Here we are, coming up on the second anniversary of the Covid outbreak here and abroad, and we’re still in the midst of its disorder. So much for that initial hope of a two-week or six-week lockdown, max, which even then unfortunately had too many holdouts from the precautions. Can we blame them for leaving the Pandora’s box open for all that’s followed?

Once that first round passed, after its devastation in large urban areas like New York City, we had a breather in which medical procedures were more clearly understood and improved and vaccines became available. We’ve even been able to gather in public again, albeit in fewer numbers and spaced apart while still wearing masks. Surface contamination is no longer a major worry, either.

Where I live, the illness has often seemed to be a distant threat. While I have friends who came out of retirement to resume long hours as medical professionals, their tales of a stress still seemed confined to largely quarantined hospitals and clinics, even though they were only just down the street. Well, I also got updates from fellow clergy who couldn’t visit patients in person, that sort of thing. Still, two years later, I knew of only two cases in our Friends Meeting, both quite mild. Further east, in remote Washington County, Maine, fewer than 3,000 cases and 43 deaths have been tallied, last I looked, though those figures have nearly tripled since November.

Still, the threat kept getting closer and more personal. The surge in the Omicron variant forced the cancellation of the final Christmas performances of our beloved Boston Revels, for example. Traditionally low-rate New Hampshire recently reported the highest per capita figures in the nation. Our twice-a-month local newspaper’s half-dozen or so obituaries now regularly mention “of Covid complications” as the cause of death. (Nobody, presumably, dies directly of the infection or is at least willing to admit that openly. Am I guessing there’s a social stigma?)

We have endured the screeching dissent and violent reactions from those who feel entitled to do whatever they want in public, regardless of any harm to others, and that seems to be spiking.

How long, though, will it take for the emotional frustration of the other side to erupt?

For starters, there’s a growing weariness among those of us who have been wearing masks and getting our booster shots, in part to protect others from suffering from the illness, while enduring the arrogance of those who pooh-pooh the odds, putting their own “liberty” above the common good, and then putting the rest of the populace at risk while expecting overworked medical professionals to come to their rescue and forcing heart attack patients and crash victims to be juggled about for unavailable intensive-care beds.

Look, I know Christian Scientists who have gotten the shots, not for themselves – remember, they generally avoid doctors as a matter of their faith – but out of a sense of social responsibility for others. In contrast, I’m sensing that many of those who refuse vaccinations are also among those accusing lower-income Americans of “entitlement” when it comes to economic and social support, rather than turning the focus to the One Percent who actually benefit financially from overt entitlement in public legislation and regulation. Are these the same ones who scoff at widespread examples of global warming and impending disaster? The willful ignorance, selfish, self-centered behavior, and bullying outrage me. And before they quote – or misquote – Scripture for their positions, I can imagine them refusing Moses’ orders to paint lambs’ blood above their doors for protection from the Angel of Death – “Who are you to tell me what to do?” – but it’s the firstborn who suffer if they don’t. Drat! I can confess a vindictive urge – you know, of the smite-my-enemies vein – but revisiting the Exodus text, I’m seeing that in only one of the first nine plagues are the Israelites exempted from the evil consequences. Pointedly, all Egyptians, not just the pagans, suffer from Pharaoh’s refusal to act in accord with Divine direction.

No matter what, in the end, reality will win out, though it won’t be selective in choosing its victims.

What happens if this affliction spreads to strike down all who haven’t been vaxxed? Costly treatments that could have been avoided will be borne by all, regardless, through Medicare, insurance companies, and unpaid debts to hospitals, more than by the defiant unvaxxed ill and dying. The workforce will continue to be impacted, too.

The Omicron variant, as we’re seeing, is also hitting vaccinated people, but with lesser impact.

We look at the statistics and hear the stories that the new variety is less deadly but more infectious, along with the note that breakthrough cases among the vaxxed hit far more gently than among the unprotected, but we need to listen more closely.

Unless a patient is in need of a respirator, the diagnosis is to stay home, there’s no room at the hospital. Good luck if you’re living alone, and good luck to the rest of the household if you’re not.

Moreover, it’s considered a mild case unless you’re hospitalized or die.

As for those “mild” cases? More than one person has been quoted as saying they’ve never felt so sick in their life.

So far, I’ve been lucky, but my family’s finally been hit, notably in their recent visit to me. My test and my wife’s came back negative, but not so for the rest, despite all their precautions.

Would coming down sick be a sufficient lesson for the nay-sayers? Or would it make them dig in more deeply in denial?