MAC GORDON: Pandemic has us living in a new ‘Twilight Zone’

On a recent evening, one of those epic sunsets in Georgia’s western sky delivered a rainbow of colors to an old barn on the place. The ravishing scene looked eerie and surreal, as if we’d entered a twilight zone.

And haven’t we truly passed over into mysterious and terrifying territory? Wouldn’t the screenwriter and actor Rod Serling, who created the long-running dramatic series “The Twilight Zone,” be captivated by our plight against the coronavirus?

His show always ended with a twist of the opening plot. Perhaps that’s what is in store for us mere mortals scattered across the globe – an ending to the pandemic that arrives quicker and with far fewer casualties than expected. We can only hope and pray.

Who among us ever believed that a health care problem would start in one country and spread so quickly across all the continents? There should be no blame game attached to this event. As expected, however, the blame game has been ongoing for weeks now from the highest levels of government to the local constabulary.

The prediction by medical experts is that the situation will grow much worse before it gets any better. President Trump apparently doesn’t believe any such thing will occur. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp does believe it. He ordered all schools in the state to stay open through April 24 and added that he would extend the closures further if warranted.

While most of the urgent headlines have brought us news from the world and the nation’s largest cities, we also suffer alarming stories locally. Georgia’s rate of infection has increased dramatically. At this writing, the state had suffered upwards of 75 deaths, with hospitalizations approaching 600.

In southwest Georgia, the region’s largest health care delivery system in Albany announced a severe shortage of clothing and accessories for its staff. Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital leaders said they couldn’t wait on help to arrive from various suppliers of the gear, so they created a sewing team to make their own. Phoebe’s dire straits were featured on the national MSBNC “Rachel Maddow Show” on Friday night. The host pointed out (I’m paraphrasing) that “this story proves we have a national problem, not just one in New York or New Orleans, which is 400 miles from rural Georgia.” (You still think we’re not in a twilight zone?)

In Albany and environs, distillers of local liquors and wines have been retrofitted to manufacture hand sanitizer. Elsewhere, automakers are turning out medical personal protective equipment. This reminds us of factories during World War II that switched gears to make products required for the battlefield. To these companies, we owe our thanks to help save mankind.

Trump said at one point that the federal government was not a “shipping department,” and suggested U.S. governors should do more for their people. He apparently did not realize that many of them had already initiated such efforts.

I am most aggrieved at the advertisements financing the plethora of television networks. These contracts must’ve been written in stone months ago and seemingly cannot be altered come hell or high water – or even if a worldwide pandemic of a disease threatens us all.

Ads tell us that “a (luxury motorcar) is in your future” or that we should book exotic vacations. Amid a pandemic? We must tolerate ads featuring celebrities driving off into that gorgeous western horizon and arriving at a remote beach to contemplate the journeys of life. These come-ons are exceeded in number only by those of eclectic new-age exercise apparatuses and weight-loss programs promising to reshape us all before the disease is wiped out.

This is one twilight zone most of us would rather skip.