Beyond the Byline: Don’t blame it all on ‘the COVIDS’

Driving to Pulaski, N.Y., earlier this week, I noticed something different in the fall foliage.

I noticed this same difference locally, with many of the trees on the mountainsides looking different.

Not to hold you in suspense, but I’ve noticed a lot more of the color yellow this year and less orange and red fall foliage coloring.

“They got the COVIDS,” my friend said as his dad slept in the back seat.

Yes, even one of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s most beautiful displays — fall foliage — has fallen victim to “the COVIDS.”

At least that’s what we seem to be blaming everything on these days.

This is not to make light of this nasty virus that has killed more than 210,000 Americans and sickened millions. This is, indeed, a pandemic and it should be treated as such.

And for the most part, people are wearing protective masks, they are social distancing and they are very aware of the dangers than can lurk in a mere sneeze.

Nobody wants “the COVIDS.” But apparently, we have consciously or subconsciously decidedto blame just about everything on “the COVIDS.”

If we are talking on the phone, for example, and the person on the other end coughs a little, you invariably will hear this:

“You don’t have the COVIDS, do you.”

No, something went down the wrong pipe, that’s all.

Allergies can also wreak havoc on people, causing them to sneeze repeatedly, or make their eyes water, or they get a runny nose — all misdiagnosed symptoms of, yes, “the COVIDS.”

It’s getting out of hand, this blame game. I know a guy who lost a Fantasy Football game last week and he blamed it on “the COVIDS.” His reasoning was that a player on his team was a member of a team that was going through a COVID shut down. The team’s facility was shut down because a member of the team’s staff had tested positive.

As a precaution, the team had to train at another facility miles away.

The player on my friend’s team didn’t have a good game. Of course, the reason for this was not the other team’s defense, it was “the COVIDS.”

A group went out to dinner and one person canceled, apparently because something came up in the person’s family that required them to remain at home.

Of course, the logical, first reaction from someone was: “Do they have the COVIDS?”

Noooooooo.

A package was late arriving through an online service — just maybe one day later than the expected delivery.

“It’s got to have something to do with the COVIDS,” a friend surmised.

Really?

The point here is that we can not blame everything on “the COVIDS.”

A good pal blamed the Yankees early exit from the playoffs on “the COVIDS.” This despite not one Yankee player had tested positive for the virus. The real reason is that the Yankees did not hit the baseball. They struck out a lot. They left a lot of runners on base. The manager made a few dumb moves.

“The COVIDS” had nothing to do with any of that.

This virus knows no bounds. It can and will affect anybody who does not take the proper precautions to avoid becoming infected — even the president of the United States, the most protected person in the world, perhaps.

But the COVIDS don’t care about who will win a baseball or football game. The virus is not the least bit concerned about what color fall foliage is, or whether a person has to miss a dinner reservation.

The COVIDS will continue to spread as long as we allow it to do so. The only way to mitigate the spread is to follow the guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and the Department of Health and wear a mask, use hand sanitizer, stay away from unmasked crowds, wash your hands regularly and stop looking to politicize a disease that could care less who wins an election.

The other night, I was in an automatic car wash. I pulled into the bay and stopped when the robot voice told me to stop. The exit door was closed and the entrance door closed behind me. I sat there for several minutes and nothing happened. The car wash did not begin to wash my car.

As I waited, I wondered what could be wrong.. It took my money, it allowed me to enter, yet it would not start.

It took a while, but the car wash finally started and washed my car.

I never once thought that it might be “the COVIDS.”

Or could it be?