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!

 

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106. News of the Day

In today’s New York Times, we learn that “a year into the pandemic, millions of Brazilians are going hungry.” In India, there were 276,000 new cases yesterday; the death toll—196,000—now surpasses Brazil’s and is second only to our own. Yesterday, after a string of weekly 20 % Covid increases in Oregon, there were 1020 new cases and nine new deaths; hospitalizations were 276, with 64 Oregonians in intensive care. New variants and relaxation of pre-vaccine rules for masks and distancing seem to be at the center of it.

The scientists tell us that we need 80 to 90 percent of the population inoculated or immune through having had the disease before we arrive at “herd immunity.” Given the news of the day and the continuing resistance of many to be vaccinated, that seems unlikely anytime soon. More likely is Governor Brown’s sending 12 counties back to the “extreme risk” category, and the return of restrictions on human activity across the country.

One can’t lay this situation to any one factor, but there are some common attributes of human behavior that seem to be involved. We like crowds, and we like leaders who like crowds; from     President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to our recent President Donald Trump, followers have gathered in crowded swarms without masks to hear their leaders. But there is a kind of opposing human action—egoism, the self-centeredness that encourage us to do what seems right or advantageous for me at the moment. At the end of this egoism is hubris, the radical individualism and overweening pride that puts me and my life about all others, with a supreme—and often tragic—confidence that I am right though the world around me says otherwise.

It all adds up as a recipe for a continuing struggle with Covid. It will bounce back and forth between counties, states, and countries, dipping here and exploding there, gaining traction with stronger variants, dipping as the citizens of a county, state, or country come together to look out for each other.

There’s the key. Do we have enough herd mentality left to build herd immunity midst a moving and changing covid? My mentor, Alvin Josephy, often said that Indians were the only ones in America still capable of “group think.” The news from a few Indian friends is that tribes are doing this. 

We might look now to Lapwai and Colville and Umatilla for guidance in human health—as we are looking to them for ways to fish, water and fire health. 

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