With pandemic still raging, ‘there’s no place like home’

By John Freivalds

Published 11/1/2021

Duluth News Tribune

At this time of year our friends and neighbors ask us where we are going for the winter to get away from the cold. “Florida, Arizona, somewhere in the Caribbean?” But I am an old grain trader and always evaluate the risks and rewards in taking a position. And these days the risk in going somewhere out of our safe demographic bubble is not worth the reward. 

So, we hang out in our bubble and do fun things like hunting stores for fresh, sweet rhubarb, which can be cooked for so many wonderful treats. We read books and watch happy, fun movies like “My Cousin Vinny” and “Princess Bride” and adventure flicks like “The Hunt for  Red October.” Or we go to intimate Minnesota Bach ensemble concerts. All boring to some but very safe and fun for many. Besides, it is amazing that you can visit every part of the world viewing YouTube. Someone has been to and filmed all the obscure places, and through the click of a button you can be there without a passport or going through airports and crowds.

The pandemic has increased global stress levels, and people are violently carrying out their frustrations. Airports and airplanes and even stores have become battlegrounds and are not safe places. Some people go ballistic when asked if they are vaccinated or if they would wear a face mask. They state it’s their freedom of choice on what they do. 

Pro-vaccination advocates like me have even been called communists. As someone who fled Soviet communism, my viewpoint is this: I don’t want to breathe the air coming out of unvaccinated and unmasked people’s lungs, as it could endanger me, my children, and my grandchildren. 

News flash: most people suffering with COVID-19 in overburdened hospital ICUs in the U.S. are unvaccinated. But the people who go ballistic about having their freedoms abridged are not in the mood for rational arguments. How we handle the pandemic has divided the world.

Regardless of the advertising that says it’s OK to travel, we are still in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. A resort in Anguilla in the Caribbean bought a full-page, four-color ad in the Sunday New York Times saying it is the only six-star hotel in the world — the sixth star for their diligence in creating a COVID-free environment. But unless you go in a private airplane, you still must go through the hassle of airports — and now with the knowledge that fake vaccine certificates are available to anyone.

The prospect of going some 5,000 miles only to learn you can’t get home because of that country’s exit rules or because U.S. Customs policies have changed is a scary one. 

Vaccines have helped stem COVID-19,  but as John  Barry wrote for Smithsonian magazine in an article titled, “How the horrific 1918 flu spread across America”: “Then there are the less glamorous measures, known as nonpharmaceutical interventions: hand-washing, telecommuting, covering coughs, staying home when sick instead of going to work and, if the pandemic is severe enough, widespread school closings and possibly more extreme controls. … But the effectiveness of such interventions will depend on public compliance, and the public will have to trust what it is being told. That is why, in my view, the most important lesson from 1918 is to tell the truth. (This will depend) on the character and leadership of the people in charge when a crisis erupts.”

In the meantime, I always repeat the last words Dorothy said to Aunt Em in the epic 1939 movie, “The Wizard of Oz.”: “There’s no place like home.”

John Freivalds of Wayzata, Minnesota, is the author of six books and is the honorary consul of Latvia in Minnesota. His website is jfapress.com. He wrote this for the News Tribune.