The Pandemic Must Not Go Away...Not Just Yet
In
her August 16, 2022 article in The Atlantic, titled “The Soft Closing of the
Pandemic,”[1] author Katherine J. Wu
suggests that, for all intents and purposes, the “pandemic” part of Covid-19
has come to its conclusion . Thanks to the newly revised and down-sized CDC
guidelines, we can mostly do away with the pandemic-centric behaviors we have
had to wrestle with (to a greater or lesser degree) for the last two-plus
years. The article suggests that words like mask, mandate, and mitigation, will
be joined by a fourth M-word: memory. The guidelines “might give the impression
that this fall could feel a lot like the ones we had in the Before Times,” she
writes. In other words, things are, for better or worse, mostly back to
“normal.”
I
understand what she is saying. In many parts of the country, the pandemic has
already had a soft closing. I’m in Texas, and outside the major cities like
Austin, masks, like man-buns, are scarcely seen. In my community, the pandemic
has been slowly dissipating. The weekly Covid-count is no longer above the fold
in the paper; sometimes, not even on page one. I can count on one hand the
times I’ve worn a mask this year - mostly when I visit people in the hospital.
In the local hospitals, the Covid-19 patients are but a very small percentage
of the sick, most having some comorbidity that is actually the root problem.
Thank God, the mortuaries no longer are scheduling services a month out.
Even the people who are getting the newest strain of Covid are merely
inconvenienced, sidelined as if dealing with a nasty cold.
So,
like I say, I do understand what Ms. Wu says. I don’t necessarily disagree,
either.
But,
damn it, I don’t like it. Covid-19 came in like a lion, roaring and seeking to
destroy everyone and everything with which it came in contact. The world was
shuttered to flatten the curve, but the virus made its way straight into
peoples lungs, brains, and olfactory nerves, regardless. Over 1 million
Americans officially died from it, but suspicion remains on the accuracy of
that number. Ninety thousand Texans died: 414 where I live in Victoria County,
101 in DeWitt County just north of my home, 32 to the west in Goliad County. To
let Covid-19 go out like a lamb isn’t fair to anyone whose lives were upended,
destroyed, shattered by or lost to the unseen, microscopic enemy. With
apologies to the poet, Dylan Thomas, we cannot let Covid-19 just “go gentle
into that good night.” It has done too much, cost too much, revealed too much.
It must be like Stephen Crane’s traveler:
In the
desert
I saw a
creature, naked, bestial,
Who,
squatting upon the ground,
Held his
heart in his hands,
And ate of
it.
I said, “Is
it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like
it
“Because it
is bitter,
“And because
it is my heart.”
We must remember.
And we must hate the bitterness the memories bring.
Yet we remember because these, known and unknown, were in our hearts..
I
suggest we need a national day of remembrance for those who died. No: we need a
worldwide day of remembrance… and mourning. We must mourn our losses, we must
remember those who suffered, we must remember those who still suffer. We must
remember those deemed unessential and lost their small business, homes, and
livelihoods. We must remember the kids who were robbed of years of childhood,
social interaction, person-to-person and skin-to-skin interaction, and parents
who became ersatz teachers of algebra, chemistry, Shakespeare, and the Treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo.
We
must remember the essential workers, often making just minimum wage, who
stocked the grocery shelves, mopped the hospital floors, hunted down scarce
parts to keep keep planes, trains, and trucks moving to haul precious toilet
paper and N-95 masks, and risked their own lives to transport the sick and
dying. We must remember the elderly who were locked into apartments and nursing
homes and Alzheimer's wards, already robbed of their freedoms and pleasures of
life by walls, only to be robbed of human contact with loved ones by
fiat.
We
must remember the teachers who taught behind plexiglass and computer screens,
pastors who could not go into ICUs to pray with the grief-stricken, and
families who could not touch through rubber gloves and body suits. We must
remember the doctors and nurses who burned themselves up and wore themselves
out trying to rescue just one more patient, to make that once-in-a-lifetime
save, so there would be one less widow, widower, or orphan. We must remember
the spouses who buried the love of their life, children who will grow up with
only stories of their parents, and parents who had to do the unthinkable and
bury their child.
And
we must remember and hold accountable those who failed so miserably in their
civic responsibility to preserve and protect the citizens and communities they
swore to serve. This isn’t a red or blue witch hunt, seeking out people with
the Scarlet R or D on their chest. This is for the people who caused so much
needless suffering, all for the sake of expediency and the “common good.”
History will determine our successes and failures, and, I suspect, she will be
a harsh judge. Hindsight and retrospect always are.
We
must remember…and, we must be ashamed of our own hubris, thinking mankind can
control nature’s mysteries; that we can fix anything if we put our collective
minds and our monies into it; that we should fear, love and trust The
Government above all things. We must be embarrassed that the virus exposed the
arrogance of overlooking the weakest among us and that we can bully those with
whom we disagree to get what we want in ways that Machiavelli would be proud.
We must weep that we have cheapened life so that when the deaths climb from
thousands, to tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands, we don’t even pause
in eating our morning cereal to mourn with those who mourn and weep with those
who weep.
On
March 29, 2023, Congress passed a bill to officially end the pandemic, formally
agreeing with Ms. Wu: it’s over. Funny: what began with hours and hours of news
coverage, infectious disease specialists and front-line doctors and health
agencies offering their expert - and, it turns out, often uninformed and
inaccurate - commentary, slid into history’s sunset with hardly a thirty-second
blurb on the evening news. It’s expected that President Biden will sign the
bill when it hits his desk.
Now,
it’s time to officially remember and honor all of these people: the victims who
died, the patients who survived, and those who served so valiantly to provide
for a world in crisis. I propose March 11 to be world-wide Covid-19 Remembrance
Day. That was the day the World Health Organization declared a world-wide
pandemic. If that’s too big of a step, let’s start with March 13, the day
President Trump declared it a national emergency in 2000, in the United States
as our national Covid-19 Day of Remembrance. If December 7, 1941 is a
date that will live in infamy; if the 11th day of the 11th month can be set
aside to remember the war that failed to end all wars and honor those who
fought in them; if September 11’s falling towers will be etched into our
memory, if each of these days are set aside to remember thousands of people who
died, then certainly we need a day to remember and reflect on the countless
millions who died worldwide.
We
need a day to encourage us, to say that - God forbid! - if, when this happens
again, we can and will do better.
We
need a day to remember his, and hers, and yours, and to stand together - just
for a day - without boundaries or borders and simply be people.
And
some day, a hundred years from now, when people wonder what the day was about,
or complain that their bank was closed, or they had to find a sitter for the
kids, just maybe someone will stop in the middle of their day, and they will
pause, and they will remember those they never knew.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/08/cdc-weakened-covid-guidelines-pandemic-preparedness/671147/
[2] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46457/in-the-desert-56d2265793693
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