Island Senior: If We Make It Through December

If We Make It Through December – Collage by Peggy Sue McRae

“Island Senior” is a regular column on the San Juan Update written by Peggy Sue McRae.

Pretty sure Merle Haggard was not thinking about a spiking global pandemic when he penned the lyrics to his classic country song, If We Make It Through December, yet I can’t think of a more fitting song for wrapping up the year 2020.

Can we hunker down for one more holiday? Can we resist all the hugging and singing that would normally be cheering us through the longest, darkest and coldest nights of the year?

According to Dr. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, “We’re in the middle of a steep slope” referring to the country’s current increase in coronavirus spread. In spite of being urged to stay at home this Thanksgiving millions of Americans did travel.

We won’t know for a few weeks yet what effect that will have on the number of new cases of coronavirus. With the December holidays approaching during that same time period we will likely, according to Dr. Fauci, “see a surge superimposed upon the surge we are already in.” He added, “It is not too late to do something about it”.

Local advice from San Juan County remains, “getting your flu shot, staying home with your household family, not traveling off island, not gathering indoors with others, covering our faces, and not having friends or family visit from off island.”

This virus is a real Grinch! Yet, if we hang in there, wear our masks, wash our hands, and keep on keeping our distance, vaccines for this disease are on the horizon. The beginning of the end just may be in sight.

As Merle Haggard sang it, “If we can make it through December, we’ll be fine”.

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