As we all slog into year three of this pandemic and the debates about mandates, masks, and a staggered economy, it feels as if we have lost sight of something important; namely, how does this end?  At what point do we all just take a step back and return to some sense of normalcy, i.e., a pre-pandemic state?  It’s like a bad TV series that is going on one season too long… you just want it to end. 

Early on, back in those bygone days when the media taught us all how to wash our hands, there was talk that we would be able to return to our normal lives.  If we had a certain percentage of people vaccinated, or if the infection rates dropped to a certain level, this might be over. 

Now those conversations are gone.  Also gone is the concept of being done with all this.  What we get instead is municipalities demanding that you show proof of your vaccine status to enter businesses, and mask mandates that have no end in sight.  There is no longer talk of normalcy at all.  There’s talk of a ‘new normal’ which is ill defined but seems to be a state where mask wearing continues indefinitely, as does a never ending array of booster shots. Amazingly people are willing to go along with all this. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t sign up for a new normal. I just want my life back the way it was.

We all understand that new variants emerge, but they do that with the flu every year, and we don’t shut down for that.  The major difference is the conditioning of the population.  Many people are paralyzed with fear of COVID, despite a high survivability rate.  People have been told to remain afraid indefinitely and they are willingly incorporating that fear into their daily lives. I think many of them love it.  It makes them victims, and in the woke sectors of our society, victims are heroes.

The contradictions are maddening. While college students are required to wear masks on campus, when they attend football games, 100,000 can pack a stadium without a mask in sight. The inconsistencies of this mayhem only add to our collective frustrations.

People have become obsessed with not moving out of this state of fear.  When Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order saying that parents, rather than school administrators, should determine if their children should wear masks -- the first reaction in the left-leaning districts was to sue the governor. Tax dollars that should be spent on education are being spent attempting to deprive parents of some of their most basic rights; the safety and upbringing of their children. Politicians and the media opted to politicize something that was more about the rights and freedoms of parents than it was over the lemming-like hysteria associated with masks.

We keep hearing that we can’t return to normal because ‘lives are at stake!’ I am sympathetic to those who have lost loved ones to this virus, I also look to the bigger picture.  What about people who have lost their jobs over this pandemic?  What about the thousands of businesses that have gone under? What about going to a supermarket and not finding food?  What about the damage all this is causing psychologically to children and adults?  What about runaway inflation?  What about the spikes in drug use, murder rates, homelessness, and suicide rates?  This mania over COVID is about more than people dying. You don’t have to have COVID to have been negatively affected by all this self-made carnage.   

The feeling that I and many others have is that the Republicans want to return to a pre-COVID state and that the Democrats want to embrace a new normal of a never-ending pandemic. Mark my words, this will be one of the defining aspects of the 2022 and 2024 elections.  A key question that Americans are already asking is what kind of world they want to live in, one of individual freedoms versus collective fearmongering.  Americans are going to have to make choices in the upcoming elections and this issue will be a pivotal one.

As citizens, we should be worried that there is no plan to end this rollercoaster ride of doom and gloom. There’s no road map from the government back to our freedoms.  We are not hearing any threshold set at a national level that we must cross as a nation to get back to normal life.  Why?  Because they don’t want us to go back.  We are essentially being held hostage by politicians under the auspices that it is all for the greater good.  

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