When I was a kid, the creepiest show on TV was “The Twilight Zone,” created and hosted by Rod Serling, whose elegant, vaguely sinister demeanor haunted my dreams. As he said each week, “It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.” Each 30-minute episode was a regularly scheduled fever dream. Does anyone else remember the aliens who came to Earth so they could serve humans? Then, it was back to reality, relieved yet shaken, occasionally stirred.
Sound familiar? How about two years of living in the twilight zone, starring a spiked bouncy ball that zips around the world, destroying lives seemingly at random, with shape-changing properties that allow it to evade would-be destroyers. And we watch in disbelief as it changes everything. Not for 30 minutes a week, but for 24 hours a day, every day.
We were speaking with friends the other day, wondering about the future of work in a post-pandemic world. One friend, a commercial builder, described how big clients are downsizing their space needs, without plans for future re-expansion. He expects the K Street downtown corridor to transform from commercial to residential. We generally agreed that some enterprises, such as medicine and laboratory research, will require in-person work, but many other types of work likely will be transformed. Another friend, a psychiatrist with keen insights into behavior, commented that we still need in-person human connections that add value to work and to its quality. At the end of it all we all agreed that things would change, but the precise contours of that change remain uncertain.
Meanwhile my week in the twilight zone was marked by an upper respiratory infection, which led to five negative tests (two by PCR) for COVID-19. Out of an abundance of caution I worked from home all week, and moved my Thursday clinic to telehealth. Such is the nature of life in the time of coronavirus.
Relief is on the way. I feel fine now, and look forward to the return of the university to in-person instruction as outlined in President DeGioia’s recent announcement. New COVID-19 cases in DC have plummeted over the past week, so it seems that the Omicron wave in fact was a flash flood. However, it is cresting elsewhere in the U.S., so this is not over. But, it is plausible to hope that we will be pretty much done with Omicron by the end of February. And, then what? That’s the big question. Will this mark the beginning of the endemic phase? Or will it simply presage a return to the Delta wave? Will we instead move on to the next variant? Relief? Misery? Both? I don’t know.
At some point we need to begin to fully live again, to leave the twilight zone. For some, that may require baby steps, others may just feel comfortable jumping into the water. That all remains to be seen. But that time is coming.
Meanwhile, stay safe and be well.
Lou
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