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Krause: Don’t be naive: ‘Normal’ is still a long way away
By Steve Krause | April 25, 2020
The cracks are starting to appear in the veneer of our solid national response to COVID-19. Less than two months into social distancing, we’re not all in lockstep anymore with the effort to stop any further spread of the disease in its tracks.
On the face of it, that would seem idiotic. Evidence suggests this is working. If social distancing hasn’t brought the coronavirus to a screeching halt, it seems to have slowed it down in some places, at least. New York seems to have turned a corner. And perhaps Massachusetts, which was a week or so behind New York in reaching its peak, will follow suit. Let’s hope so.
At any rate, I don’t see any facts suggesting we should just forget social distancing and return to “normal,” whatever “normal” even is. This isn’t Southwest Airlines. I don’t see that we’re free to move around the country.
Seriously, what is wrong with people? Here we are in this state hitting our gruesome and tragic peak in diagnoses and fatalities, and we had protesters in front of Gov. Charlie Baker’s house Thursday who want to open up the government. What parallel universe do they inhabit?
From the very beginning of this pandemic’s invasion of the U.S., there has been a tug-of-war between the federal government and the states on matters of operating the government all the way down to medical supplies and testing. All that does is give fools like these protesters an official invitation to ignore the advice of medical professionals and downplay the significance of this virus. You see pictures of these protesters around the country, with their faces twisted in hate. You can see those faces because no one’s wearing a mask, which, in and of itself, seems exceptionally foolhardy.
No one suggests this is easy. The economy has tanked. More and more people are out of work. It’s probably going to get worse before it gets better. But I don’t think I could bear knowing that my carelessness or belligerence led to someone’s death. And I don’t understand people to whom this isn’t a concern.
At the same time, we all have to do our business — and that includes managing medical conditions that don’t have the name “coronavirus” attached to them. Some of us must exercise — judiciously, of course. A little less tongue- and finger-wagging toward those of us who fall into this category would be appreciated.
Our leaders — even with the best of intentions — contribute to this overall unrest. Turn on the TV, and you’ll see a litany of “briefings” every day. Even though I don’t live in Boston, I’m treated to Mayor Marty Walsh every morning. We go from him to Gov. Charlie Baker in the afternoons, and then, for the piece de resistance, the president’s traveling medicine show.
Even in an age of information, this is truly too much information.
We certainly need to know some of these facts. There is no reason any functioning adult shouldn’t be able to handle the ugly reality of this pandemic (the number of deaths, the particularly sad stories, etc.). All these rosy-cheeked people who ask why we don’t list the number of people who survive can just stop. No offense to the deity, but God help us if the news is that people survived. It’s like saying 100 planes took off from Logan, and all but two of them weren’t hijacked.
There is no room for naivete with this pandemic.
Still, do we need to see it 10 times a day? This isn’t just a steady drumbeat of coronavirus information. It’s the whole drumline.
And what happens? Backlash is what happens. In Michigan the city of Lansing ground to a complete halt last week because of protests after the governor doubled down on restrictions. These protests are being encouraged, too.
There are rumblings that a month’s worth of home-schooling is grating on the people tasked to coordinate it, and make sense of it (like parents). It’s because we don’t know what it means anymore to use restraint. Yes, teach math, reading and writing. But do we need to have virtual music lessons too? One school district in Massachusetts did.
So this is where we find ourselves. And we’re responding the only way we know how: with idiotic pushback. We throw used surgical gloves on the ground so that people take their lives in their hands picking them up. We go into drug stores … drug stores … without masks on. We gather in groups that we’ve been told a hundred times already represent danger to our health.
The sad thing is this virus is a bit more indiscriminate as a killer than we’d been led to believe. You watch those scrolls down the bottom of your TV screen and you’ll see lots of people who would not be of the baby boom generation have succumbed to this.
So if being stupid is your reaction to coronavirus overkills, I’d suggest strongly you find another way to voice your displeasure.
Steve Krause can be reached at [email protected].