Rural Routes/Margot Ford McMillen

We Need Teamwork to Beat COVID

“Nature bats last.” It’s time to re-think that old bumper sticker and remind ourselves that, indeed, while humans believe we’re winning the COVID game, it’s nature, with her randomly-selected team captain, that chooses the batting order. When the bases are loaded, she sends in her strongest hitter.

In the nature-or-nurture question, virus answers “both.” A virus can drop into a host one way, then adapt, and become something new—a variant. A virus is neither animal, mineral nor vegetable; COVID’s virus is an ultimate opportunist, and humans are today its easiest host. It has also been at home in bats or minks, apes, cats and dogs.

It takes advantage of healthy cells, or cells afflicted with cancer, heart disease, asthma or any other compromising condition. And, sometimes when it finds a host, it changes a bit. The changed bit might move into new hosts and change again. And, so, we’re seeing double mutants coming along, one wreaking havoc in India where lack of preparation and faulty data have created the worst wave so far.

We shouldn’t be surprised by the virus’s adaptability. No two beings in the world are alike, be they viruses, humans, bumble bees or daylily plants. We are all variants waiting to express our unique selves and conquer the world. When it works out in our favor, we call it “evolution” or even “selective breeding.” Otherwise, the variants are “mutants” or “corrupt.”

Getting ahead of COVID’s adaptability is why doctors want to immunize as many people as possible, and as quickly as possible. Doctors believe we can get ahead of Nature, and maybe we can. If we do, it’s not because the virus has just faded away. It’s because people have worked hard, inventing vaccines and getting them distributed.

Even though I believe it’s a matter of free choice, I’m perplexed when friends tell me they’re not getting a shot. And I’ve heard this from some really smart people. One friend says he’s already had the virus, and believes he’s now immune. Another doesn’t trust the government and goes into a rant about socialism taking over. Another says the science is corrupt, explaining that scientists only work on things when they’re paid. One says the rollout was too fast, the science was sloppy.

Because I live in a rural place, am vaccinated myself, and because the weather has been perfect for meeting outside, I’m not too worried about these folks, but they still puzzle me. Two young fellows, both young and strong, say they’re young and strong enough not to worry. These guys—one a forester and one a farmer—have something of the macho man going on. Somehow, the wearing of masks and the free shots in the arm turned into … something else. Like the COVID virus itself, I guess, the argument becomes a completely new not-animal, not-vegetable, not-mineral thing. Not macho. Not cool.

The best explanation I’ve heard from a no-vax friend is that he works hard to keep his life, and his body, un-corrupted. His special worry is genetically modified organisms, GMOs. He eats locally sourced, organic foods, wears carefully sourced union-made clothes, rides a bike to work. Why would he want to change all that with a shot of unknown stuff through a needle into his body? I get it, even though I’m looking forward to time with my family, who I haven’t seen in more than a year except on a computer screen.

Nature bats last. One young friend, hale and hearty as the two macho guys, lost his father to COVID. He understands that an un-sick person can take it home to a loved one. When shots became available to his age range, he was first in line.

Up until now, this column has assumed that humans and nature are opposing teams and that nature, as the bumper sticker says, bats last. If Dear Nature has her way, we will be living with COVID for centuries, just as we live with malaria, chickenpox and various flus. There will be vaccines, and they will eventually fail as Nature spins off variants for as long as there are humans and minks.

Way back in the olden days of 2020, we thought all we had to do was win an election, get a couple of shots, and hey presto we’d have a new normal. But that was then and this is now. It’s possible, and even likely that we’re in a between-innings time, with the Hammond Organ playing and humans enjoying a stretch.

When no one was downtown, the stores got a new coat of paint in anticipation of the day we’d be vaccinated and now, they’re vacant and as overbuilt as one of China’s ghost cities.

And we, cars still parked in the driveway, are keeping the masks handy, re-thinking the old bumper stickers and wondering about the new “normal.”

Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. She also is a co-founder of CAFOZone.com, a website for people who are affected by concentrated animal feeding operations. Her latest book is ”The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History”. Email: margotmcmillen@ gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2021

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