The COVID Experience: Heading to Utah

Welp, after getting my pay cut drastically due to the pandemic, I can no longer afford to live in Seattle. I've moved in with my parents in Utah, and I'm truly grateful that I'm fortunate enough to have that as an option.

The United States is still largely pretending we're not in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years. I got a few dirty looks from Utah folks when they saw me wearing a mask. Neighbors chatting while standing two feet away from each other, without masks. I still haven't seen anyone outside of my immediate and extended family use a mask since I moved here a week ago.

No wonder COVID is running crazy through our country.

Those of us who took precautions, who self-isolated, who damaged their mental health due to loneliness... We should be outraged.

The White House is saying "the science should not stand in the way" rearding opening our schools. We have new hotspots in Florida, Arizona, Texas, and other states. California is still getting hit hard. We hit 4 million cases recently, and those numbers are still accelerating.

This thing is completely out of control, and states are opening back up.

What the hell is wrong with our country? Other countries who took this threat seriously are starting to look normal again. Germany is throwing a 4000 person concert just to study how the virus spreads! But here we are, screaming about how religious freedom is being taken away because of a 50 person limitation on gatherings.

And all of this time, the richest man in the world keeps getting richer, despite the insanely high numbers of people filing for unemployment and struggling to get by, while our Congress debates if continuing an extra $600 a week in unemployment benefits is the right thing to do.

SPOILERS: Of course it is! We have a looming eviction crisis coming up because the average American has no money to cover emergencies and rent is expensive regardless of where you live.

If you can't tell, I'm absolutely livid. And I hope everyone else is too. We have an election coming up, and it's high time we vote out the neo-liberal bastards who put our country in this broken situation.

And now I have to do all my ranting, raving, and persuading in Utah. I hate living in Utah. I've done it before, and I told myself I'd never do it again.

But here I am.

While there's a sliver of hope, I try to ignore it. I had my heart crushed in 2016, and this time it could happen again. But if Trump wins, I'm terrified we'll find ourselves living in a fascist nation, and all my writing will make me a target. Turns out writing fascists don't like anti-fascists. Who'd'a thunk?

The worst part about being stuck in Utah is that my city is currently fighting back against police brutality in the Seattle Police Department, and this time I'm not around to go protest.

So I'll do my part through writing when I can't march. I'll do my part through conversations with friends and family. I'll do my part by encouraging people to get out and vote against the asshole currently occupying the White House.

100 days until the election.

A lot can and will happen, and I just hope we make it out alive.

2020, get fucked.