Desert Redux (Part One)

The plague blazed on.

Schools across the state were on the cusp as to whether they should reopen partially, fully, or continue remote learning instruction. Most made decisions based on which way their alumni donors leaned politically, rather than working up a staggered schedule that accounted for updated outbreak and infection rate statistics.

The Los Angeles County School District chose to follow the science rather than partisan preference, offering small hopes to parents, as SoCal showed a moderate decline in Covid-19 stats in late August: 70,000 tests reported, 6,000 positive cases, a 17% decrease in hospitalizations, an 18% decrease in ICU admissions. The declines were modest, but a welcome change since the post July 4^th surge. Some attributed those lower numbers to an increase in civilian mask wearing. Others said it was because the virus was working its way through the population.

Before LA schools could reopen, case rates needed to drop below 200 per every 100,000 residents. It seemed unlikely that would happen in that September because of the Labor Day weekend. It was sad our demand for marking our annual holidays kept mucking shit up; first it was Memorial Day in May, then the 4^th in July. More daunting was the big holiday season looming ahead. Nobody was saying much, but it was in the communal air of dread. A Covid-ridden Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas was going to only add to the bad-wash of 2020.

Imagining this thing lasting until the summer of 2021 was soul crushing.

How little we knew yet.

My alma mater, Chico State, was one of the first to reopen its campus with limited in-person instruction. One week after students returned to dorms classes, school administrators announced an immediate transition to all virtual instruction and gave students a week to vacate their residence halls, after an alarming outbreak on campus with 27 cases reported in the first week of instruction. Exposure to even a few infections resulted in exponential transmission. In-person schooling had to wait until a vaccine. There were no viable workarounds. Not without people dying unnecessarily. There will be a whole generation of post-Covid survivor trauma. In 2024, there’s already support groups for those who lost loved ones. Many of their members run angry still, at a seemingly callous world trying to put that era behind it.

Governor Newsom set out a color-coded blueprint, outlining how counties could expect to stagger reopened businesses:

(1) Widespread Infection Rate: most non-essential business closed, daily new cases at more than 7 per 100,000, positive tests exceed 8%.

(2) Substantial Infection Rate: some non-essential businesses closed, daily new cases at 4-7 per 100,000, positive tests range from 5-8%.

(3) Moderate Infection Rate: some businesses open with modifications, daily new cases at 1-4 per 100,000, positive tests at 2-5%.

(4) Minimal Infection Rate: most businesses open with modifications, daily new cases at less than 1 per 100,000, positive tests less than 2%.

It was tough for bureaucrats to fashion those projected models when faced with such a volatile health issue, on top of a vacillating American populace which was more likely to resist change in daily routines than to follow expert guidelines. Sacramento tried to get ahead of it, but it was frequently a case of one hand not knowing what the other was doing, plus there was lobbyist pressure to prioritize economy over lives, same as what was being pushed at the national level.

In late September of 2020, the latest Covid-19 outrage among SoCal residents stemmed from the LA County Public Health Department’s new dictates on the cancellation of Halloween. The annual black and orange bash is one of America’s most favorite traditions. It’s one of mine as well. Trick-or-treating, haunted house attractions, carnivals, festivals, Universal Studio’s wildly popular haunted mazes, Knott’s ‘Scary Farm,’ ‘trunk-or-treat’ events with car-to-car candy dispersal, large gatherings and parties with non-household members…all these vaunted conventions were banned by the county of Los Angeles. For a day or two. After the massive expected outcry, they rolled back the ban due to public protest.

What is it with Americans’ devotion to holidays?

It’s not really about the context of the celebrations themselves. Generally speaking, we’re not authentically marking the resurrection or birth of Christ, or the anniversary of our country’s independence, or the landing of Protestant pilgrims on Plymouth Rock, or the evolution of pagan Celtic festivals of the dead. No, we honor those annual dates to gather families together and make memories.

Which creates sentiment.

Which in turn begets loyalty to a continuance of marking those dates to bolster and add to the worth of lifetimes.

That’s why we resist semantic changes in nomenclature,  like we did with ‘Merry Christmas’ to ‘Happy Holidays,’ and that’s why if the Halloween ban had been enforced, a greater portion of the SoCal populace would’ve completely ignored it. We’re belligerent about celebrating our American festivities. It’s a primary factor in why the length of the pandemic was extended for the United States. 

Two weeks after those half million bikers attended their annual traditional mecca at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, the tally of Covid infections traced back to the event surpassed 250,000. The South and the Midwest experienced big spikes. An Institute of Labor Economics study, using anonymous cellular phone data, showed the patterns of traffic and interaction around Sturgis that week. The numbers revealed proof positive of our first American super spreader event. Interestingly, that same study also attempted to determine the economic impact of the rally’s spread, on the presumption every case was non-fatal and averaged a cost of $46,000 per case in medical care, conservatively resulting in a total of 12.2 billion in costs, enough to have paid all 462,000 attendees $26,500 each not to attend!

There are few events I wouldn’t pass up for 25 grand. And I sure as shit could’ve passed on a Smash Mouth concert for a fraction of that. No, who am I kidding. You couldn’t pay me enough to attend a Smash Mouth gig.

At the time, I wanted to get a couple of those antibody tests for me and my girl, inconsistent as their results seemed to be, not because they were any guarantee we were immune if we already had gotten the bug and were asymptomatic, but just for additional peace of mind. The double edge on that blade was that if we didn’t have antibodies, it was probable we hadn’t had the bug yet and thus had to continue forging the extra mile in navigating a community where a fair number already had it in some form, and were more lax in their dailies. And of course, dodging those people uncaring about whether they were potentially spreading it. Our downtown was as busy as ever, perhaps more so. Locals succumbed to the countrywide, laissez-faire sheep mentality that took over the United States…what will be, will be. People preferred living their lives than concerning themselves with protecting at-risk community members.

But I’m human. I cherry-picked a few times myself. I’m all about transparency here, for those who think I’m hurling stones from an ivory tower. We did break quarantine that week, actually, at long last, albeit in an excessively prudent, socially distanced sort of fashion. We booked a hotel, grabbed our masks, a box of gloves, our varied sanitizers, a couple backpacks of clothes, and a cooler full of prepackaged food and drink, and took our dog out to the desert, unplugged, resolving to stay off the grid and our phones for the majority of the journey. The relative safety in the isolation of our destination, and the existential serendipity of taking our sole remaining dog out to her mother’s favorite Mojave haunts appealed to us, so off we went.

Continued…

*Compiled from September 28, 2020