The Fallout from Covid
The last time I saw him, my father pissed me off.
He sat next to my sister on the living room couch of the three-bedroom rancher where I grew up in Virginia. The couch where my mom used to spend a good chunk of time chatting on the phone with family and friends every day. I’d crossed the border a few days earlier so I could attend her funeral.
It was a couple weeks before Christmas in the dead of Covid-19 and I was heading home the following day. As we small talked through our respective masks, I explained that I was required to quarantine once I got back to Toronto even though the home covid test I’d taken before I decided to come down had been negative. I was forbidden from flying, but, as a U.S. citizen, I was allowed to drive across the border, only I’d have to pay Trudeau’s penance upon return since the alleged benefit of mRNA shots and the J&J jab weren’t worth the risks in my view.
Out of the gate, the claim of 95% safe and effective struck me as a resounding lie. How could they possibly make such a claim? I found the data from the initial clinical trials and recognized immediately the numbers game these people play to give a semblance of truth to whatever comes out of their mouths. I imagine that Mehmet Yildiz and others have written about absolute vs relative risk here on Medium, which was the standard operating procedure employed by Fauci and company when trumpeting the safety and efficacy of the covid “vaccines.” But I digress…
While I put zero stock in covid testing from the start, out of respect for my family’s coronavirus concerns, I wouldn’t have come down had I tested positive. On the way over to my dad’s that day, I tried to set aside how annoyed I was to have squandered time the night before and earlier that morning locating a lab that could conduct and process a covid test fast enough for me to present my results by the time I reached Canada the next day. Not to mention the fee, of course, which came out of my pocket.
I kept to myself how ridiculous I thought it was that the negative test I did prior to coming to the States didn’t seem to matter five days later. In December 2021, during Biden’s infamous “winter of severe illness and death” for the unvaccinated, when the drumbeat of new variants and rising coronavirus-attributed fatalities raged on both mainstream and social media, the absurd need for testing that was neither standardized nor ever verified as safe or effective boiled my blood, truth be told. Still, I played along with the testing and masking (I had to go to my mom’s funeral, after all), drawing the line at getting shots concocted by soulless corporations that were completely absolved of any liability, shots that were relentlessly pitched as the final solution by authorities that I simply did not trust.
I can’t say I know what I was hoping for when I told my father and sister that quarantine awaited me across the border. As far as I could tell — masks being the impediments to communication that they are — my dad looked confused. He couldn’t seem to wrap his head around the authorities letting me drive myself home to quarantine. It must have disturbed him. The prospect of me driving from Virginia to Ontario, unvaccinated, the jury still out on whether or not I tested positive over the handful of days since I’d been in town, potentially spreading covid up I-95 and across the Capital Beltway, along the Pennsylvania Turnpike and the New York Thruway, coronavirus escaping undetected from my vehicle like the pollution leaving the tailpipes of my car.
It’s not real clear in my mind what he uttered — the mask again, coupled with my rising heartbeat, a sudden onset of tension and the rapidly evaporating sense of connection — but it was something along the lines of the U.S. government shouldn’t be letting that happen. I think he was suggesting that I shouldn’t be allowed to cross the border and go directly home to quarantine for two weeks during Christmas, which I considered to be a punitive political measure for my vaccine non-compliance.
My dad seemed to saying that I should be prevented from re-entering Canada and, I guess, be kept somewhere Stateside in quarantine, that the government was dropping the ball by letting me drive home. My sister didn’t say anything.
It was painful. I can’t really recall what went down after that. Apoplectic inside, emotionally fried, I stood up and mumbled that I had to go. They mustered goodbyes, I believe, and I left. That was the last time I’ve seen either of them in person.
In hindsight, I guess I was looking for something like empathy. My mom had just died and it was terribly disconnecting to realize how isolated I felt from my family in that moment, all because I didn’t share their views or adopt their behavior. Has anything like this happened to you with family, friends or colleagues regarding public policy or mandates or covid vaccines?
The emotional and physiological stress takes it’s toll. And not just on me. I suspect there are many people out there who’ve experienced disconnection in silence — a profound loss of connection and direction since the beginning of this crazy decade. That’s why, in August, I’m launching a community called The Fallout from Covid: No Time to Hide.
My vision for the community is to bridge the growing societal divide through authentic engagement that supports people who choose to be vulnerable in sharing how the fallout from covid has impacted their lives and who truly want to understand and learn from the experiences of others in a safe, caring, non-judgmental, non-political space.
My hope is for participants to come away with a deeper connection with those whose views they share as well as a greater sense of empathy for people to whom they may not have been open to listening prior to joining The Fallout from Covid community.
Please leave me a comment if you want dates and details as the group hasn’t been fully established just yet. And please, bear with me if I take a bit of time to respond.
I’m driving down to Virginia tomorrow with my wife and daughter. My dad hits 88 on Sunday. We’ll be there to celebrate his birthday. The time has come to heal from this disaster. There’s no time to hide.
