On this date in 2020, Alby mentioned the early flight cancelations to/from China in an open thread. He also predicted super-spreader parties by the GOP’s brainiac vaccine deniers. At the time he probably thought he was being outlandishly satirical.
I had a niece working in China for most of 2019. She came home for Christmas that year and around New Years Eve, I remember saying, “I don’t know if you’ll be going back to China.” Being young, she wasn’t concerned and felt sure she was going back to China.
February was a blur for me, as my Mom died on the 8th (non-covid). I flew back and forth to Florida a couple of times. Nobody wore masks then. We were still a month away from the dumb fucking nitwit President saying that he wanted to keep cruise passengers on a cruise ship because it would “look bad” if coronavirus numbers went up.
By the Spring of 2020 dead bodies were being stored in refrigerated trucks parked outside of hospitals in New York, but in Delaware we had a spirit of solidarity around managing our exposure. Republican assholes hadn’t galvanized their opposition to science yet. As a country, we had survived the toilet paper shortages and were getting used to just sticking around the house. ‘Tiger King’ was released on Netflix on March 20, 2020 and quickly became a national obsession.
Seven days later, on March 27th, Trump signed the $2.2 trillion economic stimulus act which included the “Paycheck Protection Program” which made loans to businesses that were fully forgivable provided the borrowing business kept payrolls and head counts at February 2021 levels. Also, bars and restaurants were allowed to put tables and chairs outside. That was nice.
Then summer and then fall, and our college age son decided that zoom classes weren’t for him, so he looked in to taking a year off, and his program allowed him to take the year as long as he did some independent study. He is good company. We enjoyed having back home for that year. But I felt terrible (and continue to feel terrible) for people with school age children. What a pain in the ass the past two years have been for them.
Then there was a bright spot. Biden/Harris beat Trump in the election and Dems picked up some house and senate seats. I thought Biden was going to be good at being President. So did he, apparently. Who could have predicted the Republicans would make his failure their key (and only, to be honest) goal? Other than everyone, who could possibly have predicted that? They wrong footed him from the outset by not allowing a normal transition. They blocked him from filling key agency leadership posts – even ones related to fighting the pandemic. Then 2021 became 2022 and Trump illegally tried to stay in power. He is still is walking around free as a bird.
That was 2021. A shitty year.