CHANGE MY MIND: LIFE IS NEVER GOING BACK TO PRE-COVID NORMAL. Definitions: pre-COVID normal means no masks and normal social activities like restaurants open with 100% capacity, plays, concerts, ballgames, and religious services open, all in person. Reasons I believe this: 1/x

1) 2 weeks to flatten the curve is now at just shy of a year. March 6, 2020 was the last time I had in-person social contact. Creative writing group, stoicism group, religious community, local theatre, and everything else I did outside my bedroom except therapy closed down 2/x

in the following week and all are still closed. Moving to Florida is not an option. 2) The administration is making it very clear that they're in no hurry for normal. Masks until 2022 (at 2 weeks = 1 year, 2022 is likely more like 2032, at least) and insisting that not even 3/x

vaccinations will mean we can stop masks and social distancing. 3) COVID fear is giving a large section of the population a daily reason to feel good about themselves. The daily virtue of masking, commiserating about how much better they are than those who resist masking, 4/x

lamenting the "selfishness" of those who are concerned freedom will never return, etc., is an addictive, self-righteous high that they won't give up easily. 4) A closed economy makes more people dependent on the government, which the party currently in power likes very much. 5/x

5) I know from my own "lived experience" as a PTSD patient how comforting it is to live in fear all the time. It relieves you of personal responsibility and provides inordinate excuses. It takes a hell of a lot of work to break that habit. Most won't do the work, and many who 6/x

would, if they knew how, won't have the guidance available. EXPECTED COUNTERARGUMENTS: we won't put up with this forever; revolution will come first. I doubt this. Evidence: we're just shy of a year into "two weeks to flatten the curve" and we shifted from "we're all going 7/x

to get it; let's just not all get it at the same time and overwhelm the hospitals" to "keep masking and social distancing even after a vaccine" without much pushback. If I'd told you on March 6, 2020 that on Valentine's Day 2021 everything would still be closed, you would 8/x

have predicted revolution by then, yes? Nobody would put up w/this for a year. KIDS: people care too much about their kids to let this go on. Bullshit. Teacher unions run the show and there are suicide clusters in Las Vegas, PA, IA, and other places, yet the admin won't even 9/x

commit to one day of school a week by the end of April, at this point. Nobody cares. Kids can't vote and they aren't unionized. Spikes in domestic violence, psychiatric hospitalizations, overdoses, and other markers that this situation is intolerable aren't moving the needle 10/x

of those in power at all. So, that's what I think: that I and others who live alone should prepare to live with profound loneliness and isolation for the foreseeable future with no end likely to come for years -- if ever. Change my mind. /end