I feel hopeful despite some insane things still happening, like yesterday, when a fellow at the True Olive Connection yelled at me for bringing a refillable oil bottle, seething that I would EVEN CONSIDER such an activity during a PANDEMIC. After picking up my order, I drove to New Leaf and returned my refillable milk bottles, as I do every week.

I know fear is the enemy of reason, and if he had said, I’m sorry, I just don’t feel comfortable dealing with returnable bottles in this situation, I would have felt sympathetic rather than attacked. I’m surrounded by fearful people, many of them attacking others, and I try to be sympathetic, but sometimes I am weak.

Unreasonable Central has been the subtitle of Nextdoor since the shelter started, but this week a long posting by a nurse named Michelle is not only trending Most Read but also garnering slightly more agreement than pushback. Slightly reasonable is high marks for Nextdoor.

Michelle explained how masks spread virus as often as they contain it, in a much folksier way than did the WHO document I read on the same topic, and urged folks not to be lulled into complacency by wearing a mask, especially a cloth one, which she said is 10-30% effective.

Mostly we should rely on social distancing and hand washing.

Michelle reminded us that the purpose of flattening the curve is not to avoid contracting the virus, but rather to allow it to move through the population slowly enough that everyone who needs medical care can get it and that herd immunity can be established without the most susceptible folks be exposed. That’s actually what we were told at the beginning, that Covid-19 will eventually become endemic to the population, and milder at the same time, as it learns not to kill its hosts, a quick lesson for such a contagious virus. It is a cousin to the common cold after all.

I think it is important to wrap our minds around living with this virus rather than isolating until it is as rare as smallpox, or controlled by a vaccine. My understanding is that there has never been a successful coronavirus vaccine, and that other successful vaccines have taken 4-20 years to be created and introduced. I know Science is roaring along in its determination to best Nature, and I hope it will succeed, but just sayin’.

Back to Michelle, she made a touchingly personal appeal to the susceptible population, of which she is a member on a least three counts, to take personal responsibility for their safety, rather than denouncing others for endangering them. She is able to work as a Covid-19 healthcare provider and to do her own shopping without feeling endangered because she knows how to protect herself, and feels this not only possible for everyone, but imperative, because we are a social species, creatures who need contact to thrive.

It was a message of empowerment and joy.