Will you be participating in the Covid Riots of 2020? Would that be the Covid 19 Riots of ’20?

I’m undecided.

I’m tired of being self-isolated. I wear a mask when I go out in public. I social distance whenever I can.  But I’m also irritable and cranky. That’s as close as a Baby Boomer gets to riot-worthy I guess.

In the 1800s there were riots because of cholera!  Peasants – of which I consider myself – and soldiers rioted against the wealthy, law enforcement, and hospitals.  Russia, Great Britain, and Germany were the hubs of the riots.  And they came after a second wave of cholera.

Fear that the government and doctors were allied in a grand conspiracy to oppress the populace was at a fever pitch. The people took to the streets to prove that they would not abide by quarantine, that they would defy the powers that be and go on about their daily lives.

Sound familiar?

By the way, some experts say we are in the seventh wave of the cholera pandemic.  So gear yourselves up for six more waves of Covid 19.

Epidemics are, by their very nature, divisive. The neighbor you might, in better times, turn to for help becomes a possible source of infection. The rituals of daily life become opportunities for transmission; the authorities enforcing quarantine become agents of oppression. Time and time again throughout history, people have blamed outsiders for outbreaks.

The U.S. is not at the end of the first wave of Covid 19, at best it’s at a plateau. And the violence is starting. It’s the Anti-maskers vs the Maskers.  It’s Round Earth vs the Flat Earth believers.  It’s Trumpers vs Faucites.

The violence has started in case you don’t follow the news. Show up anyplace in a mask and your likely to be verbally assaulted – and chances are increasing that you may be physically assaulted. The Covid 19 Riots of 2020 are starting. Will you participate?