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Changed Lives

The use of intrusive technology to help us return to normal is becoming routine and acceptable. The use case today is sensing elevated body temperature and certainly the virus is not the only reason that someone has a fever. People are being required to get habituated to very odd things these days - be scanned and monitored, if showing symptoms of the virus told to just ride it out alone in their home, being asked why they are out and about, if they are teachers be okay watching parents ride side-car with their students at home. 

In ordinary times, none of this would sound normal and that does not even begin to count the mental health problems from social isolation, living with abusive domestic partners, loss of livelihood and so on. The idea that all of this serves the greater goal of saving as many human lives from the virus does not make the conditions more bearable for those who are suffering in other ways. 

I have a few older relatives that could be described as feisty - they like being independent and doing their own thing without interference from anyone. Today, some of them have been pushed close to their breaking point. One aunt is diabetic and in her town there is no access to fresh produce. To add to her woes her very old mother is in the hospital with renal failure. 

M feels entrapped in ways that are completely new to her. A dying mother, mounting hospital expenses, a retired husband who looks to her to lead the family, her only kid in another country, working from home in a job that was never designed to be remote, eating the same meal for going on two months. Nothing changes for her from one day to the next. People like her are at a point where they would be willing to give up a lot for the right to the life they had before this. Those more vulnerable than M would have been at the point sooner and the rest of us will get there in a matter of time. This is a war of attrition no one can win. 

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