Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that many who post in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table and hope to make some new friends as well.
Not too much to share this evening. My energy is pretty low. I imagine there are several reasons for that but I wonder about this in the Washington Post: Pandemic grief could become its own health crisis. Here’s a bit of the article:
...With each covid-19 death affecting an estimated nine survivors, more than 4.5 million Americans are grieving loved ones lost to the virus. Beyond deaths to other causes, there were additional U.S. fatalities last year: gatherings with family and friends, classroom learning, millions of jobs that won’t return. Collectively, we lost a way of life in 2020.
Yet there has been no sustained outpouring of public support for mourners, as happened after the devastation of 9/11. Instead of a broad acknowledgment of mass distress, our nation has been mute with grief.Pandemic skepticism has also disparaged the losses some have experienced.
This is a precarious state for a nation. Grief is cyclical, especially around anniversary dates. Even under optimal conditions, many mourners experience a dip in functioning at the one-year mark. We should expect this to happen, starting this month, with the one-year anniversaries of the first wave of pandemic deaths and lockdowns. One year isn’t far on the long arc of adjustment, but it’s well beyond the point that most people expect visible evidence of mourning to last. Collectively failing to grant each other permission to express distress beyond the first weeks after a loss can have profound health consequences.
Wow. It’s been almost a year since everything shut down and we all pulled into our shells. And although their are signs of hope and vaccines are being distributed, it is still going to take some time before people feel safe. We still have to be careful.
And I still have no idea when Ann and I can get vaccinated. I expect it will be another month.
Come in, be comfortable, and share your day, your weekend plans, your menus! This is an open thread.