Peak Covid absurdity?

Australia is rounding the bend toward its first full Covid summer, heat, crowds on the beach, etc. A break from routine, surfing, swimming, remembering that it is possible to enjoy life again. Or possible as long as a lung-full of water is taken in New South Wales and a lifeguard is present.

Typically, a lifeguard would be a welcome addition to any post-near drowning resuscitation scene but not this year for this year mouth-to-mouth has been canceled and the lifeguard must idly stand by and watch vitality slowly drain away from the victim until the only thing left is a cold, grey corpse.

In a Saturday announcement, Surf Life Saving NSW Chief Executive Steve Pearce said, “We’ll no longer be doing mouth to mouth resuscitation, we’ll still be doing CPR.” NSW Emergency Services Minister David Elliott added, “Of course there are going to be changes to the interaction that the Surf Life Savers have with beachgoers and that will see a change to the way that they conduct mouth to mouth. I don’t believe that anybody’s life will be at risk but it shouldn’t be a reason for people to be complacent.”

The cancellation of mouth-to-mouth has angered many with people sharing frustrations on social media.

“If someone is pulled from the water and mouth to mouth could save them (young child etc) I would be doing the mouth to mouth to save a life, that would haunt you forever if you knew you could save someone but were told not to.”

“I think if I was dying I’d rather catch (COVID-19) off the person who just breathed for me until I can do it on my own.”

“There’s something wrong about this. If it can save a life, isn’t that good?”

Etc.

Also not mentioned, but equally serious, is how many couplings will be thwarted by handsome/beautiful lifeguards not allowed to breathe life into handsome/beautiful victims.

But have we reached peak absurdity with the Coronavirus pandemic yet? If someone is literally and actually dying in front of a lifeguard they will not be allowed to save them due to an extremely low-percentage theoretical death?

Or do we have a ways to go before peak absurdity?

More as the story develops.

Tragic.

And there just seems to be no break from the unrelenting bad news as it relates to race relations in the United States of America. On Wednesday, San Clemente, California, home of the surfboard industry, entered the ugly fray when two Orange County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed an unarmed homeless Black man after stopping him for jaywalking.

Per The Orange County Register:

1:15 p.m. Wednesday, two deputies with a homeless outreach team encountered Kurt Andras Reinhold, 42, near the Hotel Miramar, off of South El Camino Real.

It is unclear what prompted it, but a ground fight broke out, the Sheriff’s Department said shortly after the shooting.

The department said Reinhold – whose last known address was in Los Angeles County – reached for a deputy’s gun before he was shot. Two gunshots were fired by one deputy during the incident.

Shortly after Reinhold was shot, deputies began lifesaving measures but they were unsuccessful.

I have no doubt that policing is more difficult, more potentially dangerous, than ever but the “victim-was-reaching-for officer’s-gun” excuse is, let’s be honest, ridiculously overused, generally unprovable even with “photo evidence” and at this point beggars belief.

A demonstration rocked typically quite San Clemente the next day, beginning at the former site of the Pipes Cafe and organized by former City Council candidate Jackson Hinkle.

Hinkle told the Register he believes the San Clemente shooting was related to the Sheriff’s Department and other law-enforcement personnel trying to step up jaywalking enforcement, adding, “Instead of giving him food and support, they gave him two bullets. Instead of letting him walk away, they body slammed him to the ground and pinned him. I want justice. I want those officers arrested.”

Sheriff Don Barnes asked the public to reserve judgement until an investigation has taken place which seems particularly unlikely as Reinhold’s death occurred directly on the heels of a decision in Kentucky not to prosecute officers there over the shooting death of Breonna Taylor. Justice, for many, seeming an un-reachable fantasy.

Whatever one’s beliefs on Black Lives Matter etc., the loss of Reinhold is tragic in every way.

Every single damned way.