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SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: Your money or your life? Or: Do you feel lucky?
By
Published: Apr 19, 2020
Category:
Pandemic: Dispatches and Essentials
CAPTION: Joshua Bickel, a photojournalist for the Columbus Dispatch, covered a protest outside Ohio governor Mike DeWine’s daily press briefing. A hundred protesters had gathered. They pressed up against the glass outside the governor’s office, demanding Ohio reopen for business.
Last week — or was it the week before? — he was saying: “Anyone who wants a test can get a test.” Then it was: “We’re doing the most tests.” Then: “Governors, you’re on your own.” Days ago: “Look, nobody really needs a test, now open your state the fuck up or I’ll send in my armed and crazy worshipers.”
From the Times: Coronavirus Testing Needs to Triple Before the U.S. Can Reopen
An average of 146,000 people per day have been tested for the coronavirus nationally so far this month, according to the COVID Tracking Project, which on Friday reported 3.6 million total tests across the country. To reopen the United States by mid-May, the number of daily tests performed between now and then should be 500,000 to 700,000, according to the Harvard estimates.
500,000 tests a day? Not going to happen. Instead, flying blind, he’s cutting the ribbon on the grand re-opening.
Am I the only one who thinks: It’s getting worse every day.
I divide time into Before, Now and Future, and I mostly forget about Before and can’t figure out when Future begins, so I focus intently on Now. It’s a kind of enforced mindfulness. But in the Almost Now — the next few weeks, ending in, say, late May — I’ve gamed out two possible futures. (You’re invited to suggest others. I’m at HeadButlerNYC@AOL.com.)
FUTURE #1: People will go back to work too soon, and bored idiots will return to their old lives, not distancing or isolating, and a second wave of the virus will scorch the land, and the country will become one giant silent scream.
FUTURE #2: This virus is just like the old-fashion flu, only faster acting. It will be just as the right wingers and conspiracy crowd have been saying all along: This full stop was a giant hoax, a trick invented in a Chinese lab, intended to… I lose the thread there. But the sense of betrayal in Trump’s base will inspire the 2nd Amendment folks, waving Confederate flags, to seek revenge — and not on the Chinese.
Either way, Future involves a choice. A bet. Your money or your life.
Jack Benny did a bit about just this. Benny, for the youngsters, was a comedian whose shtick was his great timing. He had a self-generated reputation as a miser, so in this bit the audience laughs in the pauses –– they knew this wouldn’t be a simple decision for him.
How does a life end? Historically, for the privileged, like this:
From Queen Victoria, by Lynton Strachey:
By the end of the year the last remains of her ebbing strength had almost deserted her; and through the early days of the opening century it was clear that her dwindling forces were only kept together by an effort of will. On January 14, she had an hour’s interview with Lord Roberts, who had returned victorious from South Africa a few days before. She inquired with acute anxiety into all the details of the war; she appeared to sustain the exertion successfully; but, when the audience was over, there was a collapse.
On the following day her medical attendants recognized that her state was hopeless; and yet, for two days more, the indomitable spirit fought on; for two days more she discharged the duties of a Queen of England. But after that there was an end of working; and then, and not till then, did the last optimism of those about her break down. The brain was failing, and life was gently slipping away. Her family gathered round her; for a little more she lingered, speechless and apparently insensible; and, on January 22, 1901, she died.
Anton Chekhov’s death on July 2, 1904, described in a letter by his wife Olga Knipper:
Chekhov sat up… and in a loud, emphatic voice said to the doctor in German, of which he knew very little: “Ich sterbe…” [“I’m dying.”] Then he picked up the glass, turned to me, smiled his wonderful smile and said: ‘It’s been such a long time since I’ve had champagne.’ He drank it all to the last drop, quietly lay on his left side and was soon silent forever. The awful stillness of the night was broken only by a huge nocturnal moth which kept crashing painfully into the light bulbs and darting about the room. The doctor left and in the stillness and heat of the night the cork flew out of the half-empty champagne bottle with a tremendous noise.
Marie de Hennezel was a kind of spiritual advisor to French President François Mitterrand. In Intimate Death: How the Dying Teach Us How to Live, she shares the advice she gave him as he was nearing death:
We talked a great deal about how to die. How to let go. I had recommended him to do whatever he wanted to do, to the end. Including the last trip to Egypt, which the doctors had strongly discouraged him. I told him to do whatever he thought was important. ‘I do not wish,’ he said, ‘that my brain be affected.’ I replied, ‘When you feel that the end is coming, you just have to go to bed, stop the treatments that prolong you, stop feeding yourself. Ask for the curtains to be closed, to return to yourself, this should not last more than two days.’ The fact of speaking so directly may have allowed him to be the subject of his death.
It’s different now. More and more die alone, with only FaceTime to connect with loved ones. Or alone, in our homes, because this thing hits fast and hard, and it often happens that you die before you can get to a hospital. Tough stuff. Hard to process, thus unreal.
And more unreal for Fox News watchers: the constant dehumanization of anyone outside tight family/community/political circles means that death doesn’t exist unless they have seen it.
When will they — and we — see it?
On Twitter, Dr. Jeremy Faust — an emergency physician and an instructor at Harvard Medical School — addressed this question:
What CAN and WILL change people’s behavior? A: Sadly, when many people know someone who is dead or nearly died of this thing. Since on average we each know “600” people, that would mean 545,000 deaths would be “needed” for it to hit home for all of us. We can’t wait that long.
Even if we assume that we all know more than 600 people — because we all know 2,000 people on Facebook/social media — it would take 163,500 deaths for Americans all to really see it filling up our social media feeds. That means 5x the number of current deaths would have to occur before.
if you don’t believe me that the reality we see in our own communities won’t affect behavior, JUST ASK ANY PERSON IN NEW YORK CITY. They have seen what this is all about. And they’re not pushing to open NYC’s great restaurants, music scene, etc yet. They get that safety = life.
The fact that some experts have lowered the predicted deaths to “only” 60,000 is important. It does NOT mean we’ve been over-reacting. It means what we are doing is a least in some sense working.
The inconvenience of shelter-in-place is worth the lives of our friends, loved ones, neighbors, communities. We can’t get complacent. By the DATA it is too soon. Lives are on the line. Spread the word.
If you’re reading this in a pleasant room near a well-stocked kitchen, the choice is easier for you — you can stay home, you can work from home. The poor and hungry and unemployed: They can use every bit of help we can think of, and I try to keep them front of mind. The idiots eager to return to life as they knew it — they’re my nightmare. Almost more than the virus.
ON THE OTHER HAND, GOOD NEWS: REMARKABLE KINDNESS TO STRANGERS
This could be any of us. (Thanks, Karen G)
A NEW CATEGORY: DEAD TO ME
It’s important — for me, anyway — to keep track of people and businesses I’ll avoid, if there is an After. Your suggestions are welcome.
SEPHORA. Because of this. Do look at the reader comments.
BILL MAHER has been whining about opening up, using the flu argument: “I just want to go to a restaurant.” Bill Maher makes $10 million a year. His Beverly Hills estate sprawls across 3.2 acres, sports at least four separate ranch-style structures and encompasses three contiguous parcels. Build your own restaurant, asshole.
SATURDAY NIGHT ACTIVITY: GREAT IDEAS FROM THE TRUMPS
Ivanka suggested making shadow puppets. FLOTUS suggested a word puzzle. Really. She did.
TODAY’S FACT
From the Times:
One in three jobs held by women has been designated as essential, according to a NYT analysis of census data crossed with the federal government’s essential worker guidelines. Nonwhite women are more likely to be doing essential jobs than anyone else.
VIEW FROM MY WINDOW
V. invited me to join this Facebook group. I’m making a list of people I want to befriend and visit, and now I invite you. To go to View from My Window on Facebook, click here.
LATE NIGHT MUSIC
Mark Knopfler, “Our Love Will Never Fade”
So peaceful. A light, steady beat. That guitar. And a declaration of love.
ESSENTIALS AND DISPATCHES
Everything, all in one place.
UPDATE: EO Hand soap is available again.
