Admission time: It is beginning to look as though we’re going to have the coronavirus around for as long as most of us are alive.

That’s what I keep hearing as I listen to the news and read various publications. It makes me wonder: Will the virus continue to disrupt our lives?

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the president’s senior medical adviser, today was dishing out a bit of good news. He said that the virus will morph perhaps by the end of the year from a “pandemic” to an “endemic” disease, meaning that it will still be around but will be manageable enough for us to avoid major life disruptions.

Well … I can live with that.

The “new normal” appears now to include a lifetime with this virus lurking in the background. At least that’s what I glean from it at the time being.

As I have noted already, the idea of wearing masks is seeming to be more “normal” than not wearing one. I’ve been able to travel a good bit over the years and have noticed masks are the “uniform of the day” for most folks in places with poor quality. Residents of Asian cities such as Bangkok, Taipei, Delhi, Ho Chi Minh City, Phnom Penh, Mumbai wear masks routinely as they go about their day. Now they have a virus to keep them masked up.

So, it might be for most of the rest of the world.

I’m OK with it, too — as long as it keeps my loved ones and me safe from the virus.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Oh, brother. Let me count the reasons why I am so ready for the pandemic that has become part of our daily lives to be under control enough for it to no longer dominate every news cycle I watch.

The docs the networks trot out keep telling us that the current surge, the Omicron variant, will continue for a while longer. Then they tell us those who are stricken by it won’t be as sick as before, but that there will be more of them.

I am counting my lucky stars, my blessings and every little thing I can count for the fact that my wife and I have remained free of the virus. Same for our sons and their loved ones. One of my sisters got quite sick a year ago; her husband was asymptomatic with the virus. They’re recovering and I am thankful for that, quite obviously.

However, I am so-o-o-o-o ready for this virus to be controlled. The vaccines are working. They have those oral meds that prevent occurrences. I might stock up on the pills if I am able to find an outlet to acquire them.

It’s becoming clearer to me that we aren’t likely to exterminate the COVID virus. We’ll just need to corral it and keep a sharp eye on it.

I am OK with that. I just am ready to be free of the news barrage dealing with the COVID virus.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Now comes word from the hinterland that Donald Trump’s praise for vaccines to fight the coronavirus pandemic is drawing the ire of the cultists who continue to cling to some phony suspicion about whether the vaccines work.

Of course they work! Donald Trump recently has stepped up his support of the vaccines in the wake of President Biden’s praise over his predecessor’s work to make them available.

Some of the diehard Trump loyalists, though, ain’t buying the notion that the former POTUS is pushing, that they are doing the job they are intended to do.

And that only the unvaccinated are the remaining Americans who are “getting really sick” from the pandemic and its assorted variants.

They are mistaken. The former president is correct.

There. I said it.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

The stories we keep hearing — all of them verified by medical records — of unvaccinated Americans dying of COVID complications are beginning to drive me utterly insane.

Additionally, we keep hearing from local public health officials from coast to coast to coast that the vast majority of COVID-related hospitalizations involve those who haven’t been vaccinated against the killer virus.

What part of “common denominator” do the numbskulls among us not understand?

The unvaccinated Americans who for whatever reason — many of them idiotic — are not getting protection against the virus simply stun me into silence. I have nothing to say to them or about them.

I heard a story that was reported today about a young man, 24 years of age, who died of COVID complications. The network had recorded him saying he had resisted taking the vaccine because he bought into the idiocy that the pandemic was made up, that it was a “conspiracy” concocted for reasons no one can comprehend.

Then he got sick. He told the TV interviewer he wished he had taken the vaccine earlier. He was convinced it would save his life.

The young man died over the weekend. He leaves a wife and a young son.

Thus, I am left with this conflict of emotions: Do I feel sad that a young man died? Or do I just blow it off, just as he did when he refused to get inoculated?

Pfizer is getting closer to having its booster dose approved by the feds. When that moment arrives, my wife and I will be among the first to get in line and receive it. We got our second shots in February. We have been fortunate so far. We mask up. We practice “social distancing” when it’s possible. We don’t go anywhere out to eat. We stay home as much as we can.

I am fighting hard to keep my sanity, though, while we hear these stories similar to the one I just described. That might be more difficult than the struggle to remain clear of the COVID virus.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com