Today started with a misty and cold morning. The cold temperature combined with the drizzling wetness left icy spots on the road. I felt the iciness so I drove slowly. 3 meters before the stop sign at the entrance of the complex, I switched my foot from accelerator to brake pedal. But my car didn’t stop as quickly as it used to do. I experienced the similar situation as I had years ago in an icy snow day. The car struggled of stopping, it slid forward for almost two meter even my previous speed probably was 10mph. Finally it stopped, but I was scared. Driving on high way will be horrible. Seconds later after the predication flashing through my mind, I heard from radio “the icy spots caused many troubles for the morning traffic… a number of schools have announced late opening…”
When I got home, I turned on the radio. With the company of the NPR’s Morning Edition Program, I started my home cleaning. The Morning Edition Program is kind of a brief newsroom filled by helpful information which can be guidance for people making decisions.
In today’s Morning Edition program, I heard the stories on two hottest themes: the latest COVID situation in US and the investigation on Jan 6th, 2021 Capitol Hill rioting event.
Yesterday historically the daily covid positive cases in US exceeded 1 million. It sounds like an unbelievable number. I have heard the high transmission of O variant, but now I have a real sense of the high contagiousness. I hope in the following months, we will see miracle happening: the covid variant will vary to even milder viruses than O variant. They will immerse in the virus family and live with human beings harmlessly. It might be a dream, but having dreams is a good thing, dream likes hope. Having dreams and holding hopes make people think positively. I don’t know the inner world of people who suffer from depression, anxiety these mental illness, but I think they have one thing in common, they all feel hopeless.
Yesterday from NPR I heard an overwhelming story about a bright young man who is a student of Harvard Law School. He chose taking his life on the last day of 2021 at age 25. The story was told by his father, Jamie Raskin, a congressman who will do the 2nd impeachment against Trump for Jan 6th rioting event. the story is from his latest book “ Unthinkable: trauma...”
He said his son has been sensitive since he was a young boy, he has depression, anxiety, OCD which his families knew about and he has been getting help from a bunch of good psychiatrists. Jamie claimed his son's death was related to the isolation during the pandemic. I have been hearing about the huge impact the isolation brought to young people, but it is the first time I heard a whole story about it from NPR. 目前CDC将隔离时间缩短为5天，并建议解除隔离后继续戴口罩五天，且不需要再做病毒检测，这项改变遭到了一些医疗工作者的反对。我想是随着病毒毒性的逐步减弱，公众不再提新冠病毒则色变，且看到隔离带给人们，特别是年轻人的危害后做出的改变。相信这不是一拍脑袋的决定，背后定是有科学数据做支持，是在综合评估了收益与风险的比值后做的改变。想想任何政策都不可能让所有人满意，只要政策符合多数人的利益那就是对的。学校运动队有更为严格的防疫指导，我想这是因为运动员运动时和学生又不一样，大家都是不戴口罩共处一小时以上，所以应该更加谨慎。看学校通知是POSITIVE后十天内不许参加训练和比赛。
小孩游泳训练完回家告我嗓子有一点疼，我一惊，问他何时开始，他说就是下午上课时感觉到的，但就一丁点，并没有其它问题他就忘了说。我说现在是非常时期，以后要多向我汇报。心想应该没事，还是抓来刚买的增强免疫的多维软糖，连吃三颗寻求心理安慰。学校通知说如果家里学童出现疑似新冠症状需要做检测，可以打电话给学校，学校刚收到一批数量有限的检测盒。记者问州长是不是应该颁布强制室内戴口令，州长说他不打算做，理由是他不想招来抗议。想必是去年他经历的抗议把他弄烦了。他说我们有很多工具可以利用，VACCINE, BOOSTER, MASK，言外之意，大家各取所需吧。昨天COSTCO里就见一人没戴口罩，而与他同行的妻子和两个幼小孩子都戴着口罩。那人此时成了稀有者。想着这对年轻夫妻真是包容TOLERANCE和接受ACCEPTANCE的凯模。
