On Saturday, my daughter and I walked into a store on the hunt for some Christmas decorations and a couple of clothing items. In many ways, it was a typical weekend errand day, one of the hundreds of times she and I have trekked across the length and breadth of Chaguanas looking for something or the other. On the other hand, it was entirely atypical in that, since March 2020, I’ve generally limited my errand runs to the few hours she spends with her dad on a Sunday so as to limit her exposure to the hardheaded adults doing their best to extend this pandemic as long as possible.

Anyhoo, we walked into the children’s clothing section and I asked a helpful clerk about a particular item, explaining why we needed it. As I picked out my daughter’s size, we briefly commiserated about the nonsensical dress codes of digital school and then, as is the norm these days, the small talk turned to pandemic life in general. Specifically, to lives lost. She’d lost a colleague and she didn’t attend the funeral for (reasonable) fear of exposure. She was even nervous about being at work and certain that the end of the SOE could only make things worse.

I certainly couldn’t disagree with her. I couldn’t offer more than condolences, which is all I’ve been able to offer those who’ve lost loved ones to the continued mass idiocy on display on display for the past two years.

So I took my daughter’s hand and we made our way into the next store staffed by people who have no choice but to expose themselves to a populace more likely to be unvaccinated (or partially vaccinated) than vaccinated.

In that store, we watched as a man pulled down his mask to smell a cologne sample offered by a clerk standing right next to a sign prohibiting that very thing.

As we walked into yet another store, we watched a couple of women briskly rinse their fingers for a couple of seconds before grabbing the door handle with their wet hands. We sprayed our hands with the sanitiser that hasn’t left my bag for two years and pressed on.

These vignettes would infuriate me if I wasn’t just so exhausted. Much like the state of panic that accompanied the early days of the pandemic, the anger that follows the realisation that folks still aren’t taking things seriously isn’t sustainable. It’s just not possible to consistently muster more than “FFS” at this point given how clear it is that people will not act in their own best interests, let alone anyone else’s. What I’m left with is a feeling of deep fatigue, punctuated by heavy sighs.

I’ve given up trying to explain to my daughter why she is paying the price for the decisions of countless childish adults. Because if we could witness the collapse of ‘first world’ healthcare systems, if we could watch as the same country that exacerbated the pandemic with its slackness turn around and vaccinate 80% of its population aged 12 and above, if we could see our numbers skyrocket and a child die, if we could stand by as our children languish indoors and still be on this much bullshit, what exactly is there left to say to her?

She, like all children, sees adults way more clearly than most of us would like to admit. I can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up knowing that the adults fully do not have it together. I can only hope that I have it together enough to be of use to her as she learns what she needs to know in order to navigate the ridiculous world we’re handing to her generation.

That said, I keep putting digital pen to digital paper in the vain hope that playing Captain Obvious might make even the slightest difference. European countries are contemplating implementing lockdowns again alongside vaccine mandates (and dealing with riots as a result) and Singapore has already announced that it won’t be covering healthcare costs for the unvaccinated much longer. Meanwhile, in the wake of an abrupt end to the State of Emergency, prominent figures in this country are comparing the implementation of ‘safe zones’ to South African apartheid even as we record our deadliest day yet with 28 deaths, including the first child to die from this virus. Unvaccinated upper school children are still mingling with their vaccinated classmates (and teachers) and as of now, the lower school children will still be joining them in January.

It wouldn’t surprise me if primary school followed soon afterwards because, at this point, the Government seems pretty committed to its ‘Welp, we tried‘ stance. I can only hope that we will have received and distributed WHO-approved vaccines for primary schoolers before they decide to fling them under that particular bus. After all, according to our Health Minister:

“…when the SoE comes to an end, a lot of the responsibility in managing these hospital numbers which I indicated at the start, in bringing them down, is going to rest on the population.”

Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh

Which should tell us all we need to know about what the government is willing to do right now. That may change after they finish their electioneering, but given that the concept of a safe zone 2022 Carnival has been floated, it may not. If it doesn’t, if the move is really to address the ongoing situation by appealing to “individual responsibility” in a nation where discipline is barely a watchword… well.

We still hadda live, right? Our kids have to go to some semblance of school. We have to earn some semblance of a living. We can only hope we don’t find ourselves or our loved ones among the next alarming (but clearly not alarming enough) set of statistics to hit our newsfeed.

Me? I’ll just be over here screaming into the void.