COVID MEANS NO THEATERS FOR ME

COVID is still out there, with cases rising.

I’ve been hearing great things about the new hit movie TOP GUN: MAVERICK, starring Tom Cruise. I’m not a fan of Tom Cruise, but I was a fan of the original TOP GUN (my younger brother was a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, so I was at least adjacent to that culture) and this is the kind of movie you really need to see on the big screen. Sadly, TOP GUN: MAVERICK is only being shown in theaters.

But therein lies the problem. I haven’t been inside a movie theater in two-and-a-half years—since COVID made it a life-threatening proposition. For me, the idea of sitting for two hours with a crowd of folks who may or may not be infected/masked/vaccinated/boosted (depending on the stage of the pandemic we’re talking about) just hasn’t been worth it, no matter what’s on the screen in front of me. Even at the times I usually attend showings (matinees in the middle of the week), I figure some fool would sit right behind me in a nearly empty theater and cough on my bucket of popcorn. People did, even before that was something that could kill me. I keep waiting for the pandemic to be “over,” or at least to ease, so I can resume what had been one of the greatest pleasures of my pre-COVID life—watching a new movie in a big, dark theater, with popcorn and everything.

Hollywood has unilaterally decided that the pandemic is over, though clearly it isn’t. The powers-that-be (filmmakers, studio owners, theater owners) are tired of losing money and audiences to the streaming services. They’ve decided to stop releasing new films to theaters and streaming services like HBO Max at the same time, insisting that blockbusters like TOP GUN: MAVERICK, Michelle Yeoh’s EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE and others serve time in theaters only (and then, presumably, for rent on demand rather than by subscription to streaming). Hallelujah! Just like the old days!

Except, excuse me, this pandemic ain’t over by a long shot. You may be tired of it. We may all be tired of it. But cases are rising—six times the number of daily cases this Memorial Day than last. And that is likely a dramatic undercount. Many public health departments have stopped counting. Folks are testing at home—which, I suppose, is a good thing—but they aren’t reporting the results to anyone if they turn up positive. They’re just staying home. Maybe.

Hospitalizations are up, too, especially in the South and West, where vaccination and booster rates are lower. Sure, death rates are down, thanks to the availability of antivirals like Paxlovid (and the fact that many older Americans are vaccinated and boosted, and younger Americans have a better survival rate), but the effects of long COVID still drag down some 10-30 percent of those who catch the disease, impairing heart, brain, gut or lung function.

Here's the thing: COVID is a nasty disease. It’s a survivor. It mutates to survive in a population and insinuates itself into every cell to survive in the body. You can catch it even if you’ve been vaccinated and boosted. You can catch it more than once—like a cold, or the flu. Any one of those infections can result in a devastating case, not a mild case, though your chances are better if you’ve been vaccinated and boosted. Any one of those infections could result in long COVID, meaning you are left with debilitating brain fog or asthma or a heart problem.

So, no, I won’t be going to the theater to see the new TOP GUN: MAVERICK movie. That’s a risk I won’t take. (I can only pray this thing has subsided enough that I can go to see the new AVATAR when it comes out.) I don’t want to catch COVID, even a mild case. In fact, I don’t even want to catch a stupid cold anymore. I still wear a mask in the grocery store, even though everyone else has stopped because they’re “tired of COVID.” Well, you don’t stop running when a wolf is chasing you just because you’re tired. Or because you suddenly don’t see that wolf behind you.

Cautiously, Donna

 *Information for this post provided by: "Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Maps and Case Count," The New York Times, June 2, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html