COVID on the Campaign Trail

I’m blaming politics for my latest bout with COVID-19. CO stands for corona, VI for virus, D for disease and 19 for 2019. I was attending a “meet and greet” for a certain candidate for high office (a Republican, proving I’m nonpartisan) and at the same time, unknowingly, getting slammed by the virus. Who could have known? It’s not like people already infected and know it are walking around with neon signs that read, “I have COVID. Don’t invade my space.” Surely the honorable candidate himself DNK. The candidate’s local rally was on a Thursday evening. Imagine the humanity he had been exposed to during three other campaign stops across the state that day. Incubation occurred over a short time. There was another event on Friday of a different sort, then a social honoring the 18 horses in the run for the roses at the Kentucky Derby on Saturday (my horse, a top favorite to win, didn’t scratch, perhaps an omen of things to come), followed by church Sunday. I’m still blaming politics. I hadn’t even sneezed during the coming-on period. I awoke Monday to BOOM! All the symptoms arrived overnight at once, an avalanche of sneezin’, wheezin’, coughin’ and, of course, fussin’ about my situation. Thankfully, there are still acute-care hospitals and clinics left in small town-Rural America. I couldn’t get to ours quickly enough. The clinic has seen so much COVID throughout the pandemic that one no longer just walks in and announces, “I don’t feel good. It must be COVID.” Instead, you must pull your car under the portico and a nurse comes out, swabs your nose and returns to check the data. If they invite you inside the clinic, you know its bad news. It’s when you know you’ve got it. Drugs were ordered- which didn’t include the famous one seen in all those TV ads; the local family doc has stopped prescribing itand the battle to recovery ensued. Of all the different types of events one can attend this particular year, the political sort might be the best place to catch yourself a solid dose of COVID. After all, the whole gamut of politics is at hand. Many states have gubernatorial, congressional and local election campaigns underway this year. Mississippi’s big election year, from governor to coroner, is in 2027, although we will be reelecting U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith this year or choosing her challenger for that job, Columbus district attorney Scott Colom. Attend as many M&Gs with politicians as possible. But do so with the understanding that, while I’m no doctor, these gatherings seem ripe as breeding ground for the illness due to their fast-paced schedules. Three weeks after the initial political rally, another one was scheduled for the leading candidate for governor. I declined. Did I say I’m blaming politics for this? Absolutely. I know of others who were stricken at the same candidate’s face-to-face event. If memory serves, in the first years after COVID-19 appeared on the American footprint, political candidates mentioned it in campaign speeches. It was an “issue.” That remains true but on a lesser scale. I read that Republican candidates have used it more than Democrats, although President Trump was in his first term when it reached our shores and prairies. He declared COVID-19 a national emergency on March 13, 2020. The pandemic is “the worst health crisis facing the global community in more than a century,” wrote KFF healthnews.org, which added that while the U.S. contains only 4-percent of the world population, it accounts for 21-percent of all COVID-19 cases. It’s still with us.