Burl Ives can sing his little heart out about having a merry-little Christmas this year but how merry can it be with Covid-19 dictating the way we live and what we do. Never been a Christmas like this one. After struggling through an awfully hard year, many Americans are just now discovering that this Pandemic is affecting them in another personal way. Tens of thousands of survivors have severely damaged lungs and will never recover to their old healthy ways. Sadder still are the thousands who had loved ones die. In many cases they died and were buried without funerals. Such is our state of fear.

America’s response to many of our real problems is affected by an “anti-science fever” that has swept our nation. Remember when a vaccine was finally developed by Jonas Salk in the 1950s for the Polio Vaccine? Long lines of scared folk formed up to get their shots.

That was then. I think Americans had more faith in scientific “facts” back in the 1950’s than they do now. Opening up the new century we saw an increase of scoffing from ordinary people toward what was being promoted as “scientific facts.” About 50% of Americans now proudly state they will not take this new Covid shot. Wow. Sort of like a child holding its breath trying to force a parent to see things their way.

This anti-science movement was reinforced by the scientific communities’ dire predictions of many things that never happened. Such as that of a coming “Ice Age” back in the 1970’s. This was quickly replaced by the global warming panic the scientific community had quickly hopped on after the ice age thing did not catch on. Somewhere in all this the scientific community and the liberals seemed to join hands together so they could focus their efforts to save all of us from ourselves.

This path was smoothed out by an eccentric liberal by the name of Al Gore. Al turned global warming into a liberal-religious event. He had us all pretty well convinced we would all be dead real soon and even had a movie to prove it. But here we are. Still alive. Not yet burned to a toasty crisp nor frozen solid. Now here we are, divided up into little political groups with a growing distrust of the politicians and scientist guiding our steps. And with some disastrous consequences.

No wonder when health scientists started warning of a dangerous pandemic heading our way about a year ago many turned a deaf ear. Even after it had sickened many and people started dying like flies, scoffers arose and said things like, “just another flu.” When the health care experts begged Americans to put on a mask the whole struggle to save America sank even further into a deadly political stalemate. Wearing a mask was seen by some as caving into a bunch of halfwit liberals who just wanted to control us. The same bunch that ran with Al Gore. Then after it turns out that wearing of mask is, after all, a good way to not catch the virus, many still will not wear one and say so with pride.

As for me? My wife and I will wear a mask, stay in, and avoid crowds all we can. Regardless of politics I think we need to think for ourselves and if someone knows a lot more about a subject (such as this new virus) than we do, we need to shut up and try to do what the experts beg us to do. As I said earlier, the vaccine is now here. It is a matter of patiently waiting and for those who are smart enough to do so, take the shot when it gets here. That will put an end to it. If half of the population holds back to see what happens, well I wish you the best of luck. Luck will just have to see you through. Or not.

I am really looking forward to putting all this behind me and being back in church, being able to walk into a restaurant and enjoy a special meal, or just being able to go to the post office without a mask. Let us pull together and wipe out this virus. Be sure and support your church.

Wayne Bullard, DPh cwaynebullard@gmail.com