This poem is full of figures. We have become consumed with watching the numbers, especially since the Delta variant came into our lives.
I came up with the idea for this poem, while watching an hour-long question and answer session on the Delta Variant on MSNBC. Many of the figures are lifted from that conversation.
Ninety-three million is the number of people in the US who qualify to get the vaccine, but haven’t gotten it yet.
Sixteen percent is the amount of the world’s population that has been fully vaccinated.
Fifty thousand is the number of new COVID 19 cases recorded in Florida in the past two weeks.
The Delta variant produces 1000 times as much in the way of viral load in our nasal pharynx, as the Alpha did.
The Delta transmits from one infected person to about five. The Alpha only transmitted one to two.
“A little nerve wracking” is the way the 12-year-old Jacksonville sister, Lila Hartley, described how it feels to be in school, when not everyone is masked. She wrote a letter to the School Board in our County, describing how she wanted a mask mandate to protect her younger brother, who was too young to be vaccinated. She received a reply that the School Board would take her comments seriously. But then, the very person who penned the reply voted against the mask mandate. Fortunately, a mandate with an opt-out option passed anyway.
Seven thousand students have already opted out–5% of the student population. School has been in session five days.
The expression “screaming” was borrowed from Dr. Hotez in the one-hour show. He made use of it time and again, to express the urgency of the situation. Seems appropriate.
If you do the math.
Ninety-three million.
And sixteen percent.
Plotting coordinates.
Mapping descent.
A mere fifty thousand.
One state, in two weeks.
What strange computations
Infections can wreak.
We call our fear Delta,
The symbol of change.
One thousand times more
Virus, in our pharynx.
A screaming transmission.
A steep one-to-five.
Astonishing, anyone’s
Left, who’s alive.
The nurses and teachers
They quit, one by one.
And as battle fodder,
They cut. And they run.
“A little nerve-wracking.”
The mouths of mere babes.
Seven-thousand bare faces.
Surrounded. So brave.
Our children obey us,
In class or on Zoom.
It’s a pity, there are
No adults in the room.
Copyright 2021 Andrea LeDew
For another poem that plays with numbers, this time from Attorney General Barr’s report on the Mueller report, read Uncountable.
These latest developments are too distressing for words. If we ever get the post-apocalypse, I wonder what it will be like.
The currency of the moment is outrage, each development more outrageous than the last.
It is–and I just can’t understand why. We seem to be well on the way to destroying the planet and the human race. And for what?
The way you put these numbers into a poem is unexpectedly powerful—emotionally.
Thank you Margrit!