I know my experience is not the norm, but I can say without question that I was extremely blessed during the height of the COVID pandemic last year. My family grew closer, my priorities were realigned, my loved ones were spared grave illness or death, and my finances remained steady.
In fact, here's how blessed I was: the greatest cost to me personally was the inconvenience of not being able to go places and do things. And sports. I couldn't watch sports. Again, I know it is exceedingly silly to some, but with as hectic as my schedule can be, the one thing that consistently brings me immense pleasure is sitting down with my laptop on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in the fall, and doing some work as I watch a bonanza of college and professional football. The national embrace of COVID panic took that from me and countless others, and it was annoying.
So how fitting that it may be college and professional football that brings an end to COVID as we know it. Allow me to explain.
As the pandemic has unquestionably shifted into an endemic illness that will always be with us – one that will ebb and flow, spike and recede seasonally as do all viruses – and thus, our culture shifts to a "live with" strategy over a "hide from" reaction, those invested in the perpetuation of the crisis are fighting that development.
Media carnival barkers and "medical response teams" receiving a fat government paycheck to make public health recommendations are not desirous of a widespread case of calm and composure. Therefore, we continue to be treated to an endless procession of hysterical predictions that beckon us to mask our infants, cancel our family reunions, avoid hugs, and generally regard the rest of humanity as little more than dangerous germ dispensaries. Oh, and those who question the wisdom of such an approach are to be dismissed as science-hating, grandma-killing, Ron DeSantis hacks.
For some time now it has become apparent that the panic peddlers have crippled the confidence of a significant portion of the population that doubt we can ever return to normal, or at least not for a long, long time. Going to the movies, attending a concert, and for heaven's sake, tailgating at a sporting event are out of the question entirely. Dr. Fauci said it himself, agreeing that COVID would "feast" on any such ill-advised conglomeration of miserable souls:
The good doctor has spoken. It's just not safe to do.
But what if it were?
What would happen if hundreds of thousands of screaming, particulate-spewing, laughing, jovial, high-fiving, chest-bumping, embracing fans convened together each week all late-summer, all fall, and all winter, and it didn't result in mass casualties, uncontrolled death spikes, and the overwhelming of all hospital resources in those forlorn areas? Might that speak louder than even Dr. Fauci's mainstream media-enhanced voice? Because it's happening.
Don't get me wrong, I know the panic peddlers aren't going to go down without a fight. And I know plenty of folks that have been thoroughly paralyzed in the fear those agents have stoked for a year and a half. That stronghold won't be broken easily.
But there's no denying that scenes of mass gatherings occurring without any accompanying orgy of death will have a significant psychological impact on a country so thoroughly confused about who and what to trust.
