Alert

 The pandemic not only continues -- it grows. 

The past week, my desert city has "shattered" records for new and active viruses cases, positivity rate, hospitalizations (including ICU admissions) and ventilator use. News articles exclaim: "The massive Covid-19 surge... went from extremely bad to critically worse on Saturday as all-time highs were shattered for a half-dozen critical markers...."  the Mayor is encouraging people to "stay home".  The local convention center is being converted to a makeshift hospital.  The text news flashes from the City are all labeled "Imminent extreme alert."

I just... cannot. 

The politicization of wearing a simple facemask has turned a simple and easy action which demonstrably reduces infection rates into some kind of STATEMENT. One hundred thousand lives could be saved in the next four months if 95% of Americans wore a mask in public. Only about half of that number apparently do so consistently, though. 

How has it come to this? I am sure that there will be plenty of hindsight analyses of the year 2020. I am not sure that I will ever be able to read them, because even trying to contemplate how we ended up here fills me with anger and disappointment. 

And meanwhile, the election is nine days away. Please, let it make a difference. We are so exhausted and need some Hope. 

Stay safe, peoples.