A plea re: Covid-19

[Update 17 March: It will be updated as necessary and each update will be date-stamped in bold. We're all in this together, like it or not. Spread this widely.]

Hello, all:

This blog is really a social duty. I hope you read and heed it. Nothing else matters right now: nothing from the past matters right now.

To steal a metaphor from Jared Diamond, we’re all living in the same polder—the same below-sea-level plain in the Netherlands, that is—and the water is rising. We need to act together, now, to shore up the dikes. 

This is literally an underestimate of the potential impact, and I’ll explain why, but note that there’s still no reason to panic. There literally never is. Act? Yes. Panic? No. [Update 17 March: Yeah, these guys know their shit, and their conclusion is not good. Read at least the summary; there's nothing in here that requires serious knowledge. If you prefer, here's the NYT on it, if somewhat obliquely. I would think this would be widely reported today and tomorrow, but who knows?]

On that article: you have to take into account all “excess” deaths that would occur because people with all things not-Covid-19 will not get medical care in all areas where hospitals are swamped with Covid-19. There are other ripple effects, too, that can add to the toll: if and when basic services of all kinds break down because of illness, deaths, panic, or whatever, well, that doesn’t happen without a cost.

So, if you’re in denial, stop. Now. Last week, I believe it was, 8 in 10 Republicans thought this no big deal. Before you get on your high horse, the same poll showed 6 in 10 Democrats agreed. Right. 

And if you’re panicking, stop. Now. Today’s denial is tomorrow’s panic, after all; two sides of the same all-too-human coin. 

This is not just about you and yours; it’s about all of us, and if you need to go through the stages, as it were, do it fast because this thing doubles unchecked every three or so days. And until this week, it’s been mostly unchecked in this country and we’ve been flying blind. We tested a grand total of eight people in the nation on Tuesday. We’ve tested 11,000 out of 330 million. South Korea tests 10,000 a day. There’s no way to get a handle on this without either mass testing, which at this point may never happen in time, or massively disruptive social distancing of all kinds, or both. Large-scale measures should have happened weeks ago, are finally starting to happen now, and will increase in the days and weeks to come. They won’t be enough unless each and every person in the country changes their behavior, radically, and right now, if they haven’t already done so.

Hence this blog. 

A vaccine is not at all guaranteed ever; if any of the many guesses being developed in parallel work, we won’t know for at least a year. Antivirals may work, or they may not. No guarantees, and even if any vax or treatment is shown to work, they will have to be massively scaled up and distributed, nationally and internationally. All of which will take time and the means to do so, even in the best of situations. So, it’s good old-fashioned public health measures, at the governmental, institutional, and individual levels, until the cavalry comes. If ever it does.

Anyway, on your stages of grief, I’m reminded of the classic scene in All in the Family when Archie has had enough of Edith’s menopausal mood swings: he says, “You’re having a change of life? OK, I’m giving you 30 seconds—now go ahead: change!” Funny then; critical now. We’re all having a change of life. We have no time to dither with our fee-fees or fixed ideas if that means not doing what is utterly necessary, right now. 

The virus couldn’t care less about our feelings. It’s just a bag of RNA that hijacks cells and makes copies of itself. That’s it. It’s like the shark in Jaws, which is not a bad film to watch again as a perfect metaphor for what’s happening in our society: all sharks do is swim, eat, and make baby sharks. And no one wants to close the beaches and ruin the economy…or face the truth.

Viruses are even more perfect than sharks: they’re not really alive when outside a cell; only inside a cell are they alive. They do two things, and two things only: invade and replicate.

On dealing with reality, I recommend a dark sense of humor, and what the Brits call “Blitz Spirit.” Works for me. Do whatever works for you. If you have to wear a funny hat for the duration, and that works, do it. I don’t care and neither should you: anything indicated, do; anything contraindicated, don’t do. It’s really not that cognitively challenging; it’s the emotions that get in the way.

Bottom line: we’re already in trouble, but if we tank our health system, we’re in dire trouble. See northern Italy, and soon southern Italy, for more; see Iran; see Wuhan (though that’s looking like a better-case outcome and because of basic math and the common sense you all have if you drop the denial, if you’re in denial).

As your denial drops, your rage will rise, and you'll naturally want someone to blame. That can go awry very fast in situations like this in highly counterproductive ways, both biologically and socially. 

Here’s how to deal with that: first, the blame is widespread. Start with yourself: have you made this literal inevitability that we all knew about, a pandemic from an emergent disease, anything like a priority in your lives or your discussions or in your politics, whatever they are? Right. I don’t recall Sanders, wonderful as he is, making pandemic response one of the top issues, along with restarting nuclear arms control and disarmament. He did make a real response to the carbon-burning crisis a top issue. One out of three ain’t bad—it’s a .333 batting average, after all—but it ain’t good enough because Nature always bats last.

Next, move to pre-Trump: Obama put together something, yes, but it was woefully inadequate. Tons of N95 masks have been expired in the strategic reserve since 2009. Etc. Few made a stink about it. In fact, Laurie Garrett, whose Twitter you should follow religiously and you needn’t be on Twitter to do so (I’m not), is one of the few who can rest morally easy here; her and a few or so thousand, maybe tens of thousands, other people on the planet. (Garrett gets it: formerly on Council on Foreign Relations, bio background, Pulitzer-winner, gets public health and all of this stuff to a tee. Has been on the ground in every major outbreak of the past forever. And I’m certain wants no moral pat on the head; she’s too busy trying to help.)

Everybody else is complaining about a fire when they refused to have an extinguisher ready to go and on hand. (If they’re not denying the flames, and I’ve seen that literally everywhere, regardless of a person’s politics or anything else.) Remember that fact if and when you want to take this out on someone else. 

I’ve also seen people move from total denial to total surrender, which is just another from of selfish self-protection. All-too-human, yes, but, again, the virus don’t care. 

It’s not about you and you alone: you get sick, you blow off the proper behaviors, you’ll take up a bed or respirator sooner than you might have, and you’ll also have likely sickened others. And helped tank the medical system. It’s that simple. Even if you don’t care what happens to you, you should care what happens to others.

We all need to do what we can, right now, to “flatten the curve” so this epidemic’s caseload stays as low as it can or we’ll swamp our med system. It’s just math.

Now let's move to the Trump administration—and the CDC and FDA, et al. They have turned what would have been thousands of dead in the best situation (maybe fewer) into what will likely be hundreds of thousands, if not more, and they’re still at it, bolstered by their willing executioners in rightwing media. (Interestingly and hopefully, some, like Michael Savage and Tucker Carlson, have not followed the Dear Leader on this; far too many have.) Yeah, it’s fair to put a ton of blame on them. On this and other key existential issues, to say nothing of crucial if not existential issues, they have been omni-destroyers. It’s just a fact. If that bothers you, get over it. Fast. If it helps, I’ll repeat: It’s not only Trump. He made a chronic risk an acute failure when the risk arrived, with help from the agencies noted, but he didn’t invent the risk, let alone the virus.

So, that aside, what to do? Presume you’re in a hot zone from now on, and follow these guidelines, from Laurie Garrett, and, no, she’s not suggesting you drink bleach. (These are good and sane, too.) [Update 17 March: As are these about your cell phone.] Don’t feel “weird” because people around you may look askance at you wearing gloves or whatnot. Tell them why, at a distance of six feet. Don’t care a whit about reactions. If your need to fit in supersedes your need to survive, which is also all-too-human, you’ll help the virus and hurt yourself, your family, your country, and the species. Again, the virus doesn’t care about my issues, your issues, or anyone’s issues. It invades and replicates, period. 

Any and all social traditions that are contraindicated in this outbreak need to go out the window right now. Any and all of them. Think it through; they’re not hard to identify. You can and should, of course, follow CDC and WHO guidelines, which are no different from if less specific than Garrett’s, which were penned for people in Wuhan in December/January.

Prepare as much as you can for the quarantines that are likely coming, if you haven’t already (and you can’t live like an island for more than a couple/few weeks), but if worst comes to worst, or just worse comes to worse, remember: whatever happens, you can only do this once. There are no do-overs. 

Keep your dignity, keep your head, keep your empathy. No matter what.

Presuming I get this disease, know I’ve gotten it, and survive, and thus have antibodies, I’ll be volunteering to do whatever I can at a hospital. And presuming my wife Donna is in the same boat, too, of course (won’t bring the disease back to her, that is). We’re already living on different floors and presuming the other has it, doing all we need to do, which is a royal pain but the only way to take this seriously and help ourselves, the cat, each other, the community, the country, and the species. She’s working from home for the duration, or at least till she gets laid off in this bloodbath in the economy. I can and am tutoring online, but how long will that last? You carry on till you can’t. But if I get sick, get better, and know I had Covid-19, I’m volunteering to help. All should.

So, to stem panic and denial, which boil down to the same thing, psychologically, just settle on this: If I go down, I will go down fighting, and in the right way. If you’ve seen The Lion in Winter, there’s a scene at the end in which the royal children, including Richard the Lionhearted, played by Anthony Hopkins, are in prison and expecting to be executed by their father, Henry II, played by Peter O’Toole. Richard says his father will get no satisfaction from him; he’ll die with dignity. His cynical brother Geoffrey says, “Why you chivalric fool. As if the way one falls matters.” Richard answers, correctly: “When the fall is all there is, it matters.”

I don’t know if the fall is all there is, but we’re teetering on the precipice. Act accordingly. You can only do this once, and whatever the injustices of the situation, you still have a choice about it. Myself, I’ve lived, with all the bad stuff, a charmed life thus far that 99.9% of the species in its history couldn’t even dream of. Almost killed myself 22 years ago, and since then have loved and lived with a woman whose value is literally equal to that of all the other things in life that make life good. All of them, from puppies to books to music to anything you might think of. There’s all that, and then there’s her. 50-50.

And of course, if this turns out to be no big deal, which is impossible but to stem your denial as you read this, fine, let’s pretend it is: I’ll lead the laughter against myself. Will be thrilled to do so.

Love yourselves and others, and do the right thing, in all senses.