Pandemic demands unity, not intimidation

This post was published in the Wilson Times May 22, 2020

WHAT is the matter with us?

We, meaning everyone in this country, indeed, everyone on the entire planet, is in the midst of a global pandemic. To stop the deadly pandemic, we’ve been told, will require a concerted effort by everyone. We’re all in this together.

You’d be hard-pressed to believe that if you’ve read recent news about public reaction to the relatively modest efforts to slow the spread of the disease and, ultimately, eliminate it as a public health danger. We are asked to remain at home as much as possible, to keep apart from other people when we do go out, to wear face masks that will protect the wearer and others from contracting the virus.

But instead of unity and mutual concern, we’re getting threats, intimidation and threatened or actual violence against people observing pandemic restrictions or asking others to do the same. Consider these recent examples:

° Public health rules and restrictions have led to demonstrations against the laws and rules that apply to everyone in the effort to stop the spread of the virus. But in many places, protesters emphatically carried assault rifles and wore tactical gear to these protests, including some protests in Raleigh, where state law prohibits display of firearms at demonstrations.

° Protesters against public health laws in Michigan flaunted military-style rifles as they tried to force their way into the state capitol’s legislative chamber.

° When an employee at an Oklahoma City McDonald’s told a visitor that the dining area was closed (in accordance with public health restrictions) and only takeout service was available, the visitor initially left but then returned with a pistol and shot and injured three teenage employees.

° A security guard at a Flint, Mich., Family Dollar store was less fortunate. He was fatally shot by a customer he had asked to wear a face mask, in accordance with store policy.

° When a park ranger in Austin, Texas, told a group of visitors that they needed to keep a six-foot distance to prevent spreading the corona virus, one of the men in the group shoved the ranger into the lake.

° Two weeks after the armed intimidation in the Michigan capitol, demonstrators carried a doll dangling from a hangman’s noose. Some protesters suggested Gov. Gretchen Whitmire should be hanged. One demonstrator chanted, “Hang Fauci; Hang Gates; Open all the states.” (The latter invective apparently referred to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who had been falsely accused of deliberately spreading the virus.)

Throughout these atrocities, law enforcement has been mostly absent. Raleigh police, for example, chose not to enforce state law against carrying firearms to a protest or counter-protest.

In Michigan, protesters tried to intimidate news reporters who came to cover the event. Chants of “Fake News is Not Essential” were shouted. One reporter was closely followed by a protester, who ignored requests to keep a safe distance, saying to the reporter, “No, I’m fine, I’ve got hydroxychloroquine,” the malaria drug President Trump had touted as a cure to COVID-19.

It has been reported that some right-wing extremists see not wearing masks as a sign of courage or contempt, regardless of their choice’s impact on the health of others.

What is the matter with us?

-->

Some things money can't buy in pandemic

This post was published in the Wilson Times May 15, 2020

Congress has appropriated more than $2 trillion to compensate for the loss of jobs and income caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The spending is unprecedented, greater even than the recovery spending after mortgage markets collapsed in the 2008-09 Great Recession.

Among those receiving funds from Congress’ pandemic spending are laid-off workers, businesses unable to pay workers, individual taxpayers (at the rate of $1,200 each or $2,400 per couple) and big corporations, which lobbied Congress and the Trump administration to let them in on the largesse, too. Even state governments, usually tight-fisted and operating under a balanced budget mandate, have opened their coffers to provide funding to people and businesses insufficiently helped by federal money.

Now, nearly four months after the COVID-19 virus became a household phrase and shoppers panicked and cleaned shelves of toilet paper and other essential items, elected officials are wondering whether this unprecedented spending will be enough to compensate all (or nearly all) Americans for what they lost because of a virus neither they nor their government agencies could predict or subdue.

There are other losses besides the monetary ones. People are dying because of this pandemic. Earlier this week, deaths from COVID-19 topped 80,000 in the United States. No one thinks the virus will stop there.

Each death is a tragedy. Each needless death resulting from poor healthcare, lack of insurance, uncaring others who ignored precautions such as washing hands, cleaning counters, social distancing and wearing face masks, or stay-at-home orders is doubly tragic. Nothing can bring back those who were lost in the pandemic, and that leaves a vacuum felt for years by friends and relatives.

 

Pandemic rules make each death more tragic. Funerals are either limited or forbidden. No one can get a proper sendoff, a comforting farewell, a shared mourning because of limits on crowd sizes.

High school and college seniors are being denied the usual capstone of their studies, a graduation ceremony. Although high school and college leaders have provided recognitions of their graduating class, a neighborhood parade or a sign in the front yard just isn’t the same as that walk across the stage. Some college athletes are missing their last chance at stardom.

Even more disappointed are engaged couples who have planned a wedding months in advance, put down payments on reception catering and venues, plus honeymoon trips. Restrictions on crowds and uncertainties about travel will force them to postpone their ceremony and honeymoon.

Similarly, families who planned vacation trips a year in advance (not an unusual practice) have had to cancel their long-awaited travel, hope for refunds and deal with it if refunds are declined. For many, a 2020 trip was to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a bucket list item. It may be possible to shift some trips to a year later, but for some people, this year’s vacation loss is permanent. Several years ago, a friend with a debilitating and ultimately fatal disease scheduled a series of trips to check off his bucket list of places he had always wanted to see. In 2020, such once-in-a-lifetime trips won’t be possible.

For some people of a certain age, a dream trip canceled this year might be a last chance. A year from now, they might not have the mobility, strength or stamina for such a trip.

We all know that there are some things money can’t buy. There are some things for which no government stimulus can compensate: a life ended too soon, a life-mark ceremony postponed, a long-nurtured dream denied, a life-changing opportunity canceled. Stimulus money can’t make up for the disappointments, the postponements, the tragedies this pandemic has wrought.

Life in the Time of Corona Virus, 4.11.20

This post was published in the Wilson Times April 21, 2020

I wore a mask over my nose and mouth this morning, the same mask I wore to the grocery store earlier in the week to protect me from the Corona virus. Today the mask protects my sinuses from the pollen. I was outside to shovel five big piles of raked and swept pollen into a compost bin, to be buried in the landfill.

String-like tassels from three big oaks and comma-shaped pods from a half-dozen pines blanket the lawn and asphalt driveway.

The trees’ reproductive dust fell like snowflakes, soft and weightless. The wind picked up, and it was snowing pollen horizontally, coating cars, streets and outdoor furniture. The trees’ determination to survive coats my sinuses and my skin.

It took some time to get accustomed to the mask over my face, but medical professionals recommended them for everyone, so I complied in the hope that I might not be infected or might avoid infecting others. Wearing the mask for more than a few minutes tugs at my ears and requires me to remove the mask to wipe my nose, which drains each pollen season.

My wife made my mask from scraps of cloth left from all the years she sewed clothes for our children and gifts for others. She put the mask together quickly from instructions in a newspaper. The rumble of her sewing machine resonated through the house for the first time in months as she worked. Newspapers, which provided the concept and the pattern, and home sewing machines are both becoming rare. What will we do at the next pandemic?

For four weeks, the grocery store has had no facial tissues or toilet paper. Hoarding and panic buying are to blame, we’re told, but that doesn’t fill the paper products shelf. I recall during my newspaper days someone telling me that newsprint was just one step above toilet paper. Maybe we’ll be forced to upgrade to newsprint. Until the papers we subscribe to quit print publication altogether, I guess we’ll have a sufficient supply of a necessary product, despite hoarders.

We order takeout from our favorite local restaurants in the hope that they will survive the stay-at-home orders that have emptied their dining rooms.

We have developed the habit of avoiding close encounters with other people so the virus won’t spread. We are staying home for the same reason. We don’t want to be responsible for illness or death of others.

We have canceled two trips we had planned for this year. This was to be the year we would really take advantage of our free time as retirees. We would travel to places we’d never seen. We’d cross an ocean for the first time. But an invisible disrupter forced a revision in our plans. Our planned trips amount to nothing compared to the potential hazards if we are not vigilant in avoiding other people and washing our hands repeatedly.

I like being home, a comfortable, quiet and familiar space. Rules of fashion don’t apply here. I can wear the same jeans all week, and no one notices. But personal hygiene rules our lives. I have washed my hands so many times my skin is dry and flaking. Kitchen counters are cleaner than ever.

But the virus can strike anyone, and it’s especially dangerous for older people (like us). A cousin’s friend far away wrote a gut-wrenching account of watching her husband die from COVID-19. Because of the virus, she was not allowed into his hospital room to say goodbye, to hold his hand, to give him a last kiss, to share tearful farewells.

The thought of dying alone in some hospital isolation ward without any family members in the room, then forgoing any funeral or memorial that might attract more than 10 people provides the motivation for me to observe social distancing, wash my hands frequently, stay home, and wear a face mask when I leave the house.

A pandemic has the power to change society, culture and civilization. Already, pundits are predicting changes in retail, governance, travel, Internet use, shopping, civic clubs, religious observances, funerals, sports event, family reunions and so on.

While everyday life continues, the virus lurks unseen, waiting for an opening and shading our every thought. Songwriter John Prine died from COVID-19 last week, leaving these timely words from my favorite of his songs, “Hello in There”: “But old people just grow lonesome, waiting for someone to say, ‘Hello in there.’”

Memories of quarantine, search for comfort today

This post was published in the March 28, 2020, Wilson Times.

Having experienced quarantine once before has not helped me through this pandemic we’re experiencing, but it has given me some perspective.

I was 3 or 4 years old when my older sister, four years my senior, was diagnosed with Scarlet Fever. County health department nurses came to our rural home and nailed a menacing-looking sign onto our front door, warning visitors not to enter the house by order of the local Board of Health. The seven members of our family were not allowed to leave. My memories are faint on this episode of my early life, but I clearly remember my mother opening the bedroom door just a crack so that I could see my sick sister in the bed. I was allowed only a brief look before the door closed.

I also remember my older brother, at the end of the quarantine period (typically 21 days, some epidemic websites say), tearing the quarantine sign from the front door when the quarantine expired.

Quarantines used to be issued for many diseases, including polio, smallpox and diphtheria. Vaccines and new treatments have eliminated quarantines as the standard response to several diseases.

What the world is experiencing now is not an enforced quarantine but a plea for sensible actions to reduce the spread of a disease, COVID 19, which has neither a cure nor a vaccine at this time. We are urged to stay home, to avoid crowds, to keep a six-foot zone between ourselves and other people. The rules have been especially hard on restaurants, churches, theaters, schools (now closed) and concert venues. Ceremonies, from baptisms to weddings to funerals, are being canceled or postponed. Streets are emptied as people stay home.

At a time we want to hold loved ones close, we’re told not to do that. Our need for human contact is genetic. It is as essential as food and water. We have found ways to work around the rules. Video chats are possible for people with computers (or smart phones) and internet service, and we’ve taken advantage of that, just as many schools have begun holding classes online and organizations have moved meetings online.

These changes, which are distortions of our basic need for human contact, are changing our society. The impact of this pandemic, however long it may remain infectious, will have a long-term impact. Already, isolation and restrictions are frightening people. We are accustomed to getting through darkness and dangers by sharing our worries with others. Limits on human contact make emotional recovery more difficult.

One of the times we attended church via the internet, the Psalm of the Day was the familiar 23^rd Psalm. “Yea though I walk through the valley of death …” seemed eerily appropriate during a pandemic. But I was struck by another phrase in that Psalm: “I will fear no evil, for though art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me …” Notice that the passage does not promise recovery from illness, safety from harm or death to viruses. Its promise is “comfort.” That should be enough.

My search for comfort in bleak times led me to a devotional by Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry, who read a poem by Lynn Ungar titled “Pandemic,” written March 11. She suggests that we treat our pandemic restrictions like Jews consider the Sabbath, the most sacred of times: “Cease from travel / Cease from buying and selling / Give up, just for now, / trying to make the world different than it is. Sing. Pray. Touch only those / to whom you commit your life.” The full poem is on her website, lynnungar.com.