We Are Safer, But We Are Not Safe Yet
I go outside more now. Do you?
There seems to be a sense that the worst is over as far as the Covid-19 pandemic is concerned. We still need to be cautious, because people are still catching the virus and people are still dying from the virus, but all of the precautions we took over the past year seem to have had a positive effect.
We all want so desperately to be back out and about, don’t we?
Something big happened this past week. For the first time in more than a year, Disneyland opened up! I love Disneyland. I’m sure we will go soon. We went to the Taste of Disney event before the opening to walk around California Adventure to watch them conduct test runs on the rides so that everything would be set for the reopening.
I read where Disneyland has only closed a very few times since it opened in 1955, for wars and particular unhappy moments in the nation’s history. For it to be closed for 14 months was a source of constant unhappiness for me and my friends and all Californians, as well as kids and their parents from out of state and from around the world.
But it’s open again, and I am so happy. I guess I am also a bit relieved. It feels like the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
I saw videos of people walking around Disneyland and it almost made me cry. They are only allowing crowds of 25 percent of the park’s normal occupancy. It was dream-like. The only complaint most people have about Disneyland is that it is so crowded, and that isn’t the case anymore.
But I know that this is only the beginning of the end of the pandemic. In those Disneyland videos, I saw people not wearing their masks properly. There were people standing too close to one another. I know Disney warns parkgoers in signs and the cast members are instructed to tell visitors to socially distance, and still there were indications that people were not taking those warnings seriously.
Do they want Disneyland to close again?
In late April, the Centers for Disease Control issued new guidelines,, saying vaccinated people can now go out without wearing masks at all times. But the CDC still warned against congregating in crowds and said even vaccinated people should socially distance. There are new variants of the coronavirus and there is no way to know that the original vaccines will work on these new types that keep showing up.
I can’t get vaccinated; I’m not old enough. But I sure would like to be. And everyone in my household is vaccinated, which makes me feel better. I have been tested for Covid and passed, and I am not going to put myself in a position to ever catch the virus.
I understand as much as anyone the desire to get back out into the world, to breathe fresh air, to walk, skip, dance, laugh and sing without a care. But we aren’t there yet, and if we try to go back to our pre-pandemic lives too soon, we will just end up going back to our full-on pandemic lives, with quarantines and remote learning and, worse of all, no Disneyland.
