As we make our way into the autumn months, we have rounded third and slid into 200 days in quarantine. 200 days. Wow--it is truly staggering to me that I began this blog in March and we are one day away from October.
200 days.
200,000 lives lost in our country in that time-span to COVID-19.
Now more than ever we need to embrace the truth that how the next 200 days look, and the 200 after that, are completely in our hands. The fate of this country rests with the choices we make every day.
We are all likely experiencing what mental health professionals are calling "pandemic fatigue". This is a phrase used to describe the mental burden of trying to make safe and informed decisions all day, every day, and how this leads to feelings of frustration, sadness, anger, grief, and just plain old weariness as each new decision is rife with dangerous possibilities.
It is a tough time to continue making decisive, informed choices.
Normally when we work so hard to make good decisions there is more of a tangible pay-off that demonstrates tough decisions are "worth it". With the pandemic, the payoff is more in what does NOT happen, as opposed to what does happen.
People do NOT get sick.
Hospitals are NOT over capacity.
Lives are NOT all lost.
This is a lot of effort when it is so draining to keep up best practices every moment of every day. But...what if we flip the script?
The decisions we make also lead to:
People are healthy because of your choices.
Hospitals are able to take care of patients because of your choices.
More people are staying alive because of your choices.
There is power here...so very much power in our resilience every single day. Living in the Ohio area, there are also smaller, but still significant consequences for following CDC guidelines: families are able to spend time in parks together, the Reds' are able to play in the MLB and are playoff-bound for the first time since 2013 (I suppose it really took the end of the world for that one!), even the Bengals are playing and with the new star quarterback Joe Burrow. Schools have been allowed to choose their own reopening plans with several schools opting for in-person learning with safer protocols. Unemployment is down by 18%. In other words, we are getting Ohioans back to work. The list goes on and on.
So when you feel like your decision to wear a mask, wash your hands, socially distance, or even to vote, does not matter...please remember how far we have come together as a state, as a nation, and as a planet as we continue the fight. We can do this--one step at a time.
Prepare, don't panic,
-Allison
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