These next few minutes

Earlier this week, there were posts about a nice team group run on Long Island (with smiling faces in a picture), followed by a sobering assessment of the next few months of this pandemic (no smiling faces, just links to long, wordy New York Times article). Here we are at the end of the week in which the pandemic has raged beyond belief and in some cases beyond control, in terms of confirmed positive cases and fatalities. The sheer scope of this thing is still difficult for our brains to fathom. We’re in the teeth of it. I guess perspective comes after the fact.

That group photo from last week’s run? A team member not pictured in that photo started having Covid symptoms the next day and eventually tested positive. He was quite ill for a few days, and is doing better now. None of the guys in the photo was wearing masks nor following social distance guidelines. Am I judging? Perhaps I should look in the mirror, or more specifically this post-run group photo from Friday’s run through the early-morning darkness in Poughkeepsie. No masks, no social distance. There’s a guy from our group missing from the photo. We ran together on Monday. On Tuesday night, as the group text lit up for planning of the Wednesday run, he said he was feeling like crap. He’s doing better now, awaiting a Covid result for him and his wife. After Friday’s run, the guy standing to my right, far less than 6 feet apart, texted me that his wife woke up feeling terrible – fever, headache, body aches. A rapid test later in the afternoon came back negative.

What’s my point? Actually, I’m not really sure. No conclusions to reach. Feel free to assess blame, point fingers at our lack of protocol (although, in fairness, DocDog -- a local runner who is practices family medicine -- has told us that risk of transmission is extremely low outdoors, he doesn’t run with a mask or a gaiter, but he does try to maintain physical distancing) and shame us for group running during this scary spike in the pandemic. You may be right. OK, well, maybe here’s my point: In the previous post, I talked about how these next few months are going to be really difficult, really bad. Now that were a few days into the first week of “these next few months,” I guess the realization is we have to manage these next few days, next few hours, next few minutes. Be smart. Maybe, even, smarter than me (a low bar of achievability, to be sure!). Now’s not the time for pandemic fatigue. More than being smart, be vigilant. Stay outside, where the risk is lower? Don’t let your guard – or your mask or gaiter – down.