Thread by @ggreeneva

I’m gonna be back to driving to Atlanta to see my folks, as if I were 19 and between semesters at college, at least until my toddler can get vaxxed — hm?

I’m not seething with annoyance across multiple dimensions right now; you are.

Fun story: today I took my dad—who’s 80 and immunocompromised with leukemia—to an ER a stone’s throw from the CDC.

We took one look beyond the sliding doors — at two waiting rooms packed to the gills, standing room only with many coughing, and others unmasked — and left.

Fortunately, we had the luxury of saying “nope” and waiting a night. His doctor wanted something observed, but thought his age and health record would get him out of a lengthy waiting room stay.

Well, the helpful but beleaguered workers at the front desk told a different story.

Am I upset at the hospital? No. At the doctor? No. At the others in the waiting room? Not necessarily: a family with five or more kids, all of them unmasked, drew my side-eye, but I don’t think it makes sense to treat this as a personal-virtue Olympics.

What we’ll do now: talk to his oncologist, who has admitting privileges, in the morning. Maybe then we can get past the COVID bath at the hospital entrance.

But as luck had it, the push alert about the CDC’s new guidance hit my watch as I walked through the hospital garage. I wasn’t thrilled to see another concession to pragmatism, if that’s what people want to call it, at the expense of my father’s ability to leave his house.

Real talk: what I’ve absorbed on this latest trip is that my parents are lonely, and harried. Some of that, I put down to aging in place in the suburbs.

That said: we’re rounding the curve into our third lap of this pandemic. And I’m frustrated tonight …

… because we’ve made vaccinations available, and that’s great — but for those who can’t get them, like my toddler, or those they might not help, like my dad, we appear to have no urgency whatsoever about getting *them* closer to a semblance of normal life.

Sure, I have little reason to fear for my toddler. My dad missed 18 of his first 30 months of life, though. I’d like them to see each other without having to run a gantlet of attempts to order rapid tests—plus a 13-hour drive to avoid passing through the world’s busiest airport.

So I’m annoyed that the consideration of people who’d like to fly to, IDK, visit elderly relatives in frail health seems to rate somewhere around the level of concern mustered for pocket lint.

I’m annoyed that the idea of making rapid tests ubiquitous …

… drew an incredulous chortle at a prominent podium not one month ago.

I’m annoyed that sending high-quality masks to every home hasn’t been done by now — both as a signal to folks to retire the cloth doohickeys, and to help folks less situated to …

… research which KN-95s are legit, let alone shell out the money to repeatedly buy them by the case.

I’m annoyed that folks like my parents seem consigned to live as the collateral damage of the pandemic — sorry, can’t be arsed to make the public realm safe for you, tut-tut!

And, despite scoldings such as the below, I’m annoyed as f–– at the wilfully unvaccinated — who I can’t trust to keep hospitals unclogged and free of their hacking coughs when other people need to use them.

Seriously, I couldn’t give a f–– about their trust issues at this point.

https://twitter.com/shadihamid/status/1475133374616547330

Love to see a centrist pundit identify a public-health crisis as an opportunity for holier-than-thou, “both sides are equally wrong” preening. Surely that’ll end the pandemic in a week flat.

(*raises hand*)

No — I, too, wouldn’t treat these next two weeks as an auspicious window to visit an ER.

https://twitter.com/jennaudrey/status/1476373583442108417

I’d just like my 80-year-old dad, who’s living with leukemia, to feel safe visiting a hospital if he needs to — but sure, Matt, let’s be glib. That’s quite helpful.

To zero in on pundits, I’d say one a main school of thought among them on the pandemic is “oblivious pricks.”

Georgia, running out of hospital beds? Given my recent experience down there, that seems about right.

(*sighs*)

https://twitter.com/jeremyfaust/status/1477121082125701121

Senator: the “real crisis” is that ERs and ICUs are so packed with people dying of “sore throats” that others with ailments and life-threatening injuries can’t get prompt care, you pitiable tadpole.

https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/1476991857699659777

“Testing positive for a sore throat isn’t a crisis,” the senator said. “Irrational hysteria,” the senator said.

Oh, okay.

https://twitter.com/BaltCoVolFire/status/1477439621625696257

I get it; I’m tired of wearing masks, sometimes. I’d like to get back more of a semblance of normal life.

But I’d like that for people like my parents, too. And that _could_ be done. It only requires an effort.

https://twitter.com/notdred/status/1476950067101810688

Today my father _finally_ got the care that I drove him to the hospital for a month ago. That’s after an aborted trip to the ER, weeks of waiting, and a night stranded in triage because the hospital had no beds.

So, yeah: I feel what Joel says below.

https://twitter.com/byjoelanderson/status/1485634873196892163