Riding the Wave, 15 & 16. Between Masks and Critical Thinking.

This morning, my daughter and her cousin-best friend went to the Sunday market in Padrón. When they arrived, since there weren't many people, they decided to eat a café breakfast at a small establishment. They were both wearing their masks, and the woman who welcomed them, too. When she saw them, she commented to the cousin, "Hello! It's been so long, hasn't it? What will you have?"

The two gave their order, acknowledging that, yes, it had been a long time. After the woman had served them, the two asked each other, "Do you know her?" "No, do you?" "No." When they got up to pay and leave, the woman asked the cousin about her brother, "He must be quite the man by now, isn't he?" The cousin nodded, "Yes, he is." They exchanged further pleasantries and left.

The cousin mentioned, once outside and walking away, "My sister is now a boy, it seems." The two didn't know who the woman was, and since they were all wearing masks, whoever the woman thought the cousin was, is someone with similar eyes and hair. It's not the first time I almost pass by someone I know wearing a mask, without saluting them. It's amazing how much a mask, by covering just the lower part of the face, can conceal a person. I have new students this year who I have never seen without a mask. I bet that once we can take them off, I won't know them if I walk past them on the street.

Our heads and faces define us. Some days, wearing the mask along the street, I think about women in the Arab world who cover their faces, or parts of them. It is a nice way to hide away, to conceal ourselves. However bothersome the mask is, it keeps part of us hidden away. We can pretend to smile, and can act in ways we wouldn't if our faces were uncovered. 

How soon we can open up to the world again will depend on the vaccines being tested in their final stages. And, on how many won't want to receive them. My husband and I are surprised by some people we know. One is a negationist. He denies that the Covid virus is really that bad, or that so many people have died from it, or have suffered long consequences. He mentioned that it's a way of the world governments to manipulate the population. Another says that he won't get a vaccine because they will contain nanobots that will work to make us sterile and docile, just like was explained in a video he saw, and that he sent my husband. Yet another says the vaccine will contain things like mercury or other poisons that will hurt us more than the virus. Anti-vaxxers and consipiracy theorists have done their job well.

If world governments wanted to control the population, they can just continue what they're doing now. We receive more poisons in our bodies daily, than we could ever receive in all the vaccines we receive over our lifetimes. To control population numbers, the plastics in which food is placed simply have to continue containing bisphenol A. This chemical can cause up to twenty percent of unexplained infertility. To control our movements, there are enough cameras and ways of tracing our phones and other electronics, to know where we are every two minutes. There's no need for nanobots. While the definitive cause of autism is not known, it has been proven that any mercury that may be present in a vaccine is not enough to cause it. We probably ingest more mercury by eating a tunafish sandwich than in all the vaccines created up till now.

What vaccines have done is save lives. The WHO estimates that up to 2.5 million deaths a year are avoided from tetanus, measles, whooping cough, or diphtheria vaccines in the world. Another worry is that the vaccine for Covid-19 has been too hastily made. But, no, all the protocols are being followed. The work on a vaccine has been ongoing since January. The first vaccines will probably roll out either at the end of this year, or the beginning of the next. Keep in mind, that every year, a new vaccine has to be created for the flu, because the flu virus tends to change every few months, and from the southern winter to the northern winter. The coronavirus causing Covid has not mutated enough to make a vaccine impossible. It is quite stable among viruses, unlike the HIV virus, which does mutate much more, making it impossible, at the moment, for an AIDS vaccine to appear.

What I wish would appear is a vaccine to stimulate critical thinking in humans. That would be priceless.

Life continues.