Surviving

 When all this is over and it turns out that it was a great big scheme by pharmaceutical companies and mask manufacturers to drain us all dry, I will apologize. If that's how it turns out. For now, I will be taking the news for news and not theater. When I read that California now has the nation's lowest transmission rate for COVID-19, I will breathe a sigh of relief.

From behind a mask. 

After a summer surge, experienced across this great land of ours, California's rate is ninety-four cases per one hundred thousand. By comparison, Texas is three hundred eighty-six and Florida is two hundred ninety-six. We here in the Golden State have a high vaccination rate of seventy-percent, with an additional eight percent having received their first shot, to thank for this distinction. 

For the record, no one is currently attempting to mount a recall election for the governors of Texas or Florida. My guess is that they couldn't afford the hundreds of millions of dollars it costs to run such an operation. These states are far too busy passing oppressive legislation, and mandates against mandates. 

That summer surge occurred in California just as we were all prepared to "go back to normal" as many of the restrictions were lifted. Now there is a new mandate that  requires attendees at indoor events with one thousand or more people show proof of full vaccination or a negative test. There a plenty of folks in and out of California who feel this is the kind of oppressive legislation mentioned previously, but for all the fuss, this turns out to be rooted in keeping people alive. Not outlawing abortion or making it even easier to carry a gun around. Keeping the living, breathing residents of the state living and breathing. 

So, the battle continues. The war is not over. Recent history suggests that variants evolving in areas with lower vaccination rates are finding their way around the barriers put up by shots and masks. We are not out of the woods by any stretch. The nation as a whole recently passed a grisly milestone in which the death toll for COVID passed that of the 1918 Spanish Flu, making it the deadliest epidemic in U.S. History. 

Get a shot. Wear a mask. Stay alive.