The Hits Keep On Comin'

 This may bear repeating: About eight hundred Americans are dying every day from COVID-19. 

Every day. 

So, everyone who continues to push this notion that we should "get back to normal" may not have heard. Or maybe they just ignore it. 

Schools are opening across the country, and cases are going up as a result. The idea that this rather simple cause and effect scenario is being lost on so many is continued evidence of the ignorance and arrogance of a government more concerned with appearances than reality. 

More than two hundred thousand people have died here in the United States, and each day that number grows. Some like to point out that the number of new cases has declined since late July. They don't tend to bring up the two hundred thousand deaths. Somehow we are being asked to take solace from the limits described by those in charge. The number that has been tossed around recently suggests that we have now surpassed the combat deaths in Vietnam and Korea. Combined. You may recall it was during the war in Vietnam that the phrase "acceptable losses" came into vogue. There is nothing acceptable about these losses. 

Watching the National Football League take the field for the second week brought a new set of reminders in the form of all those empty seats. Broadcasters have been excited to share the wonder of the new stadium built in Los Angeles, the one that would potentially seat seventy thousand fans. Or roughly a third of the Americans who have died from COVID-19. Meanwhile, down on the sidelines we see coaches and team officials with all manner of mask placement, with very few actually on both nose and mouth. Which might not be such a concern considering all the precautions that sports teams have taken in order to keep themselves safe, except that there has already been a confirmed case of the virus in a Chiefs fan who attended the first game of the season. In person. Two weeks ago. 

So the clock is ticking on the rest of the league. 

Each time I feel like I want to peel off my mask and run wildly through a Target, as some blithe spirits did in Florida a week ago, I push it back up my nose and wait for the fog on my glasses to clear. And I hear the clicking sound of numbers adding up. While I write this blog. As I ride my bike to work. As I sleep at night. Eight hundred a day. It would be easy enough to just forget that we are still enduring a viral outbreak of a disease we still don't fully understand. 
Except for that clicking sound.