The Pandemic Blues, Part 9: Summer thoughts --- little progress since

Since this column was published in mid-August, we received some good news on sports. Baseball, after a rough start, made it all the way to the World Series, and both the NBA and NHL crowned champs (Los Angeles Lakers and Tampa Bay Lightning) in their bubbles.
The NFL season has been progressing, but with many interruptions and changes in the schedule due to COVID-19 outbreaks. 
Elsewhere, despite the president’s illness, he refuses to wear a mask at most gatherings and disparages those who do, including his opponent, whom he mocks for wearing a mask. Such blatant disregard for health directives issued by his own administration has contributed to a good portion of Americans following his lead and ignoring social-distancing guidelines. As a result, our nation is like an animal on a treadmill: pushing hard to get nowhere – and we are at best only marginally better off as a nation almost nine months into this pandemic than we were in early March.
On some of the other points in this column, there also has been either little or no progress since it was first published in August, or we have regressed. For example:
* Road races: In-person road races still seem months, if not a year or more away from becoming a reality, although I’ve learned about a couple of races that have gone “live” by using a staggered start.
UPDATE: The Boston Athletic Association (BAA) on Wednesday (Oct. 28) dealt a blow to all runners' psyches tired of being stuck in their virtual purgatory by postponing the April 2021 (yes, 2021!) marathon to no earlier than the fall. QUESTION: So, is that the first indication, that since our negligent federal government has GIVEN UP on managing the virus, that 2021 will be just as bad -- if not WORSE -- than 2020? God help us all if that's the case!
* Meeting people and friends: We still can’t meet more than one or two friends at a time due to the rise in COVID cases nationwide and in Massachusetts, or at least we aren’t supposed to do so. Yet too many people have been ignoring those social-distancing mandates, with the result that many larger parties and gatherings have been held nonetheless, helping virus cases to increase at levels not seen in months. And despite the strict limits on outdoor gatherings, youth sports fields are still seeing dozens, if not a 100 or more, parents gathering to watch games with coaches --- with very little or no social distancing and without masks --- and that’s in Massachusetts. And people have been foolishly insisting on continuing to flock to Salem for Halloween despite the mayor’s pleas not to do so, and in spite of many of the usual events being canceled. 
* The economy: Although it’s shown some improvement, that may be a mirage, as most businesses that are open are still dealing with serious limitations and more than a quarter of all restaurants have closed permanently.
* Schools and colleges: Schools remain in either hybrid or remote modes, leaving students confused, upset and getting mostly an inferior education; colleges are mostly in remote and yet have by and large refused to charge students less for getting a lesser education. And, although some sports are being played at the high school level, many others, such as football, are not and are pinning their hopes on a new “late winter-early spring” season being added --- one that may not happen if the virus’ spread isn’t curtailed.
The bottom line: We’re no closer to the end of this pandemic in late October than we were in March, when the lockdown began --- due in large part to too many Americans’ selfish and irresponsible behavior.

This column was published Aug. 11, 2020 in The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA

With sports back, here are nine innings’ worth of thoughts on the pandemic:
1.The games --- Being a lifelong sports fan, I welcomed back sports, but as I wrote in a May column, the games may not survive the pandemic. Although the two sports in bubbles – the NHL in Edmonton and Toronto and the NBA in Disney World – stand a good chance of completing their seasons, it could take a miracle for baseball to finish its shortened 60-game season and playoffs.
It also will be surprising if the NFL, which stuck to its original schedule that includes cross-country trips and a lot of travel, can hold a full season, even without fans. Adding them would be a mistake. A plan approved by Foxboro to allow fans at Gillette Stadium sounds like a recipe for a surge in cases, and an excuse for the state to punish us with more stringent restrictions. Given how people have been flouting the current rules by holding large outside parties without masks and social distancing, it’s hard to feel confident that revved-up football fans would follow the COVID-19 rules in a stadium setting.
2. Races – I recently ran my second virtual 5K of the pandemic, which meant running alone and submitting my time electronically. Like the first race in May, held to raise money for the North Attleboro schools’ music program, this one helped a cause I’ve long supported: the Community VNA hospice care program, which has changed its name to HopeHealth Community VNA.
Doing the virtual race made me realize that 2020 will be the first year I haven’t run a real race since doing my first one in 1976. I also wondered whether, given the raging pandemic, I’ll live long enough to be able to run another honest-to-goodness race. My contacts in the running community believe it’ll be a long while before live races return.
3. Social distancing run amok – I’ve also been wondering if I’ll ever be able to go for a jog or walk without keeping one eye peeled to the road for traffic and the other one on the walkers, joggers and bikers bearing down on me, which I have to do to give me time to move to the other side of the street. Most people have been respectful of each other, but many bikers fly past me without trying to cross the road. Before COVID-19, my runs had been a place to escape the day’s worries, or as the late author and runner, Dr. George Sheehan, put it in his 1978 book “On Running,” a chance to give my mind a daily vacation. That’s sadly no longer the case.
4. Friends – I’ve missed seeing dozens of good friends out of virus concerns, and while I’ve been keeping up with them through emails and texts, I’ve been wondering whether the virus will allow me to ever see them again in a “normal” pre-pandemic way. As one of those friends said about our “new normal” (a disturbing oxymoron), there’s nothing “normal” about our lives these days.
5. Not together – Memo to all companies airing TV ads insisting “we’re all in this together:” Pull the ads. The truth is we’ve become a dangerously fractured nation, and those deeply partisan divisions, combined with our dysfunctional national response to the virus, are preventing us from even adequately fighting it. We’ve become too selfish and short-sighted to follow any consistent measures to defeat it, and the verbal and physical assaults by non-wearing masked customers on store employees is a national disgrace.
6. Economy – The Great Recession will seem like a blip before the pandemic’s complete effects on the economy stop being felt. The fallout from mounting bankruptcies, super high unemployment, and closed businesses --- which have made cities such as Boston seem like ghost towns – will linger for a long time.
7. Schools – In a perfect world, schools would open at least in a hybrid fashion, but there are many daunting challenges impeding that goal, including: social distancing on school buses, handling the runny noses and coughs that kids typically get during normal school years, and how schools will deal with the inevitable positive COVID-19 tests. Many area schools are embracing the hybrid model, which at this point is the prudent approach.
8. Voting --- Voting by mail will be on the rise in Massachusetts, where registered voters were mailed cards to apply for ballots for the Sept. 1 primary and Nov. 3 election. That’s good news, but voters have to hope that local town halls won’t be overwhelmed. I worry about that, because it took me 10 days from the time I mailed my request for an absentee ballot for the June 30 town election in North Attleboro until I got it, which left no time to mail it back. So I went to town hall, only to find no place to drop off ballots. (Town officials have since said they expect to have a ballot drop-off box ready before the primary.) The only thing that saved me was that I saw the election clerk meeting outside with the poll workers and I was able to hand her my ballot.
9. Say thanks – Health care workers, first responders and those working in retail, grocery stores and those trying to keep their small businesses afloat deserve our support more than ever. And while you’re at it, thank those at The Sun Chronicle, who have been working hard during the pandemic, which has exacerbated the burdens faced by community newspapers. Without them, you wouldn’t have been able to read the local news and human-interest stories that the paper has reported on unabated since March.
Larry Kessler is a retired Sun Chronicle local news editor.