Eleven lockdown months and counting: A letter to myself

Eleven months have passed since we were told there was to be a two-week lockdown to 'flatten' the curve of the looming viral pandemic. I recall the evening of March 12, when the news broke of the Wisconsin lockdown and I made a trip to Pick 'n Save for two weeks of staples and to grab a case of antiseptic wipes before the stock worker could even get the case on the shelves.

It would be too depressing to attempt to catalog the folly that followed that night, nationwide and globally, economically and politically. There has been a seismic shift in the basic paradigm of daily life, probably in every part of the world, not just in Wisconsin, the United States or the western world. Democratic principles and constitutional and natural rights have succumbed to the tyranny of the fascist left. Fear has replaced hope. Prosperity through capitalism has been replaced by greater misery and inequality imposed on the poorest and weakest of society, all in the name of the new normal of socialism.

There are some saving graces in all this chaos. My health has probably never been better and until the recent freeze, my walking regimen had been solid for more than a year. My family has escaped relatively unscathed for a variety of reasons. Some of us live in safer, less tyrannical locations. Retirement has reduced unemployment as a threat to income; the stock market is booming. The internet, cell phones, home delivery and streaming services have all softened the blow on lifestyle, although at a tremendous cost to small businesses, casual social interaction, and political dialog.

I have really 'churched up,' with daily Mass and rosary and conversations with both Hank and Carl, my two personable priest pals. I now sit on the education committee -- the 'school board' -- for Holy Spirit school in Kimberly, attending monthly Zoom meetings and contributing what talent, time and trees that I can to the cause. The school has been open all year, with masks and safety protocols, and stands a s an exception to the national rule for public education which has effectively shut down or given up on serious education. Historians will likely cite this period as effectively a 'lost year' for knowledge. Meanwhile, teachers get paid, students suffer through poor online pedagogy, and parents wonder if their school-age children will ever really recover.

For my immediate family -- wife, two daughters, and father- and mother-in law -- the shocks have been absorbed effectively due to our 'normal' lifestyles and fortuitous timing. Moving to Harrison eighteen months ago made parental care much more viable, even possible. Jane is out of college, not ready yet to return to graduate school, and managing to keep Cristo Rey running through the pandemic. Gaby has made lemonade from this truckload of lemons, excelling in her education and career preparation, taking up surfing, and using her SUV to support the new normal lifestyle of a college student in southern California today. Dena's work from home was awkward at first but it has evolved to probably the future of work, working remotely from home.

Absent mild cases of the virus for Jill Lorenzi, her husband and child, my extended family has escaped the worst physical elements of the virus. Nieces Frannie and Kate, plus sister-in-law Ginger, have shouldered the medical profession burden with no apparent medical problems of their own. Brothers and sisters have been getting the vaccine, as have Kate, Fran and Ginger. There is no panicked rush for shots and no real sense of urgency locally as Wisconsin -- at least outside of Milwaukee and Madison -- appears to be calm, cool and collected.

And as more data emerge and more lies exposed, there seems to be a clearer picture of the overreaction and bad policy decisions from political tyrants posing as leaders and followers of the science. [The governors of California and New York have been exposed and the former is under a recall initiative and latter is likely to be investigated for intentionally mis-reporting nursing home deaths.] Overall mortality in the United States in the past year is not much different than what had been expected, especially of a rapidly growing population of senior citizens, including those in ill health and in nursing homes whose very nature is to house the most vulnerable and most likely to die in the coming year. About half of the deaths in America in 2020 came from nursing homes, just as they have for the years without the pandemic. The growth of the nursing home population is a form of pandemic, with entry into a nursing home a likely predictor of death within a relatively short period of time. While there are millions of healthy, well-resourced Americans over the age of 65, there are tens of millions of Americans over the age of 65 that lack good health (mainly due to lifelong lifestyle choices) and financial resources (due primarily to lifelong poor educational, work and financial decisions).

The problem with longer life expectancies is that mortality rates have just been deferred, not eliminated. Instead of 50% mortality rates for newborns as we had two hundred years ago, we now have 50% mortality rates in some nursing homes. That is all why the average age of death during the Spanish flu was 28; for the pandemic, the average age at death is over 80. Years ago I read a report from Canada that showed that 30% to 50% of medical expenditures were recorded in the last six months of a Canadien's life. 'Healthcare' was not curing the elderly; it was primarily postpone death, and at a very high cost to the national treasury. Today, countries are triaging Covid cases, declining to provide medical treatment to the very old and the mentally handicapped, among others, to husband resources and, let's face it, to face the reality that those triaged were often, as we say, "on death's door" prior to testing positive for Covid or the likelihood of success from treatment was very low for those with what has become a causal term, "pre-existing co-morbidities."

My hope is that this cursed year will produce significant positive changes, including a return to faith and family and to a healthy distrust of scientist experts with more bias and politics and science behind their recommendations. To wit, we need to all think more spiritually and more critically, to build our faith in God and to question our blind faith in and adherence to the elite.