500,000 DEAD — LET’S DO THIS TOGETHER

As we stand on the cusp of 500,000 COVID-19 deaths in a single year I have been thinking about two things. First, imagine if the City of Atlanta vanished in a moment. Atlanta’s population is slightly more than 500,000. It’s unbelievable on that kind of macro level to think of the huge number of people who are now gone. Second, on a micro level, I have been thinking about John Larsen’s “Seasons of Love” from Rent. In that song he breaks down a year into moments in time. 525,600 minutes to be exact. That’s how many minutes there are in a year. That means that we have lost almost one person a minute on average this year. But each person’s life is typically intertwined with the lives of so many others. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, co-workers, classmates, etc. So the impact of that many dead across our Country has an exponential ripple effect. Virtually everyone’s life has been touched in one way or another. And yet, I still hear echos of those who continue to call it a hoax, or those who won’t wear a mask, or those who believe that once you get the vaccine you are good to go. Following the events on 9/11 our lives were forever changed. For example, I suddenly became aware of seemingly unattended packages or bags on the luggage racks on the Metro North trains heading into New York City. Or, it became the new normal to have security screenings when boarding planes. I hope that some day we can get back to a semblance of normalcy as the pandemic wanes hopefully at some point later this year. Until then, let’s take care of one another. When you get vaccinated, the science says we will still need to wear a mask in public and socially distance. Come on kids. As a marathoner, it wasn’t the first 20 miles that was tough. It was the last 6.2. Hopefully, we are in the last 6.2 of this pandemic. So as my coaches would have said, “suck it up, dig deep and push through”. We can do this. You can do this. One World/One Love/. Peace.