Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Two Hundred Fifty Two

The days continue sunny and warm, above freezing for a few hours each afternoon. The snow from the clipper storm remains in places, the ground having frozen enough that it will take a truly warm day to melt it entirely. A reminder that winter is here even if it doesn’t quite feel it yet.

Last night word came that our elected leaders here in this Western Dominion are meeting to determine their response to latest incursions by the grippe reborn. An announcement was to come this morning, but it has since been delayed to the end of the day. And so we wait to see what they have determined. Restlessly it seems, people flooding grocery stores and pharmacies as though expecting we will be forbidden to leave our homes.

It seems clear that things cannot continue as they have, though our leaders’ natural inclination is that they should. They do not want further restrictions, having convinced themselves that the economy and the quarantine protocols stand in opposition. We must choose one or the other, but life is rarely so simple.

The holidays loom – Christmas one month away – and no government wants to be the one to cancel that. Yet by refusing to consider more moderate restrictions earlier on, our leaders may have done just that. So we wait to see what is to come.