Ehlana and Ethan:
This is a lunchtime update because we’re
expecting to be too-busy for the rest of the day – and we’re more-interested in
the fun than in writing our journals today.
That means that we don’t have much news yet for today, but we want to do
a pandemic update anyway; so we’ll do that instead.
A holiday-weekend rant isn’t our idea of a
way to start our holiday updates either, but as we top eleven million cases
worldwide today – for the official numbers; we can’t avoid facts even when we’d
rather ignore them and stick with the non-stop family-and-friends’ fun!
Today, we want to focus on local social
distancing and using masks. We’ve mostly
written about all of the restrictions we’ve been living with for months now
without really commenting on how we’re collectively feeling about the lack of
interaction with our favorite people.
That is very different for close-knit communities like ours compared to
big cities where people often don’t really even know their nearest
neighbors. That isn’t a suggestion that
lockdowns and social distancing are easier for anyone, but it is different when
you know everyone in your community compared to having a wide-spread circle of
friends.
The point we want to make is that it hasn’t
been easy for us to just stop sharing close contact with our favorite people;
and that’s a bigger deal as we share the holiday weekend adventures with our
extended families. We get why so many
people are just ignoring the recommendations or rules about the pandemic and
going out to have fun again, since we really want to do that too, but we also
know that’s a bad idea; and we could see worse to come for the pandemic – just as
we’ve already had happen as lockdowns were lifted and people gave up on social
distancing heading into the last holiday weekend. We really don’t want to go on about this, but
it is amazing how much perceptions have changed in just a few months. The lockdowns and social distancing measures
were taken when there were dozens or hundreds of new cases a day; and those
restrictions were taken more-seriously then than now – even as we’re topping
two-hundred thousand cases worldwide and hitting new daily records in our
country. Most people might not even
remember that we had fewer total cases here when the lockdowns started than we
had new cases yesterday!
We haven’t forgotten that here, though, so
while we are having fun – and will continue to do that all weekend; we’re also
going to do everything we can to do that and still keep everyone as safe as
possible too. That brings us to the last
bits of news we want to mention today.
We’re learning more about the coronavirus every day, but while most
major news media wants to focus on vaccines and other ‘positive’ news; we don’t
like what we’re seeing and hearing about news that is largely being
ignored. It’s still early in the scientific
process for a pandemic, but some research is suggesting that there might not be
long-lasting immunity from the virus for people who have had it already, and if
that proves true; then we’ll have even-more trouble with this virus than we
want to even think about right now. We’re
also finding out that many survivors are dealing with longer-term health
problems, and we’re really still just documenting those issues without
understanding why that’s happening or how to treat those people. We don’t really even know how many people are
dealing with those long-term problems yet, but it is another potential issue
that could have a huge impact on everyone.
That has happened in the past with other
illnesses that have left people with permanent disabilities; and isn’t
something that any of us should want to see happen again.
Finally, if we could actually offer our
advice to everyone now instead of being voices from your past; we’d ask
everyone to care about others first and think of the pandemic from that
perspective. We know that you can have
this virus and give it to others without knowing it. Think of social distancing and wearing masks
as you protecting everyone you love. If
doing that keeps you safe too; then that’s just a really awesome bonus!
Okay, we need to go help out with the
pre-lunch kid-control now; so we’re out of here. We’ll include the personal fun news for today
with the next update.
This is Ehlana and Ethan Proctor; live from
the hidden home of the Magi of the Light – and May the Magi Force be with you!
