This is not over. Not yet.

I was uncertain how I would write this and at the time I’m writing this, that uncertainty lingers. For close to a year now – on and off – I’ve written on tabletop role playing games (TTRPGs). 

I write often as I can, but I don’t write daily content because life happens, and it is a strange life happening every day since the first recorded US case of SARS COVID-19 as early as Monday, 13 JANUARY 2020.

By Friday, 27 MARCH 2020 the United States began shutting down. In some places, this happened sooner and in others, later.

Non-essential workers were laid off. Non-essential businesses were closed down. Most of us were sequestered to our homes with the suggestion (if not order) to remain there with exception to necessary travel.

I wrote a blog entry titled Satanic Panic! Occult Hysteria and RPGs in the 1980s. 

In brief, the entry details the events that led to a moral panic in the United States over the TTRPG Dungeons and Dragons.

Reflecting on the moral panic, and the current global pandemic of SARS COVID-19, I can see very clear similarities between the two. The Satanic Panic! of the 1980s revolved around a great deal of misinformation and a very well-timed attack campaign led by Patricia Pulling. In those days, information was not as widely available as it is now.

Information. Information. 

Man, I have to tell you. I love information but I’m so tired of the excess of it. The twisting, the turning. The manipulation. The misinformation, the malicious deception. It is everywhere and everything that we see now, we have to make a choice. We choose to believe it, or we research what we’re seeing. Then we have to research that research and research that research. To get to the truth of anything, we have to put ourselves to task as some sort of information-genealogist, tracking the historical roots of truth until we find the truth itself.

Where is the truth? There’s some here, and some there… but where did the truth become the seed for this story and turn the raucous mess for that story? Where is the moral and ethical reporting?

Surely there has to be news-media somewhere that doesn’t turn every last breaking news story into a creative non-fiction piece… or a sensationalist fiction piece based on a true story.

Michelle Morgan as the character Debra in George Romero’s Diary of the Dead has two particularly interesting lines as the narrator of the movie.

“…the media were lying to us or the government was lying to them. They were trying to make it seem like everything was gonna be all right.”

“The more voices there are, the more spin there is. The truth becomes that much harder to find. In the end it's all just noise.”

Diary of the Dead debuted in 2007, but the message on the dissemination of information rings true still today. There’s so much information, and so much spin, we’re digging deep just to get to the core of what for we are looking.

Let me be clear on my position and state in no uncertain terms that I believe that the SARS COVID-19 pandemic is real and that I genuinely believe it to be every bit as serious as it’s been reported. 

This is not - and we are not - living in a post COVID-19 world.

It is still here, and we still have to deal with it until whatever number of scenarios that need to happen, happen. Whether it is herd immunity or a vaccine, we cannot treat this like something that doesn’t exist simply because it is inconvenient, we do not like it, or it makes us uncomfortable.

The argument of whether or not we have a social responsibility to uphold continues as our fellow countrymen determine for their selves to wear a mask, not wear a mask, to social distance or not to and whether they believe the SARS COVID-19 virus is a decidedly real threat or not.

The outpour of social media arguments based on fallacious information (if not outright malicious deception) on SARS COVID-19 alone is overwhelming. It is mentally and emotionally exhausting, and seven months since its arrival, social media talking heads are still arguing over the validity and severity of the virus. Those desperate enough to discredit the SARS COVID-19 pandemic are sharing as much pseudo-scientific nonsense as they possibly can to justify willfully ignoring the potentially dangerous, potentially deadly global situation.

That’s just the thing, though. When people panic, they tend to panic in extremes and exhibit irrational behaviors which by virtue of being irrational, make no sense. There are those who when frightened to a point of panic or hysteria, will argue to a fault that such a thing does not exist; there are those who when frightened to the point of panic will overcompensate and err on the side of what they consider caution.

I am of the opinion that a number of states, including my state of residence (Nevada), re-opened too soon. Whether governors succumbed to pressure from their constituents, or because of politics, when the states that should not have reopened did so, they invited through the front door a second round of the first outbreak.

When I received news today that one of my brothers contracted SARS COVID-19, a number of thoughts ran through my head, a number of scenarios and outcomes. The general prognosis appears to be at this time that life’s going to suck for him for a while, but he’ll walk away from it to recover and live his life.

We cannot ignore the realities we face as a society. Whatever the crises, people as a whole will overcome it. I imagine many of us will survive it, and many of us will not… and less for those who ignore the necessary cautions we must implement upon ourselves. 2020 has shaped out to be a shit year for Earth, and we in the United States, so far.

It was George Formby, Sr. (and not Robert Leland Taylor, contrary to popular belief) who first said, “It’s not the cough that carries you off, it’s the coffin they carry you off in.”

This virus is not a joke, it is not a false flag, it is not to be taken lightly. 

It can be as little as turning you into an asymptomatic plague carrier, to a brain wracking migraine that lasts for what will feel an eternity, to a cough – a dry and painful cough – and difficulty breathing. In severe cases, you may not be able to breathe at all.

Maybe states begin shutting down again. I don’t want that, but it may be what is best to help slow the spread of this pandemic plague. Maybe states don’t shut down again and we are all left to our own devices to survive it on our own. If it is the latter and not the former, I implore you all to take warning, practice caution and remember that even if we don’t get sick, we can still carry it on to others who can.

Keep yourself safely entertained (might I suggest some TTRPGs?), sane and healthy. 

Stay alive out there.