I Won’t Survive the Zombie Apocalypse (Update 2021)

So yesterday marked two weeks since my second shot, so I’m fully vaccinated against COVID 19 and it make me think about the original post I did about not surviving the zombie apocalypse (https://www.treyr.com/allabouttrey/2017/7/22/i-wont-survive-the-zombie-apocalypse). I originally thought it would be a pandemic, dirty bomb, or EMP that would wreck the world, destroy medical supply chains, and lead to my eventual death. So I was sort of right. It was a pandemic. And while it disrupted medical supply chains (PPE) and even the toilet paper supply chain, it didn’t affect the medicine I need to live. Oh, and I didn’t die.

I think I’ve been pretty good about navigating this past year or so. Yes I made my pandemic run to Costco and am still eating canned green beans. Which are horrible, BTW. And I did manage to get my health insurance to give me an extra supply of my thyroid medicine just in case. And being in introvert has helped with the lockdowns, social distancing, etc. Don’t get me wrong, I’m ready for this all to be over (and it’s not OVER YET) and dance, travel, go on a Big Gay Cruise, etc. And I am very cognizant of how luckly I was to be able to shelter in place, in a nice home, with access to grocery stores, medicine, etc. I know that a lot of people who weren’t so lucky, who live in small cramped apartments with multiple family members, those who had to work in public environments (grocery stores, hospitals, etc), and most tragically those who lost loved ones.

I did not expect the government to make the pandemic worse. Downplaying the disease, undermining the science, refusing to provide guidance to states, refusing to even assume responsibility for a national plan to defend the country from this disease. I fear for when the next pandemic comes. If we haven’t learned from our mistakes, then I fear more people will die.

I also did not expect so many people to be so selfish. Or willfully ignorant. Or both. So many people followed the rules to help reduce the spread of the disease, but so many didn’t. Their “freedom” meant more to them than the lives of their friends, neighbors, families.

We are all so lucky that as bad as this pandemic was, it could have been worse. It could have been something like Ebola. What if you started showing symptoms within 24 hours of being infected? What if you were infectious within 24 hours of being infected yourself? What if the mortality rate was over 30%?

Would a disease like that be taken seriously by all of those who said COVID was just like the flu? Would the US be able to take the steps necessary to stop the transmission of the disease, or would some Americans refuse to wear a mask, social distance, shelter in place, or even take a vaccine because it’s an infringement of their rights?

I don’t know, but right now I doubt.

And another pandemic will happen. Will I survive that one? Will America survive that one?