Given that no one’s perfect or always right, let’s declare truce in COVID wars | Opinion – TCPalm

Fred Fiske| Guest columnist

Watch Sen. Paul and Dr. Fauci's COVID-19 clashes

A mashup of the verbal showdowns between Dr. Anthony Fauci and Senator Rand Paul.

USA TODAY

A COVID-related bulletin: Dont trust the know-it-alls; the way forward is not always clear; no one has all the answers not Democrats, Republicans, independents or Libertarians.

President Joe Biden is as stumped now as former President Donald Trump was then. As Dr. Anthony Fauci explains, its a wily virus.

Heres a deal: Ill stop beating up on Trump over COVID-19, if youll take a break from bashing Biden over Omicron.

Its tough to be a leader during a pandemic whether a president, senator, governor, mayor, health administrator or school superintendent. People can get edgy.

Fauci and Sen. Rand Paul seem ready for a duel. There was a hubbub about education officials calling parents domestic terrorists. Hey, some parents railing about school closings have gone overboard; not good. I also sympathize with the frustrated moms and dads (and teachers).

Every day, in homes across the country, decisions have to be made: measuring risks and benefits. Its enough to drive anyone to distraction. Or into denial.

Mardie is one of my most COVID-conscious friends fully vaccinated, uses high-grade masks, limits exposure to strangers. Yet she makes an exception for an unvaccinated grandchild. And why not?

My palJoeyhas planned a two-family trip to Orlando for months, and now faces unwelcome factors a surging virus, an unvaccinated toddler, the depressing prospect of canceling and losing thousands in airfare and Disney tickets.

My buddy Michael, among the brainiest fellows I know, wont get vaccinated. Hes considered all the angles, believe me.

Michael stays cheerful; others, not so much. The vaccinated resent the unvaccinated. The unvaccinated face added risks, and feel besieged (that Green Bay quarterback seems to be OK, but the tennis star took a hit when Australia kicked him out).

In supermarket checkout lines, masked shoppers look daggers at the unmasked, who pretend not to notice. Parents worry about their children, and little ones in theirlittle masks are growing up worried.Worst of all, people keep getting sick, really sick, and dying.

Daughters Molly and Kate both had COVID scares, but theyre OK. Brother Jonathan got pretty sick, and is better. Kates family of four are on a dizzying test-go-round due to exposures and precautions in the normal course of their busy lives. Positive test results mean lonely, unsettled days of quarantine.

Will we get through this? I hope so. It would help if there was less passion, more compassion; more faith that democratically elected leaders even the ones you disagree with are not out to get you and wreck the country.

Most of them have done the best they can. That includes Biden, Trump, Fauci, Rand Paul, even (gulp) Mitch McConnell. (I never thought Id write that.)

There is plenty of room in this messy democracy to engage on any number of issues immigration, climate change, abortion, guns, race and more. Thats what elections are for.The COVID epidemic is different.Epidemiology is messy, too, but its science, not politics.

Trust the scientists to get us through this, and the politicians will continue to be well, politicians. Meanwhile, try not to take it so personally. Stop blaming the other guy. Lets declare a truce in politicizing COVID, which so far seems to be outsmarting us all.

Fred Fiske is the retired editorial page editor and senior writer of The Post-Standard in Syracuse, New York. He winters in North Hutchinson Island.

See original here:
Given that no one's perfect or always right, let's declare truce in COVID wars | Opinion - TCPalm