The Predictable Pyres of India

The pyres of India are burning on overtime. Each day is a new record of people dead or infected. Battles rage over medical oxygen. People reportedly die in the streets. Things aren’t going very well, to say the least…

It’s a travesty. A tragedy. Naturally. But I have a hard time feeling sad about it. I find sympathy in short supply for the beleaguered Indians. Because this development isn’t surprising to me. Not one bit.

Seeing as the memory of the public, and the internet even more so, is spotty and inconsistent at best, let’s remind ourselves of a few of the scenes we’ve seen out of India for the past few months. Religious holidays attended by tens of thousands. Bathing in the Ganges, as just one example. Or why not look at the ongoing farming protests outside New Delhi, that have been crowded and tumultuous since September. Or the sometimes raucus demonstrations against violence on women.

If there’s one painfully apparent lesson to all these occurrences, it’s that it has proven near impossible to instill a practice of social distancing upon the subcontinent. For practical, financial, religious, habitual, and demographical reasons, surely. But also for a lack of leadership and discipline. I loathe to use the s-word, but it seems clear that India has failed to adapt to the current pandemic. And now, the country is paying for it.

And all the while, the Bharatiya Janata Party, with prime minister Narendra Modi channeling the same wavelengths as Bolsanaro or Trump, beats its chest and proclaim the pandemic defeated through sheer force of cultural virtue.

It’s easy to condemn, from up here in a Norse ivory tower, as a privileged westerner. It’s easy to judge when we here have the opportunity and capacity to properly socially distance until the vaccines are doled out sufficiently. But no matter how easy it is to sneer at foreign social norms that have been unable to adapt to a new world order, the facts stay the same. India is on its knees. On Friday, India sported nearly 400’000 daily cases. Nearly half a million people in just one, single, solitary, day. And those are confirmed cases, mind you. I imagine there being quite a few unconfirmed ones as well in a nation as financially and socially diverse as India.

And I have not a tear to shed. I’m sorry, maybe I’m callous, but I can’t. Because from what we’ve seen out of that nation, this seems naught but fair. No; people don’t deserve to die in droves because they’re unable or unwilling to distance themselves from each other. No; people don’t deserve to die because their elected leadership is a criminally belligerent nationalistic mess. But what do you expect? The virus doesn’t care whether you’re too poor to socially distance, too pious to avoid public gatherings, too easily fooled to elect capable leadership, or too uninformed to undertake proper precautions. Those are all relative terms which an absolute plague doesn’t give a fig about. And if it can get you, it will get you, regardless of your finances, education, religion, or intelligence.

To add insult to injury, with every unnecessary or easily preventable infection, the state of the war on Covid deteriorates with new mutations, creating a steeper challenge for governments and doctors and nurses to stop the spread. So, not only is it a tragedy that Indians are dying en masse, but also that by doing so, they’re putting everyone else at greater risk too.

So in lieu of sadness or sympathy, I feel frustration and anger. And it doesn’t matter if that’s unfair or cruel or mean. Because the plague’s running rampant in India. The implications of which are thousands of dead, and an increased risk for the rest of the world. The reasons for which is a population of people incapable or unwilling to take precautions. Which in turn can be traced back to a government or society that has proven utterly unprepared to handle and unwilling to adapt to handling a pestilence like this. Whoever you want to blame, be it Modi’s and the BJP’s leadership, the socially dependent and tight-knit communities, the dense demographical and socioeconomical circumstances, or the recklessness of an uninformed public, the results are the same. Dead people, and a biological wild-fire out of control. All of which we could see coming a mile away.

/Sebastian Lindberg 5/4-2021

A Year of Covid-19

By this week, it’s been about a year since the Wuhan Virus struck my shores up in the Norse part of the world. A year of isolation, turbulence, and further deterioration of the quality of the public discourse. We joked back in 2016 that we’d cross out that year from our calendars. How innocent we were. Sweet summer children…

So, while we’re (supposed to be) cooped up in our homes and general vicinities, holding on hope that this angel of death is going to pass us by soon, why don’t we take a moment to set up a sort of disclaimer. A short-hand for dealing with the global pandemic, if you will…

First off; the vaccines work. Just not like you think they do. Vaccines have never been guarantee. They’re a hurdle for infectious disease. Sometimes, even oft-times, a big enough hurdle to kill its onslaught. A vaccine is a wave-breaker. And if you’re given the chance, if you’re next up on the rooster, you should probably take it (barring medical complications or conditions that could severely affect you in a bad way). And remember that taking the vaccines is not just your potential subjective benefit. It’s for the benefit of your community. Your family. Don’t be an obstinate ass-hat.

Secondly; Stop bitching about it morphing your DNA. If you’re whining about your precious gene-sequence being corrupted, odds are it’s not a very precious gene pool to begin with. Plenty of vaccines re-work the DNA in subtle ways by introducing modified mRNA to the mix. You can’t get antibodies or T-cells without setting up some factories for them. And you can’t set up factories without supplying some plans. That’s what the mRNA vaccines do. They don’t fuck up our gene pool any worse than your mother-aunt already has. So shut up.

Thirdly; side-effects are sadly an inevitability with vaccines. The faster the production, the shorter the testing, the more there’ll be. But most bad side-effects are statistically non-existent. Trouble is, when you are to vaccinate billions of people, even statistical irrelevancies become practical certainty. That’s just how statistics work. And seeing as most human beings are practically incapable of measuring or judging odds and chances, just don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it, because you’re not equipped to.

Fourthly; a lot of hate is being levied against medical professionals, infectious disease doctors, and even vaccine coordinators. If you’re one of the haters; fuck you. Fuck you sideways. These people, to the best of our knowledge, work to the the best of their abilities to save people’s lives. The vast majority of them aren’t trying to screw you over for some twisted political agenda. They are trying their best to navigate medical assistance through a web of laws, bureaucracy, disingenuous and signal politics, and hate-guzzling trolls to save our fucking lives. By any conceivable meritocratic metric, they know what they’re doing a hell of a lot better than you do. Here’s an idea for a benchmark: If you can’t fathom the proper use of a period to clip a sentence, or if you think that multiple exclamation marks is valid for anything but comic relief, don’t think you’re intelligent enough to validly criticize public health workers that are slavering away through the worst conditions of their careers to save your life. You don’t have the cognitive capacity or validity to criticize them. Just a bunch of misaligned hate and self-loathing. Go dig a pit and stay there until the coast is clear, you fucking hate-monger.

Fifthly; masks have become a contentious topic. Mostly in the binary US. Over there, you’re either a sheep or a malicious culprit, depending on where you lean on the political spectrum. But from what I’ve seen during my work commute or on the news, people aren’t capable of wearing the masks properly. From interviews I’ve had with doctors, masks were discussed to be scrapped as unreliable even in the controlled settings of most surgeries before the pandemic hit. Odds are, in the microbial chaos of everyday life, outside of a controlled environment, masks are ineffective at best. At worst, a false safety blanket, that let people rationalize going out unnecessarily. However, we’ve also seen that people aren’t getting infected on the, for example, public transport system where masks have been mandated. Either way, the masks aren’t going to single-handedly save you, and they’re not so fucking important as to justify a civil war. Get a fucking grip.

Which brings us to the next point…

Sixth; though the masks won’t save you, social distancing still might. During the Christmas holidays, the ski slopes of northern Sweden were full of privileged fucking morons. A sad fact that prompted extra measures to be taken to withstand a second… third… I lose track; another wave. So keep distancing yourself! Don’t go to fucking Mexico, for example, just because you want to look for Coco, or because you can’t stand your daughters enough to keep them in the house for a week. Stay in your cave, you fucking troglodytes!

Seventh; even during the Spanish flu pandemic, beginning at the ass end of the first world war, the disease was politicized. The very reason that it is now called ‘the Spanish flu’ isn’t because it began in Spain, but because Spain couldn’t silence reports on it. For all we know, the first deadly outbreak of that strain happened in Kansas, in troop camps awaiting orders to ship to Europe. And with the liberating troops finally on the shores, the disease spread. And no one wanted to acknowledge it in fear of demoralizing the population. So even though it’s natural for nations to politicise a pandemic, don’t play along, you muppets.

Eight; because that being said, China seems particularly wild in shifting blame for the pandemic eruption. According to them it’s either India, or the US, it’s the Australians that exported the virus to China (according to frenzied attempts to obfuscate by Chinese state media). Bears to note that all three countries have been in recent conflicts, both violent and diplomatic, with the Chinese People’s Empire. Make of that what you will…

Ninth; it’s not over. The Spanish flu stuck around for three years. Hopefully, we’ve gotten better at dealing with vaccinations and preventative measures in the hundred years since. But odds are, 2021 won’t see us quite back to normal, and we’re quite simply going to have to accept that. I know; it sucks. But it is what it is.

/Sebastian Lindberg 23/2-2021

A Fuck-Off to Gramps

I was blessed today. Truly. By a little old lady cowering in the corner of the tram. Because, you see, yesterday I had this whole column planned about journalists’ inability to do math to save their lives and professional credibility. But as it turns out, and as I suddenly figured out, the Centre for Disease Control are just as bad at it.

So, I’m out of a column. And as I’m going home from work, stressed about my deadline, stepping onto the busy tram, this little lady with her coat lifted up over her mouth and nose, skitter away from me and begins with a muffled whimper to tell me to keep my distance.

Which afforded me a blessed opportunity to tell her to fuck off.

Look, I agree with Social Distancing protocols. I think people should stay the fuck home to the greatest possible extent that they can. If you so desperately need a hair-cut that you have to make yourself part of the problem, then maybe you should just shave it all off, you vain cretin. And I think protesters that defy lock-down regulations bloody well deserve the plague. Smooth that fucking curve all year! Wooo!

But you can’t expect every one else to quarantine when you won’t. Me? I’m one of the Expendable Essentials. I work as a teacher at an elementary school. I am mandated to keep working. Without protection. As if nothing’s wrong. If I’m not showing symptoms, my employer and my government tells me to keep at it. To babysit teenagers so that their moms and dads can keep working in transportation or healthcare or whatever is needed to keep the country spinning. And no, there aren’t any masks for public use distributed in my country. That sort of protection is spared for those of us that are critically exposed, like nurses and doctors, for whom the masks actually help. A lot.

Mine is not the choice to get on the tram every day, to and from work. Mine is not the choice to expose myself. The government has deemed me expendable.

So what’s your fucking excuse, you Canasta Club reject?! If you’re old, if you’re part of one of the risk groups, if you’re scared to catch your death from a tired school teacher minding his own business at the end of a long day, keeping his distance the best he can in public transportation during rush hour, why the fuck are you out and about on the town in the middle of a pandemic?!

Okay… we’re all stressed. The world was fucked up before, but 2020 sure as shit turned up the stakes. We’re all trying to make the best of it. Regardless if you’re isolated from loved ones, out of a job, or mandated to keep exposing yourself by going to work like nothing was wrong. And we should all try to respect each other, mind our distances, not make ourselves part of the problem, take care of each other, yada yada yada…

But you shouldn’t put in effort to place yourself more at risk. And don’t expect the general population to bow to your safety just so you can go along like you always have. Don’t be an idiot. Don’t be reckless. Don’t inflate your disputable significance by trying to make yourself a stain on my conscience.

And don’t get up in my fucking face after I’ve spent the last eight hours minding 450 nurgling teenagers. I’m already taking a fucking bullet for you and your precious society. So. Piss. Off.

/Sebastian Lindberg 28/4-2020

The Expendable Essentials

Under lock and key. Seems a fitting way to sum up the collective policy of the western world in handling the spread of the Wuhan Virus. Shut down, stay indoors, close down anything but the life support functions of society. Embed within people the urgency of Social Distancing. Effectively kick the ladder out from under the spreading disease. Cut off the ways of transmission. Which seems like a plausible strategy, if we’re to judge from the South Korean and Singapore examples.

While the Wuhan Virus in most cases just presents like a mild cold, or even asymptomatic, it most definitely has lethal potential. Mostly to the old. Or those that have already compromised their health, like smokers. But also, strangely enough, to some of our youngest, whose immune system seems to be sent into complete overdrive as a response to the disease.

So, to protect our eldest from this new threat, the world closes down. Borders are shut. Travel is restricted. Events and venues, ranging from festivals to restaurants to retail and hotels, are shut down. All to prevent the spread. Public gatherings are outlawed, with Germany and the UK leading the charge by limiting congregations of more than two people by threat of fines. The quarantine is nearly universal. Global. People should stay at home, work from home or lose their jobs, not see each other, and just hold on until the flu passes.

But there’re exceptions, aren’t there? There are always exceptions. Just as the general population is asked and required to follow social distancing guidelines, another set of people are demanded to break protocol. Our doctors, nurses, transportation workers, infrastructure technicians, in some countries also our teachers. All of whom are exempted from the sometimes draconian measures of Social Distancing. Because they have been deemed “Essential”.

At first, it felt validating. To know that one is indispensable to the workings of society. Despite sometimes being low-paid, already exhausted from mismanaged work-loads, or marginalized and looked down upon, it’s nice for the world to realise just how important, nay; fundamental, you are.

Until you realise that the validation you just got is attached to a callous disregard whether you live or die as a result of your tireless work.

Essential Service Workers, doctors or teachers, or nurses or transportation workers or grocery employees, are all forced or required or strongly encouraged to keep society afloat, while the rest of the population hunkers down. Yet, these same Essential Service Workers are denied or refused proper gear to protect themselves. In some states, it has even gone so far that retired health care workers are being pushed to return to work. Retired health care workers, whom I might add, are in exactly the group most at risk of having fatal consequences if infected.

Statistical analysis out of hard-hit Italy seems to suggest that continued exposure to the virus might even raise the risk of dire complications. But do any of these ”essential” people receive proper protection to do their job? No, largely they don’t. The free market has run out of essential protection, so there’s none to be had without paying ”too much” for it. Doctors and nurses recycle one-time-use masks, or go without, wearing the same depleted protective gear for days, weeks, months. Work until exhaustion clocks them out, cowering in corners or stacked together on any flat surface theyr can find. And that’s just for the health care workers. All the other essentials? They’re left to wrapping their faces with scarves, or stuck with depleting bottles of hand sanitizers.

It’s nice to be needed. When a government or a company for years have been undermining your sense of self worth with inhumane schedules or meagre pay, it’s nice to for once be told that life wouldn’t work without you. But do you know what’s not as nice? Be told that you’re not only essential, but also expendable. Because that’s what governments say that you are, when they push you to continue to work without providing you with other ways than isolation to protect yourself. They tell you that you’re expendable. More expendable than the non-essential business executives, lawyers, insurance salesmen, bankers, politicians, et. al., that are all oh so important to protect, shut away as they are in ivory towers to await the passing of the storm.

Because even in an equal society, some are more equal than others. And as it turns out, some people in society are more important to protect than others. Even when those ”others” are considered ”essential”.

/Sebastian Lindberg 7/4-2020