COVID Norms

For almost a year, we, as a nation of people have modified our schedules, stayed locked up in the house...  only leaving for emergencies, to purchase necessities, or to see the doctor, and have pretty much worn a facemask everywhere we have gone.  Some of us have not been able to go to work for a while because certain businesses in certain States were prohibited from opening.  Our Federal Government, recognized the problem and sent out everyone $1,200 and followed that up with another $600...  however, for a couple that amounted to about $3,600 which was a drop in the bucket for those who were unable to work for 6 months...  and, amounted to about one month of expenses.

But...  with that said, the cost to the American Taxpayer was high...  because our Federal Government gets it money for the most part from taxes.

Now, we are facing new problems even with the vaccine because it will take another year before everyone in the USA has received the vaccine and some of our school teachers in grade levels K-12 are still very nervous about going back to work and risk catching the virus.  Consequently, some of our school children are missing out on their educational futures and could very easily fall behind academically a good 2 years unless their parents have been home-schooling them...  and, while home-schooling is a viable alternative it may not be appropriate for everyone.

While COVID still prowls over our country, we have an increase in violence prowling over our larger cities...   like New York City and other cities of a relatively similar size...  Most of this violence is in the Northern part of our country, but violence has a way of relocating to other areas and if violence needs to go somewhere, it will no doubt travel south.  However, violence is usually restricted to the cities proper and if it were to move South, it would not move into those rural areas because of our SECOND AMENDMENT and the fact that MANY SOUTHERNERS own multiple firearms and keep their usage certifications current...   especially since HUNTING is one of SOUTHERNERS favorite past times.

Older folks are more susceptible to COVID than younger people but younger people can be infected with the virus but display no symptoms making it deadly for older people to spend a lot time in public without wearing protection...   although, wearing a face mask does not protect the wearer of the face mask but other people...  so, the only way for older people to protect themselves is to not be around people who are not wearing face masks.

Healthcare workers have informed me that the wearing of facemasks is likely to be the NEW NORM for several years out into the future...

New Norms After Pandemic Imagined

How is life in America going to be different after the COVID-19 Pandemic is over?

How is life in Tennessee going to be different after the COVID-19 Pandemic is over?

How is life in East TN going to be different after the COVID-19 Pandemic is over?

What an interesting set of questions and while all three seem a tad redundant, all three are different and relatively mutually exclusive.  Mutually exclusive is a statistical term describing two or more events that cannot coincide. It is commonly used to describe a situation where the occurrence of one outcome supersedes the other  In this case, we have the US versus States versus Regions/Cities and while the US supersedes all other laws, each of these will undoubtedly be a little different from each other.

Think of it this way:  GRANDPARENTS     Parents      children

ᐳWhat will be:

• wearing face masks
• keeping our distances inside
• waiting rooms
• lobbies
• bars/nightclubs
• malls
• restaurants
• movie theaters
• taking our temperatures everywhere
• video meetings with physicians more often
• cleaning everything after use
• middle seats in airplanes removed
• limited seating in restaurants
• possible end of student classrooms
• more and more online shopping