Day 144: Contagion

Here is a short clip (no triggers in this one, promise) from the 2011 movie, "Contagion". A girl named Jory is an immunocompromised girl, like myself, who has found herself in a worldwide pandemic that claimed the lives of her mother and brother. Her father is known to be immune--but her health status is questionable. Although she is allowed minimal activity outside, her life is lived within the walls of the old family home as chaos too richly similar to the chaos we are seeing now unfolds outside her window.

At least at this point in the movie (I realize that it is running along a imaginary and improbably sped-up timeline) there is a vaccine that is started to be offered by lottery number based on birthday. But today, my feelings are with her in this exchange:

Jory: "Maybe I'm immune like you and I don't even need it."

Dad: "That's not a chance we are gonna take."

Jory: "So instead we lose spring, we lose summer...we lose another 144 days that don't happen again."

I told myself when we first started seeing spikes in cases across Italy that we would be quicker, more efficient at handling COVID-19...that it would not resemble the fictitious MEV-1 in the movie "Contagion." I remembered this scene and told myself, well, if you're wrong this will be the I told you so.

I told you so.

Happy day 144 from the inside. We lost spring. We lost summer. And now, we are adrift waiting in an election year with no apparent leader or scientific group at the helm. I couldn't see this going on for 144 days. Now I cannot imagine it won't be at least another 144.

Prepare,don't panic.

-Allison