The Hospital 06/03/23
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Here in middle-America, folks never were that big on masking. We had
very little in the way of Covid deaths in my city, in spite of this
and other interesting (to me) factors. We had a hospital about 3min
from my house (which recently was closed due to mis-management of
funding), where they had setup a special parking lot for Covid
testing, with flags and lines painted about to guide the massive
traffic through. But the traffic never came, and the parking lot
literally grew over with weeds, even before the hospital closed, and
before they bothered taking down all the markers. That parking lot was
an interesting symbol, in my eyes at least.
The larger hospital, about 45 minutes from here and in a larger and
more politically diverse city, held fast to the masking for a long,
long time. In fact, it was only in recent months it seems, that they
let it go (well, at least seasonally I believe.) They were a little
funny; at times, you could walk in an mask or no mask, no one would
say anything to you. For most of the mask times, the doctors and
nurses also were 50/50 on whether or not they'd have one. Behind
closed doors, they'd frequently ask if we were alright just removing
them.
My wife was at the ER mid-pandemic; hospital security insisted on
escorting us around the mostly empty building. Nurses at stations
would all suddenly mask up when we appeared around corners. Am I wrong
for finding that amusing?
Just before the hospital let it all go, they went through an odd
phase, where they redoubled their efforts to mask everyone who came in
the doors. It was almost defensive, a sort of "this is still
important!" phase. Some hospital staff expressed frustration directly.
Most hospital staff that we encountered, really.
We were at the hospital just the other day, for a follow-up MRI. No
masks, people all over the place. The pandemic really is over, at
least in middle-America, where it was always a little bit of a
question anyway. But there are still one or two in the crowd who still
have a mask on, at the hospital, and elsewhere. I don't know their
stories, perhaps they have great reasons. In any case, their reasons
are their own, and that is fine.
Oh, I forgot the hospital restaurant, which was always mask-free, at
least every time we were there. Pretty interesting!
Consequently, we're looking at visiting the hospital less after this
follow-up MRI went well. I'm really thankful for that.
