Why Are We Still In This Mess?

I just want to start off this meditation by saying I had a pretty good week last week. I've been able to watch my favorite team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, win their first World Series in in 32 year, on Halloween I had an online game night with my friends on the KDAWG Media team, and I watched the new hilarious Borat movie. The weather in Rancho Mirage, CA, where I'm currently living during the fall semester, is cool right now as far as desert weather is concerned, and I even went on a two-mile walk in the middle of the day yesterday.

So, it's not unfair for you to ask me, why are you writing an piece titled "Why Are We Still in This Mess?" Well, I've had a habit of checking the Coronavirus daily infection numbers recently. You know, just checking to see how the infection numbers are trending in the state of California and the entire country. Well, the cases in our state are up and the cases in a majority of the other states are up. Then I took a look at the data by John Hopkins University for the country's case numbers...

+99.3K New Cases on Friday October 30, 2020

My parents helped me pack up my dorm room on March 18, 2020 and I left the University of Redlands that morning to finish off the spring semester back at my house in Calabasas in quarantine. It was still the beginning portion of the pandemic and I'm not embarrassed to admit that I thought the country would flatten the curve and basically contain the pandemic by June. With the information that we recieved from our leaders, I thought it was possible to contain and lessen the impact of this pandemic. This wasn't crazy to think about because until the summer spike that was to come from the end of June through the end of August, we topped out at just over 30 thousand cases per day and reached down to just under 20 thousand cases per day in early to mid-June. However, you all know what happened next. The summer was awful, the cases soared, the quarantined continued without hope of ever ending, and students all over the country, including University of Redlands students, received news that the fall semester would be online instruction only.

I write this article today to acknowledge that the summer surge is something I can understand. Our scientists were learning more about the virus, our local and state governments had trouble acquiring adequate testing/resources, and we had to adjust local businesses to be quarantine compliant. However, it's also fair and important to criticize our federal government. Our top leadership withheld the severity of the virus from us in the spring to make sure we didn't panic. First off, I like to believe that given the facts and presented with a tough challenge head-on, the American people can come together and overcome any challenge. Second, Americans don't cower in fear and we don't panic. We young people and the working generation in this country use our collective energies and skills to develop new technologies and create new social policies to try to fix the ills of our time. Our citizens face unfair social and economic issues all the time, but constantly work to fix these and others that have yet to occur. It is disrespectful that this current administration has such little faith in the strength of the American people to not inform us of the severity of the pandemic the moment they knew the severity. To this day, our administration refuses to fully embrace the medical experts and epidemiologists who have advocated for nation-wide mask wearing and adapting our businesses to be socially-distant. Instead of making the health of the citizens in this country a top priority, the economy and the well-being of the stock market is the top priority for our leaders.

Now, I'm not an epidemiologist nor am I an investigative reporter. I also don't pretend to be one. From the perspective of a college student living in California who's watched Coronavirus charts the past few months, it's fair to say that our country hasn't responded well to the spread of the disease. On some level, I have to believe that we all share this belief. We've lived with this reality for over seven months now. It is clear that our current federal leadership is advocating for a herd-immunity approach to this pandemic, which is an approach that will most likely lead to tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people dying in the months ahead. I'm a 20-year-old without any pre-existing conditions, so the chance I get extremely sick and die is low if I contract the disease. However, there's a chance I give this virus to my grandparents without my knowledge if I'm asymptomatic. God-forbid I indirectly kill someone I'm close to.

Yesterday, the United States reported over 74,000 new daily Coronavirus cases, a decrease from our top record of just under 100 thousand cases in a day. Is that progress? At only one day during the terrible summer did we have a daily total that exceeded 74,000 cases in a day. Over the past week, our country has averaged 82,812 cases per day according to the New York Times as of the writing of this piece. Our president will continue to tell us that the reason we have more cases is because we test more. However in the past month, our positive case rate is up even with us adding more testing per day for the last month. I just want to improve. How it looks now, it seems like we are entering a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic. A THIRD WAVE! This one looks to be the largest so far in terms of infections.

Like I mentioned earlier in this piece, I'm living in Rancho Mirage, CA, but I'm driving home to Calabasas for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I am going to be having dinner that night with my grandparents, cousins, aunt, uncle, and my parents. I hate that I have to write "unfortunately" before that last sentence. I don't think it's safe to be having a family get together with family members who have medical conditions, but the selfish emotions of myself and the rest of my other family members have overruled our rational thinking. I want to be able to shop for shoes at the 3rd street promenade in Santa Monica with my grandmother again and I want to share some chocolate cake and talk sports with my grandfather who's had to be alone in an assisted living facility since the start of the pandemic. But, I want to be able to those things without the fear that my selfish desires could hurt the ones I love. I’m just frustrated and I hate that I have to choose between keeping my family safe or potentially exposing them to a deadly disease. I'm sure you wish you could explore the world again, go on a coffee date with a loved one, or listen to a grandparent regale you with interesting stories about her youth.

2020 is a lost year, that is simply a reality for most of us. Whether the sad reality of this year is simply a product of mother nature or if it is exacerbated by the failures of our current leadership, many of us are simply hoping and waiting for a semblance of normal life to resume. We have the opportunity this November to vote for leaders who will fight to trust science and unite Americans of all political beliefs to combat misinformation and the virus. If you are reading this piece and haven't voted yet but plan to, I urge you to research the local and state officials in your area, and determine if they have your best health interests in mind. Whether that means keeping various representatives in office or voting for new officials and policies, we need to research and carefully elect leaders who have all of our best health interests in mind.

Federally, I think it's clear that Donald Trump hasn't been able to protect us and guide us through this pandemic. Whether or not he has done the most he could, and that is a discussion for another author to make at another time, it's clear that his "best" is not enough. I urge you to vote for Joe Biden this year. You may disagree with a majority of, if not all of, his political beliefs and that feeling is valid, no candidate is perfect or perhaps even great, but he has constantly supported the voices in our scientific and medical communities. The status quo cannot be kept if we want to emerge from this darkness. I want to safely go back to school in 2021, I want to see my friends and family who I love without potentially hurting them, and I want to continue to evolve and grow as a person in a social and intellectual environment. Let's fix this mess of division, misinformation, and regression. On Tuesday, vote for Joe Biden and representatives who promise to focus on our health, so we can make 2021 a year of unity, truth, and progress.