Viruses Don't Get Bored

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m done with this pandemic. I’m sick of shelter-in-place, work-from-home and distance learning. I’ve had it with purple, red and orange tiers. I want to put all my masks and bottles of hand sanitizer in a dumpster and burn them. I don’t want any more lock-downs or curfews or social distancing. I’m bored out of my mind with the same monotonous routine over and over again, like some un-funny sequel to Groundhog Day.

The problem is, the virus doesn’t give a shit. The virus doesn’t get bored. It doesn’t get depressed. It doesn’t crave variety or adventure or social interaction. In fact, it’s really frickin’ good at monotonously, relentlessly, ruthlessly doing the same thing over and over again throughout its short microbial life.

The virus doesn’t need to be entertained. It doesn’t need Playstations or DoorDash. It doesn’t care about binge-watching yet another series on Netflix. It doesn’t need to get together for Thanksgiving with friends and family. It only cares about two things: reproducing and finding new hosts. And it doesn’t even really care about the hosts. If they kill their host, so be it — they’ll just find another host. In fact, that may be the one thing humans have in common with the virus — taking our host (in our case, Earth) for granted as we propagate (though, in our case, with much less certainty we’ll find a new host).

We know how to beat this virus, how to slow the spread. But actually doing it is extremely difficult — even in the face of alarming growth in infections. It’s difficult to do without any adverse impact on the economy. It’s difficult when you believe that ignoring it or ridiculing health experts will be to your political advantage. It’s difficult when you feel like “elites" are imposing their judgment on you and curtailing your personal freedom. It’s difficult when you just want it to be over! Want to return to your normal life. But the virus doesn’t care about our opinions, our emotions, our frustrations. It doesn’t have a political agenda, media biases or social prejudices. It doesn’t have empathy or mercy towards its victims.

Finally defeating this virus will require patience, persistence and sacrifice, traits that most Americans, myself included, don’t demonstrate in huge abundance. Our complacency, ultimately our boredom with the monotony, is our greatest weakness — a uniquely human weakness. And the virus is exploiting it. We all hope the answer, in the form of an effective and safe vaccine, is around the corner. The blunt-force nuclear option in the war against an enemy we otherwise seem ill-equipped to defeat. If so, then perhaps next Thanksgiving can be normal again.