119. Act II

Oregon hit 1000 new covid cases two days this week, and Wallowa County, which had idled along with an occasional case or two for weeks, had 21 in 10 days, seven one day this week. A couple of restaurants and the go-cart track at Wallowa Lake have closed. 

 

Rumor has it that a local doctor is an anti-vaxxer, although the pace of vaccination has picked up some. The anti-vaccination crowd might be church related; at least one of our deaths came out of a churchy group. 

 

At the Josephy Center where I work, we—the staff—are all wearing masks again inside, and “strongly” encouraging visitors to do the same. Yesterday, the first day of our new policy, one man refused and went away. 

 

How like the country we are! And maybe the world, with almost 60 percent of adults vaccinated and the number of mask-wearers ticking up again, the 70 percent or more required for any kind of herd immunity running a losing race with new variants. Delta is now leading the pack, gaining ground because the vaccinated can get sick, although usually not as sick, but sick enough and serious enough to pass on to others who might not be vaccinated.

 

It’s a mess, with President Biden and Governor Brown pushing and pulling with threats and incentives—my coworkers daughter got a small scholarship award—as we stumble to some kind of resolution. 

 

As summer turns to fall, I’ll put my mask on. I didn’t catch a cold or any flu at all last year, so there’s an incentive. The big problem then is my failing ears. They’ve been going south on me slowly for years, and listening to people talking through a mask is about impossible.

 

I’ve waited for the price of hearing aids to go down and/or for Medicare to step up. Maybe I’m better off to lobby hard for hearing in Medicare than to lobby for more vaccinations. I can get used to wearing that mask—and could enjoy another winter without the sniffles!

 

# # # 

118. The Spike

Although we in Oregon are comfortably near the lowest of the states in terms of percentages of incidence and death by Covid, we have joined the country in the current spike. We’ve trolled along at about 300 new cases each day—until this week, when we flirted with 600 cases per day, and passed that on Friday.

And Wallowa County, where our vaccination rate hovers somewhere between 50 and 60 percent, we’ve had days and days of 0 new cases—until this week. It was 3, then another, and then 5 cases on Thursday. There is news of another local death too, a woman in her late 50s. 

Small numbers, but we are a small place, 7000 of us plus the travelers from New York, Wisconsin, California, Washington, Idaho, and North Dakota. Can we assume that most travelers are vaccinated? I haven’t seen stats on that, but imagine they are split like the rest of us. Even with Fox News now, at least at times, advocating vaccinations.

Why is it so hard! The illogic of it is startling. The White House and some Republican governors are reeling.

I think it is our radical individualism and the belief in total personal control. Yes, air travel is safer than car travel by the statistics, but I am in control in my car—until another car crosses the center line. And yes, vaccinations might have worked with polio and measles, but I know or know by hearsay about someone who got the Covid vaccination and died. I’ll take my own chances.

Or, more combatively, “don’t mess with my freedom to live and do as I want,” and I don’t like shots, or don’t like doctors or anyone else telling me how to live, what to eat, how to take care of my heart or my overweight or smoking or drinking or couch-addicted self.  Just leave me alone!

# # #

117. Pandemic, Heat, Smoke

This morning the Wallowa Valley is under a layer of smoke. It’s hard to tell whether the smoke is from Northern California, Southern Oregon, or closer Washington and Idaho fires. It follows weeks of surreal summer temperatures, over 100 degrees in June, in the upper 80s and 90s ever since. Little rain; only a brief lightning storm that ignited fires in Joseph Creek on our side of the border and across the Snake River in Idaho. 

The heat has made Wallowa Lake the warmest it’s been in my 50 years here, good for swimming, but scary for fish. Because the rivers, streams, and the ocean shores are also too warm, starfish and shellfish are dying on the coast, and salmon are threatened everywhere. 

A couple of years ago, a friend caught a tagged salmon on the Imnaha and was able to trace its journey up the Columbia as far as the Deschutes, where it found the main stem temperatures too warm and darted up that other river to cool. Weeks later it made its journey back to the Columbia and swam past four Snake River dams to the Imnaha. That’s a small miracle, but one unlikely to be repeated often enough to save a run. 

Fish don’t get their oxygen from the air, but the four-leggeds, two-leggeds, and the birds do. Dogs and people here are complaining. Like they complained about the heat; like they complained about Covid-19 and/or government-imposed restrictions. 

We’ve mostly forgotten about Covid—even the weeks of mask-wearing and fear. My fear is that we’ll forget about this heat and smoke come fall, chalk it up to an abnormal year—records are meant to be broken—or maybe it was that weird el nino current—and go about our business 

We’ll plan new vacations now with travel restrictions lifted; we’ll build more houses in the trees, and we’ll get new air conditioners. 

Or will Napa Valley people move north en masse? Will the broader public embrace the vaccines, build better health care and child care systems, and look for safer places and ways to build their houses?

# # #

116. Bangs and Whimpers

In some countries, and in some American states, Covid-19 is marching on, infecting and killing at a substantial pace. In other places, like mine, here in Wallowa County in eastern Oregon, Covid whimpers—infecting occasionally, as does the flu or pneumonia, killing an aging or medically compromised person here and there. Long haulers? We’ve had mild after-cases, including my grandson’s, but not the more serious life-threatening ones. We read about them, but I don’t know anyone personally with severe heart and lung issues.

But I’ll not be going to to Arkansas or Missouri soon—or to Wyoming or India. Last spring’s cancelled trip to Turkey is dreamed again, but the Chinese vaccine used extensively there has problems; Covid is still going strong in Istanbul. Time will tell; spring is months away. 

In any case, Covid is rarely a headline now, even in my own life. Yesterday in the Safeway a friend with a mask on saw that I didn’t have one and asked rhetorically if it was ok, as she took hers off. I keep mine in my pocket, I told her. If it gets crowded here or somewhere else, if I sense danger, I’ll put it on. 

So Covid-19 is banging away in India and Brazil, Wyoming and Arizona. It’s whimpering elsewhere. It’s being drowned out by record high temperatures, building collapses, and the end to a troubling 20 years in Afghanistan. Drowned out too by a booming economy.

How do I know the economy is booming? On the Rez at milepost 216 out of Pendleton, McDonalds wants night shift workers at $17 per hour. Hiring signs are out all over Wallowa and Union counties. I don’t know about Arkansas.

The continuing pandemic—in the US at least—competes for news-time. Flareups will continue, as flareups of measles, TB, and whooping cough do. But the building collapse in Florida—and the possible impacts on other Florida housing projects and seaside real estate in general, are making louder noises.

# # #