EDITORIAL – We live in a cesspool of infection, and we are the prey

An editorial by Mel Rothenburger.

THE RAMPARTS of the temple have been breached. The invaders arrived in November and retreated in time for Christmas after a siege of a few weeks, only to return a week ago.

I’ve been forced to bring in reinforcements and counter-attack — loading up on Cold FX, vitamin C, Tylenol Cold and Flu, and ginger tea, and hunkering down in the sack, whimpering like a small child. It’s a well-proven tactic — eventually, my troops always prevail and the enemy is overcome.

I’m not sure how it got in. I suspect phase two is a totally different army than the first one, new recruits called up and positioned at a concert we attended, poised to retake the offensive.

As usual, I’ve been consulting with Dr. Google. I’ve learned a lot about phlegm, and I now know why our backs get sore when we have a cold. I know the gestation period of the average cold and flu viruses, the usual period of contagion, and how long we can expect to feel like death warmed over.

We exist in a swirling global cesspool of infection, and we are the prey. Tiny agents of chaos hover everywhere, waiting to attack. They have no reason to live other than to make our lives miserable.

A bad cold or flu is nothing to sneeze at, especially for the old and the very young. Several kids have died from the flu in recent weeks, and even a cold can easily morph into something worse.

During two years of pandemic I was healthy except for one encounter with the dreaded COVID, which (thanks to modern medicine) was less severe than this current round of rhinovirus or whatever it is. We had vaccines, masks and Dr. Bonnie Henry to get us through.

We vowed to keep up the protocols once COVID lightened up. Get vaccinated, the good doctor said, but our follow-through has been spotty. B.C. brought in 2.3 million doses of influenza vaccine and more than 2.6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in October.  By mid-December, 1.4 million doses of flu vaccine had been administered and 1.3 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine. That’s pretty good but not good enough.

As we all know, vaccines can’t cover everything but they sure help. I got all my updated COVID and flu shots, I still physically distance at the checkout, and am still an obsessive hand washer but I don’t bother with masks anymore and almost no one else does, either.

So, we pay the price. COVID is down but other viruses are up, and we’re at a peak with flu right now. We really should go back to masks but even if Dr. Bonnie H. ordered us to, we probably wouldn’t listen. We humans have trouble learning from history.

Be careful out there. Pay attention to what Dr. Bonnie Henry says.

I’m Mel Rothenburger, the Armchair Mayor.

Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor.  He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.