The Hospital                                                  06/03/23
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Here in middle-America,  folks never were that big on  masking. We had
very little in  the way of Covid  deaths in my city, in  spite of this
and other  interesting (to me) factors.  We had a hospital  about 3min
from  my house  (which recently  was closed  due to  mis-management of
funding),  where  they had  setup  a  special  parking lot  for  Covid
testing,  with flags  and lines  painted  about to  guide the  massive
traffic  through. But  the traffic  never  came, and  the parking  lot
literally grew over  with weeds, even before the  hospital closed, and
before they bothered taking down all the markers. That parking lot was
an interesting symbol, in my eyes at least.

The larger  hospital, about 45 minutes  from here and in  a larger and
more politically  diverse city, held fast  to the masking for  a long,
long time. In fact,  it was only in recent months  it seems, that they
let it  go (well, at least  seasonally I believe.) They  were a little
funny; at times,  you could walk in  an mask or no mask,  no one would
say  anything to  you. For  most of  the mask  times, the  doctors and
nurses  also were  50/50 on  whether or  not they'd  have one.  Behind
closed doors, they'd  frequently ask if we were  alright just removing
them.

My  wife was  at the  ER mid-pandemic;  hospital security  insisted on
escorting  us around  the mostly  empty building.  Nurses at  stations
would all suddenly mask up when we appeared around corners. Am I wrong
for finding that amusing?

Just  before the  hospital let  it all  go, they  went through  an odd
phase, where they redoubled their efforts to mask everyone who came in
the  doors.  It  was  almost  defensive, a  sort  of  "this  is  still
important!" phase. Some hospital staff expressed frustration directly.
Most hospital staff that we encountered, really.

We were at  the hospital just the  other day, for a  follow-up MRI. No
masks, people  all over  the place.  The pandemic  really is  over, at
least  in middle-America,  where  it  was always  a  little  bit of  a
question anyway. But there are still one or two in the crowd who still
have a  mask on, at  the hospital, and  elsewhere. I don't  know their
stories, perhaps they  have great reasons. In any  case, their reasons
are their own, and that is fine.

Oh, I forgot  the hospital restaurant, which was  always mask-free, at
least every time we were there. Pretty interesting!

Consequently, we're looking  at visiting the hospital  less after this
follow-up MRI went well. I'm really thankful for that.