While a nursing-home scandal imploded this week around New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the glory-hound governor, as usual, fell into his usual routine of deflection paired with self-aggrandizement.
It would be easy to get distracted by all the other things that the he and the Left-controlled media would rather talk about. But processing those numbers—15,000 lives lost and counting—always leads me to reflect on the vulnerable loved ones in my own life who might, under different circumstances, have been among Cuomo’s statistics.
CIRCLING BACK
God willing, my dear Grandma will be turning 100 this year in October.
Thankfully, she continues to live independently—albeit confined to her own home—with help from a domestic jack-of-all-trades, Belinda, alongside a caring and supportive circle of friends and community members.
None of the immediate family lives close enough to make regular, in-person checks, although we try to visit as often as we can. Yet, for months during the virus lockdowns, even those periodic visits were not taken for granted.
Still, we call regularly to keep in touch, and the conversations typically resort to the usual bromides: “Are you OK?” “I hope you get what you want.” “Thanks so much for calling.” “You know how much I love you.”
These circular discussions can sometimes last for a good half hour. Now and then, a new topic gets introduced and runs its course before she falls back on a familiar catchphrase.
Occasionally, she struggles to find the right words. However, I think the repetition is more a factor of the dull mundanity of life at 99, having said all there is to say, searching for new material to introduce into the narrative while relying on a stable of old standbys.
And yet, there seems to be a mutually recognized but unspoken amnesia that keeps us revisiting these old conversations.
There is a distinct comfort in the predictable routines we carve out to impose order amid the chaos and uncertainty of our ever-spinning world.
Which brings us back to COVID.
RED-PILL MOMENT
It was a full year ago this week that the steady firmament of our daily lives went spiraling out of control, courtesy of the coronavirus.
• On March 3, 2020, I had the honor of covering a rally where then-President Donald Trump reassured his adoring audience that the best minds in public and private industry were working together to contain the emerging threat from China.
“They’re gonna have vaccines, I think, relatively soon,” he said. “… We will bring these therapies to the market as rapidly as possible.”
• On March 4 (Super Tuesday), Joe Biden—whose family business ties to China already were the subject of murmurs—came roaring back into political relevance after nearly having been written off.
• On March 11, the World Health Organization upgraded the coronavirus from global health emergency (as it had declared in January) to full-fledged pandemic.
That set into motion a free-fall of the US economy and stock market.
• Two days later, on March 13, Trump formally declared a national emergency.
That same day, Democrats began drafting their pitch for enhanced mail-in voting during the Nov. 3 election.
The rest is history. Days after the media declared victory for Biden, Moderna and Pfizer announced the arrival of the first vaccines.
The COVID panic last March had an existential ripple effect on everything that followed, despite much of it playing out in predictable ways.
Yet the crises (both real and invented)—which led, in due course, to the ouster of a polarizing but highly successful president—also offered many average Americans a newfound awareness of the powerful forces determined to keep us all in line.
It was truly a red-pill moment.
RETURN TO ‘NORMALCY’?
Although I remain skeptical of most things COVID-related, one certainty was that the arrival of the Biden administration, like clockwork, would allow the pandemic saga simply to dissipate into thin air.
Indeed, the virus’s end launched several days ahead of schedule. After peaking on Jan. 12, Trump’s final week in office, the US numbers began dramatically plummeting thereafter.
‘Experts’ in the mainstream media doubted that the drop-off in cases was the result of the vaccines discovered during the Trump administration, although none could fully explain the auspicious turn of fortune.
Nevertheless, Republican governors used the new figures as the basis for reopening their economies in full, much to the chagrin of fearmongering leftist authorities such as Biden, who derided the “neanderthal” move.
Likewise, in a virtual panel discussion this week that also featured Dr. Anthony Fauci, China’s leading pandemic expert encouraged other global economies to remain shuttered until a 100% vaccination rate could be achieved—even though its own economy has been open since last March.
Prof. Zhong Nanshan, the leading #Chinese respiratory disease expert, & Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top #US infectious disease expert, met via video link to exchange views on #COVID19 control ystd(2/3) evening. A right way for the two countries to work together in defeating the virus. pic.twitter.com/LxJppoGYQ1
— Ambassador Deng Xijun (@China2ASEAN) March 3, 2021
But there is an overwhelmingly pervasive sense in America that things are finally ready to go back to normal.
• Reporting now focuses on the British royal family instead of the daily death counts.
• Schools and sports seasons are starting to resume—despite the protests of some unionized teachers and athletes.
• Masks are slowly vanishing from the pictures that friends and acquaintances—the same ones who once spurred the underlying panic by hoarding toilet paper—now post on social media.
Soon, all that remains of COVID will be a vague sense of unease: “Will there be a repeat of the travesty?” “What can be done to prevent it?” “Did we learn anything at all from our yearlong ordeal?” Or, for some, “What the hell just happened?”
Inevitably, we will fall back into our familiar routines and forget about the time that the globalist world-order likely used biological and psychological warfare to nudge us back into place.
What else could we do except, perhaps, to try and remember?
My nearly-centenarian grandmother survived the Great Depression, joined the Navy and became one of 10,000 female code-breakers to help turn the tide of World War II before settling into her safe and tranquil domestic life—only to witness what may be the final gasps of American democracy 75 years later from her kitchen TV set.
But each week, she still bestows the same benediction upon me:
“I hope everything goes like you want it,” she says.
“Well, Grandma,” I reply, “some things will go right, some things will go wrong, and we’ll just deal with them as they come.”
“You’re so smart,” she says.
Follow Ben Sellers on Parler at https://parler.com/profile/Sellers.
