin fever and anxiety of not knowing when this will end is worth it because we’re doing what we can to limit exposure. That’s what this quarantine is all about, nothing more. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something.

Now, I am not blinded by my own privilege. I know that not every person is as lucky as I am. I work for a company that has taken a lot of steps to ensure their workforce is safely at home, but I get that there are those who don’t have this luxury. I get that there are those whose jobs have been closed and they aren’t getting paid. They’re getting desperate and want to work because they could be losing their homes. I am sympathetic to this because the thought of losing my job and not being able to pay for our home is frightening.

I am sympathetic to the struggle that many are experiencing, however, I want to make this very clear: I am not sympathetic to is a blatant disregard for safety and welfare of others. My daughter is not as lucky as I am. She works in the food service industry as a manager and works pretty much every day. Lots of industries have ground to a halt because of the quarantine, but not food. People gotta eat! I know she’s being safe by wearing a mask, washing her hands, keeping socially distant and her workplace has installed plexiglass partitions so there is no face to face contact. What I worry about, though, is the customers.

Just like you know that your kids can be the safest driver on the road, that doesn’t mean that every other driver is doing things safely. Every time they drive, they’re at risk of an accident. That’s what I worry about: she’s being safe, but not everyone else is. Not everyone is wearing a mask. Not everyone is adhering to the social distancing requests and that is a huge problem.

In fact, she has customers who rant and rave about their “right to protest and assemble,” while waiting for their food. You know what food service people who are working their asses off and hoping to God they don’t get sick LOVE hearing about? How fragile you are and how simplistic your understanding of the Constitution is, all while you’re not wearing a mask and ordering two extra meat pizzas. Please shut up, Cletus.

The face of the resistance…to common sense and decency.

For those reading this editorial, it is not meant to start debate, it is not meant as a means for civil discourse, I really don’t care if you agree or disagree with me on the quarantine or any of the safety measures put in place. You can have theories about how this started, if the government is doing this on purpose, whatever nonsense you want to spew, I will not have it. Doctors and other health professionals who know how diseases work are doing everything they can to try and save lives. Conspiracy theories and the ramblings of people who know nothing about virology or epidemiology are not only stupid, they’re dangerous. I’ll believe Dr. Fauci before I listen to some idiot with a YouTube channel and no credentials.

The facts are this: to stop the spread of a pandemic, contact between people must be limited. This is not open to interpretation. History proves this is how it works. Look at the Spanish Influenza Epidemic of 1918 if you forgot that this country has dealt with this before. Masks should be worn because it drops the infection rate to a much more manageable percentage. I am very sick and tired of hearing people claim that wearing a mask tramples their civil liberties. Your “right” to go out into public and buy a sandwich without washing your hands or wearing a mask is not more important than potentially infecting MY asthmatic daughter.

We have rights in this country to “do what we want.” Some call that freedom. You’ll hear people who have a basic understanding of this say things like “it’s a free country!” It’s not about freedom right now. It’s about common decency. It’s about mutual respect. Freedom to do what you want is not more important than others right to live.

Remember what happened to our country after 9/11? Places of employment would have Patriot Days. Everyone who worked in the office would wear whatever red, white and blue clothing to work to show how much they loved the country. You very easily could’ve chose not to wear anything American related, you could have worn different colors but you did it out of respect. You did it because you didn’t want to look like a disrespectful dick.

THIS IS THE SAME THING.

By refusing to wear a mask, by refusing to respect social distancing, by refusing to comply with stay-at-home orders you are saying you don’t care about anyone but yourself. People are dying from this. And not just the old and the immunocompromised; young people, middle aged people in good health, and children: all of them are at risk of either getting this disease and becoming very sick or being a carrier to spread it amongst others.

I know have half a dozen friends who have been infected by coronavirus. The worst part about these people is they have all been doing things the right way. They’re limiting physical contact, they’re wearing masks, they’re washing their hands constantly and they STILL got it! One of these friends in a nurse in a retirement home so it’s very difficult for them to avoid this. So not only are they on the front lines trying to save people from the ravages of this virus, they themself got sick, too. This is directly from a conversation I had with them.

Okay so it started for me. The nurse that was suppose to take my cart after me got turned away at the door because she had a fever. Which meant I had to stay an additional 3 hours to care for the patients til they found someone to take my place. By then I had worked 15 hours hadn’t had a break ( food, water, or taken my mask off) in 7 hours. Not to mention we already had people dying at that point and I was trying to be there for them so they wouldn’t die alone. I felt run down but attributed it to all that. When I left work my temp was taken and it was 101.1. 10 mins later as I was walking into the ER it was 103.5.
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They tested me and I went home. I spent the next 5 days in bed. I never lost my sense of smell or taste never really had a sore throat. But I felt like I got hit by a bus. I was so exhausted by just getting up to drink. Had no interest in food because it was too much effort. My lungs felt like they were on fire and just the fact that I HAD lungs hurt. The coughing... like maybe if a fire breather fucked up.
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My lungs were on fire. And I knew that you have to cough to move all the crap accumulating in your lungs. I’d have tears streaming down my face from the pain but you have to. So basically I laid in bed for 4 days straight. After that I could maybe get up to make a can of spaghetti-os for the kids but that would leave me napping for 3 hours.
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When I thought I was ready to go back to work the thought of wearing my mask again made me wanna vomit. And it took a solid month to feel like myself again

In her nursing home, they’ve lost 15% of their residents from Covid-19. It’s bad enough to have to watch an elderly person die…but to die because their lungs seized up? If you think this is hyperbole, please read more from my conversation with my nurse friend

The toughest part is that there’s literally nothing we can do except symptom management

It is- so here they are dying in front of you. You can give them Tylenol. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t. Can’t give them Motrin because it doesn’t metabolize correctly in geriatric patients

So they’re just dying . You’re trying to keep the oxygen on them that they keep tearing off, they’re coughing in your face, your trying to get them to drink they forgot how to use a straw

Some of them we will send to the hospital and they’ll die there and some we keep

The little lady that was 100 whose family didn’t want to put her through all that. Just told us to let her go as we all knew she wasn’t going to make it. And I have so much love and respect for that family.

That they didn’t make us do cpr on her, breaking her fragile ribs to MAYBE bring her back. Spending your last few minutes scared and in pain surrounded by people yelling at each other pumping at your chest. Instead they just had us stop giving her Tylenol, she went to sleep .. and that was it

This is what people are dealing with. This is what people are dying of. This is what people in the health care industry are willing to risks their lives for: to defend the dignity of their patients.

So pardon me if I’m not as outraged as you that grocery stores are requiring masks. I don’t want my friends in the healthcare field putting their lives and the the lives of their patients in further jeopardy because you refuse to think of anyone other than yourself. Inconvenience is not “trampling on your rights,” and if you think it is…then you’ve never truly dealt with oppression of any sort.

In summation, stop putting people’s lives at risk because you only have a high school level understanding of the Constitution. Pretending to be “defending my rights” while you’re cosplaying as a soldier only shows the world that you’re a selfish, petulant child. You can always make more money, it’s replaceable, a loved one’s life is not. All I’m saying is…don’t be a juicebag.