TORRINGTON: As the COVID-19 pandemic roars into the summer of 2020 with no sign of relenting, I have a simple request that isn’t new or something everyone has hopefully heard but it’s worth repeating.
Please, please wear a mask and social distance.
I get that there are so many factors in play about this devil called Covid but that advice seems reasonable to me and not as intrusive as I hear some say it is.
If there is a chance, a good chance it would seem, that doing those two simple things would help slow down the spread of this killer, why would we not consider it?
Sure, everyone is tired of this.
Sure, everyone wants things to go back to normal.
Sure, I know this has become a political situation when that’s the last thing it should become.
The benefits of wearing a mask seem pretty straight forward to me. I get that it will not block everything that comes out of my mouth when I talk but anything put in front of my mouth blocks some portion of my breath.
That’s really hard to argue with, it just makes sense.
Late last month, we published a Heroes Edition of the Litchfield County Sports Magazine, dedicated to the frontline folks who have been putting themselves in harms way since this whole thing started.
Talking with the 38 different heroes from many walks of life was inspiring and scary all at the same time.
When things shut down in early March, the world changed in an instant and what we knew to be normal was gone and may be gone for a good long time.
These folks carried on though, from doctors or nurses to EMT’s or grocery store workers, they kept on working while many of us stayed home to do our part so we didn’t end up being part of their workload at a time that they had far too much to do anyway.
When I met up to deliver magazines to many of them, they told me things were calming down some here in Connecticut and it’s not because the virus has magically disappeared but because of the work we citizens of CT had done to flatten the curve.
I suffer from asthma and have experienced over the years what it feels like not to be able to breath. I always remind folks that breathing doesn’t suck and is not overrated.
That portion of Covid-19 scared the daylights out of me. Worse than gasping for air at 3 a.m. as I did for so many years during an attack?
No, thank you.
I didn’t need to watch stories about what it did to people, the thought of a ventilator was enough to stop me in my tracks.
I also understood early that I or someone I came in contact with could be asymptomatic and show no signs of being ill but still be contagious.
Was doubting that worth the risk?
Not to me.
Being cautious and safe for the sake of myself and my fellow man is easy for me.
To me, it’s about having respect towards my fellow man.
I am no more important than anyone else but also no less important than anyone else.
I don’t want to see anyone get Covid-19 and as I said at the start of this story, nobody wants to still be in the middle of this but guess what, we are.
Covid-19 is making the rules and no matter how much we try and wish it away by ignoring it, it’s in charge.
If anything, each day we get up we should hope that the scientists working on a vaccine are ready for a good day. Maybe this is the day.
I truly miss humans; I want to get out to a game at some point. Heck, we are Litchfield County Sports and without anything to cover, it has made life rather challenging.
It looks like we will be in this fight a while. We have always been good at rallying around a fight that is dangerous to us all and this should be no different.
Our weapons are much different than in any other conflict we have faced. This is an invisible enemy that is a very good at its job.
Our tools are limited but have shown to be effective.
A Mask. Social Distancing.