Cornavirus: Loved Ones, Harm's Way and Hotspots

Hyacinth called me today.

Hyacinth has been my friend since she became my mother's caregiver in 2003, after mom had her first stroke. Originally from Jamaica, Hyacinth has a lilting island accent and she would yell, "Marion!" to get my mother's attention to get her to eat, do her physical therapy exercises, walk, and just to keep her engaged. Hyacinth tended my mom and did some light cleaning of of my folk's small condo in Fort Lauderdale. And she played poker with my dad. They both cheated.

Once Dan played poker with the two of them when we were down there visiting. Hyacinth winked at Dan and gave him a sly grin. And Dan knew she was on to my dad's tricks. When my mom finally passed away, after a second stroke in 2005, Hyacinth stayed on to care for my dad. Unlike my mother, he wasn't sick then. Mostly, she just came cleaned the house, played cards with him for a few hours, went shopping with him, and kept him company. And they played practical jokes on each other.

Hyacinth had a key to get into his apartment. Once, she came up and found him lying on the floor in the early morning sunlight. With her own heart racing, she leaned over him to see if he had a pulse. His eyes flew open and he said, "Boo."

Between laughs she threatened, "I am going to get you, old man." And she did too.

I think she kept him alive five years longer than he would have lasted by keeping friendship, pranks, and laughter in his house.  But finally, he succumbed to the ravages of a lifetime of smoking and a history emphysema, and lung cancer.

I went down to Fort Lauderdale to be with him when he went into hospice care. When he was taken to the hospital to the special hospice wing, I called family who lived locally so they could say their good-byes. At first the doctor and nurses thought he'd rally and be able to go home for a few weeks, maybe even a few months. But surrounded by family, he deteriorated rapidly. I think he was ready. Indeed, when I first arrived at his hospice room, he had out his favorite picture of my mom from when they were newlyweds. He was staring at it wistfully. I told him, "I'm going to miss you a lot, but I will be okay. It's okay to go to mommy."

A day later. he slipped into a coma. I leaned over at one point, and whispered to him, "I know I said I was okay and you could go to mommy, but damned, I didn't mean this fast."

 I heard his labored breathing, the only sound in his room. Then, his death rattle started - yes, it's a real thing. I'd always read or heard about it in novels but now I heard it. After watching his bed and listening to his struggle to breath for most of that day, singing him songs, and praying for him, Dan and I left his bedside to get a quick dinner and a few hours sleep. At about ten that night, a hospice nurse called to tell us that if we wanted to say our truly last good-bye to my dad, we should get back to the hospital right now.

We flew out the door. En route, I called Hyacinth on my cell phone. She would've been so hurt if I hadn't told her. We pulled up at the hospital at the exact moment she and her husband, Chamberlain, did and walked into my dad's room together. They stayed with Dan and me until my father's final breath. Suddenly, the room, which had been so noisy with death rattle, was silent. Utterly, eerily silent. I called the hospice nurse, Nicole, one of my dad's favorites.

She looked at him sadly and said, "Good-bye, Irving, this world isn't for you anymore."

Hyacinth and I still keep in touch. We are joined together by shared experiences, both the laughter and the tears. She still works as a home healthcare aid, still comforting the sick and elderly and their families, still making last days more comfortable. And Hyacinth, going into all those old people's homes in Fort Lauderdale is now elderly herself. She lost Chamberlain a few years ago. And now she works in one of Florida's hot spots.

After speaking to Hyacinth, I called my cousin Alan. I hadn't spoken to him or his wife Ronda in months. Alan and Ronda live in Bergen County, New Jersey. It's a hot spot too. Bergen is a bedroom community that feeds New York City's offices its professional and business people. It's a close hop by car or public transportation into the city.  Bergen has been among the most hard hit spots in the tri-state area around New York City. Ronda told me they have three friends who died of the virus. They know countless more in just their little town who have caught it. So far, they've remained safe.

Compared to my modest safety routines, they take draconian steps to keep the virus at bay. They have a large home with a big yard and a connecting garage. When Alan goes out to take his walk, he puts on his outdoor clothes. When he returns, he takes them off, goes immediately into a shower and then changes to indoor clothes. Ronda does not go out. She used to go to a gym; now she works out in their den. When they bring groceries in, they leave packages in the garage for three days first. If it's perishables, they remove and discard the outer wrappings and transfer food into their own containers before bringing it into the house for the fridge or freezer. They work hard to keep everything threatening out of their home.

I let the threat in and neutralize it to the best of my ability. Without a garage I don't have any other choice. When I first started wiping down groceries, Dan would give me dubious looks. But lately, he's been helping me disinfect our groceries. We've got a good assembly line going, where he hands me stuff right from the bags, I wipe them down and put them on a clean counter and then we wash our hands and  put it all away. But neither of us changes clothes or showers when we go out. I thought he'd think they were excessive when I told him what Ronda and Alan do. So it surprised me when he said, "Well yeah, look at where they live. Of course they have to do all that. We would too"

Dan is one of the last people to panic or overreact. In fact, I've always secretly thought he was the kind of optimist who gets everybody else into trouble with his sunny confidence that everything will be okay. He's the guy whose default is "calm down; it's going to be okay." So, when he says to be cautious, it would behoove you to take it seriously and be cautious indeed.

Then, I spoke to my cousin Linda, who lives in an even hotter hot spot. She's in lower Manhattan. During the aftermath of 9/11, her neighborhood had a toxic fog from the airplanes exploding into the towers that lingered in the air for months. She smelled chemicals, soot, and death from the Twin Towers as the miasma floated from the Wall Street to Houston and Grand Streets.

I worry most about Linda. She lives in a high rise building on the 13th floor. She takes elevators and walks through narrow hallways before she can get anyplace. Linda shops - she has to to get groceries. Delivery services are spotty and the waits too long. In a small Manhattan apartment, you really can't stock up or store more than a week's worth of supplies. And she takes walks for her sanity. She does as much social distancing as possible in the situation, avoiding the most crowded times in her supermarket, sticking to empty streets, keeping a wide berth from others, and not entering an elevator with other people when at all possible. And lately she wears a homemade mask.

So, four of the people I care most about all live in hot spots and harm's way. So do I. Northern Virginia, part of the dense Washington DC Metro area, is supposed to be an emerging hot spot, with Fairfax County"s numbers of new cases and deaths climbing. But we get glimmers of hope too. Our hospitals have not yet been overwhelmed and we are not expecting a shortage of ventilators and other crucial supplies, though people are sewing or donating masks, and they are scrambling for other protective equipment, as every other region is.

Despite a slow start and a reluctance to shut down restaurants, bars, and other nonessential businesses, our governor seems to have done the right thing, after all, and is expressing a determination not to open up again too soon and undo the hard work and sacrifice we've already made.

Of course, our economy is in shambles. Same as everywhere. We have the same debates about when it will be safe to open back up. And the same fears. Wait too long and it is unsustainable for business and the economy. Be too impatient and the death rate goes up. Behind every number, every statistic in that mortality rate is a flesh and blood person with loved ones they leave behind to mourn.

Every number is a Hyacinth, Ronda, Allen, Linda, Dan, and you and me. And our parents, children. We are all in harm's way. All in hot spots. And we all long for normality.

Be safe, wash your hands, and stay inside!

Coronavirus and Political Theory: Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes

This is my new favorite meme making its rounds on Facebook

When I first saw it, I immediately thought of my late mother, a hoarder extraordinaire. When I was growing up, her hoarding annoyed me. Her fridge was always overstuffed. To find the mayonnaise for the tuna salad,  you had to first remove everything hiding it way in the back and then put all that other stuff back.  When she died in 2005, in Fort Lauderdale, I went through her fridge, throwing out her science projects. Fortunately, she never tried to eat any of the spoiled food that she couldn't bear to throw away

Living in Florida in the 1980s, my friends and I secretly made fun of her and her compatriots. You couldn't keep an "all you can eat" buffet restaurant open in the areas near the retirement communities. The seniors would clean them out. Even as we younger people laughed at their behavior, we understood they were formed by years of deprivation - from the Great Depression to the rationing of the WWII years. They could never take for granted the easy prosperity and abundance that we children of the sixties and seventies grew up with. We wasted a lot. Took a lot for granted.

Now as I navigate all the shortages we are facing today, and as I stuff my fridge and steward the food and paper goods to make sure we waste nothing so we don't have to make an unnecessary run to the dangerous supermarkets, I have a whole new appreciation for my mother's frugal ways. I understand her a lot better now.

Meanwhile, Dan, clad in mask and disposable gloves, did a grocery run. This time he came in with ten full bags of groceries - $300 worth. And I wiped down every single one of the items that was practicable with a disinfectant wipe before putting it away - cans of soup and tomato sauce, plastic wrappings on bread (as long as they were double-wrapped), and cardboard boxes. I directed Dan to leave the Bounty paper towels in an out of the way spot that got a lot of sunlight because I read UV rays help dissipate the virus.  I also drew the line at wiping any soft plastic wrapping on produce that was not double-bagged. I don't want an unintended consequence of my fastidiousness to be disinfectant poisoning. I am trying to walk a fine line between protecting us from infection while not killing us with that cure. It makes me crazy,

I know, of course, I won't be disinfecting groceries in the future when the coronavirus has been eliminated (please God soon) and is just a chapter in a history book. Or a funny Facebook meme. But I think there are ways we will be changed by all this. Ways we can't imagine. One of the ways is the political assumptions we accepted without question because they became the conventional wisdom for our generation.

What follows is a guess. Prognostication can be a fool's game so I fully admit it's all speculation.

But I think both libertarianism and Ayn Rand's recent uptick of popularity within Republican circles have taken a big hit. That Cold War novelist and would be philosopher who was popular in the mid-20th Century enjoyed a brief revival first in the 80s and then again in the mid-2000s. There were all kinds of conservative blogs with titles like "Atlas Shrugged" and "Galt's Girl."

The argument over the role of government in our lives has changed too. The belief made popular by Ronald Reagan that "government is not the solution, government is the problem" has collapsed. Despite some hardliners who will never accept it, more and more people from both sides of the aisle are challenging the ideal that  "the era of big government is over," as Bill Clinton declared in 1992. The mistrust that both conservative Republicans and centrist Democrats shared for large government has given way to an appreciation by both of the need for a competent government. We have a renewed recognition of the benefits an efficient government can provide, especially an ability to plan for and act quickly in a national emergency. Only a well run central government can do that to protect an entire country.

With the utter failure of the Trump administration to be prepared for a worldwide deadly epidemic that his own intelligence agencies warned him about back in January, people realize that in a complex, connected, global society we are not an island. We are not a bunch of primitive frontier survivalists who can retreat to some forest fallout shelter. Even in small towns and on farms, we depend on far reaching global communities whose health and prosperity affect our own. We need competent leaders who can manage those risks.

And we need a government that can provide aid in emergencies. When you have to practice social distancing, shut down businesses, put your economy on life support, and throw people out of jobs, you need the Calvary to ride to the rescue. That can't be helped.

So while an incompetent and self-absorbed president and his equally inept and unimaginative aides can only propose opening everything up too soon, endangering health and safety in an inadequate attempt to restart an economy in collapse, other leaders are looking at what our counterparts in other nations are doing. They are watching to see what works and what fails elsewhere. Those more capable officials are paying attention to the examples of those who were too slow to shut down or too quick to open back up. Most public health experts warn bluntly about returning to normal too soon after the curve is flattened, warning the rates of infections and death tolls could shoot back up and defeat all the hard work and sacrifice we've already made. Not to mention it would cause even more human suffering and claim more lives.

What hasn't escaped some political leaders' notice is how countries like the UK, Netherlands, and Denmark have handled their nations' ensuing recessions and unemployment by replacing the salaries of unemployed workers in order to keep them afloat while they shelter in place safely.

Here in the U.S. one of the Republican Party's rising stars, Missouri Representative Josh Hawley, who once joined a lawsuit to stop the Affordable Care Act, just wrote an op-ed endorsing the idea of providing Americans with up to 80 percent of their salary during this time of severe crisis.

Here is what I propose: Because the government has taken the step of closing the economy to protect public health, Congress should in turn protect every single job in this country for the duration of this crisis. And Congress should help our businesses rehire every worker who has already lost a job because of the coronavirus.

Beginning immediately, the federal government should cover 80 percent of wages for workers at any U.S. business, up to the national median wage, until this emergency is over. Further, it should offer businesses a bonus for rehiring workers laid off over the past month. The goal must be to get unemployment down — now — to secure American workers and their families, and to help businesses get ready to restart as soon as possible.

That would have been inconceivable even a short time ago.  But the changes go even deeper. Here is a post from one of Virginia's oldest, most well-respected conservative blogs, Bearing Drift, from blogger M.D. Russ.

The future is out there, but it is going to be far from great, especially if you are a free market fiscal conservative, something that is now as nearly extinct as a Rockefeller Republican and a Red Dog Democrat. The Federal government, after considerable bickering in Congress over corporate welfare versus workers’ rights, has passed an economic stimulus package that will cost an estimated $2 trillion. In one fell swoop our elected representatives have increased the national debt by almost 10 percent in less than ten days.

This is just the first of several stimulus packages to come. To put that GBN (great big number) into context, the last time the national debt increased 10 percent it took three years (2009-2011) and less than $1 trillion in Federal relief during the Great Recession. Put another way, economists like to express the national debt as a ratio of debt-to-GDP (Gross Domestic Product) which more accurately portrays the ability to not just service the debt but to amortize it.

Russ goes on to outline what he thinks is coming. To be sure, he is not happy with it at all. But he seems to understand the reality and even necessity of the coming changes, in a way that anticipates Hawley's embrace of a large relief package. Russ's litany includes a recognition of the plight of low wage workers and their need for a living wage, the coming public embrace of a single payer healthcare system.

To be honest, I don't see Hawley or Russ as new converts to progressivism so much as sharing a grim recognition that this is what the country will need to get back on its feet after the staggering effects of disease, death, and economic collapse. These are truly dire times unlike anything we've been prepared for. But it's not something you would've seen written in Bearing Drift ten years ago. Or even two months ago.

Finally, the sobering shortages of everything from face masks and other protective gear for first responders and medical workers to consumer goods like disinfectant and toilet paper has led many to question the strength of our supply chains and to conclude we need an industrial policy and a return of at least some crucial consumer manufacturing to America.

The truth is I don't expect most conservatives to ditch years of mistrust for big government to embrace socialist ideas. Indeed, I suspect most of the country, including many liberals, would still reject the label "socialist" for any solution.. But the idea of a Universal Basic Income, which has been bubbling around in fringe libertarian and leftist circles, and which was championed by long shot Democratic candidate Andrew Young is getting renewed attention. So is the once ridiculed concept of Modern Monetary Theory, a long dismissed economic theory from the left fringe.

I think the conversation has changed and a critical mass of people are questioning old, easy  assumptions about the left, the right, the role of  government, free markets, free trade, globalism, deficit spending and neoliberalism.

Free markets are good. But so is regulation to prevent abuse from monopolies. Big business can be as much of a threat to liberty as big government. Regulations protect health, safety, the environment, and our national security.  Global trade is good, but not outsourcing and off shoring all your manufacturing capacity. Limited government leads to liberty, except when the inability to respond to a national emergency kills your loved ones. Too much debt and deficit spending isn't good, except when it is, when it's necessary.

Most of all, what has changed is that Ayn Rand's philosophy about the "virtue of selfishness" has been replaced by a greater appreciation for self-sacrifice and altruism in a crisis. Howard Roark and John Galt, two of Ayn Rand's most beloved characters, are no longer cultural heroes even on the right. They've been replaced by firefighters, EMT workers, nurses, and doctors. Our newest heroes are checkout clerks and gig workers who are willing to brave a deadly virus to keep those of us more vulnerable supplied with lettuce, milk, bread, and, yes when it's available, toilet paper.  When this is done, I think there will be a new appreciation for and celebration of the common man and woman who works on the front lines for us. And a finer appreciation for community and civic responsibility. We are also going to appreciate our neighbors, friends, and families. We have rediscovered we really are all in this together.