Opinion: Why Long Island Covid-19 Scares Me

Someone has declared biological war on me. Every day I wait in terror thinking: "Is today the day I slip up and catch perhaps a fatal case of Covid-19?"

I wear a mask in public. I stay home as much as possible. My car has hand sanitizer under the dashboard. I park away from others cars — and I am still scared daily.

It’s like I am being hunted by an invisible killer who could strike me anywhere at any time if I am not home.

In the last eight months I have spent seven months of the time at home, sleeping, watching TV, or reading my phone. My quality of life is only saved from being a huge negative by the presence of my wife who is the angel that’s keeping me sane. With going out for dinner really not an option she has been in our kitchen preparing our meals every day. Never complaining she understands how crazy dangerous this all is. A very wise woman she doesn’t see much changing for the better for at least another 12 months into 2022! And she is the optimist in the family.

I have a granddaughter born last May 2020 in England that I have never met, and a daughter in DC who I was supposed to have dinner with last spring. A date that was canceled when everything shut down for obvious safety concerns.

My concern is, what if this never ends well? We are well on our way to 400,000 souls lost in a 12-month period in just the USA. The vaccine situation is a hope but no guarantee. It is almost as if mankind is almost being slowly exterminated like the pine trees on Long Island have almost been.

People say nature has its ways yet many reliable sources have reported this virus was created in a lab by accident. Whether that is true or not no longer matters. What matters now is somehow it’s everywhere potentially affecting everyone.

I am in my later years. Now at hand are the years I planned to do many things, things I waited a lifetime to do. The truth is I am going to lose at least two to three years of my life to do things. I am losing that opportunity not because I am sick but because I am just avoiding getting sick. It’s now become: "You're lucky if you don’t get it because if you do you may die."

I know I am not in this alone, that I am not having dumb bad luck, that everyone in the world is in the same boat. Perhaps except the Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates crowd. I am sure they are not online to get vaccinated. But that is all that I truly know. The problem was after we flattened the curve we as a country, a state, a county our leaders had no clue what to do next. Now we are here, with me home writing this post, wondering out loud, through print, asking will this nightmare ever end.