Spotlight on the Out-of-Sight

One of the things the coronavirus has done is shed light on groups of people who don’t get much attention in what we would call “normal” times. Here are three that stand out now to me.

The first are the elderly – specifically, those who live in nursing homes. What are these places? It has been pointed out that there are likely more of these homes in our culture, while in others, older people tend to spend more of their senior years at home with their families. But in many cases, loving families simply don’t have the facilities or expertise to properly care for the oldest among them. Curiously, though, nursing home residents dying of COVID-19 are often not included in the disease’s casualty figures.

Then there are the prisoners. It’s said that the US is the clear world leader in the percentage of the population behind bars. Most of us are perfectly content to have these individuals locked up so that we don’t have to deal with them or think about them. This group includes those whose offenses are no longer crimes and, of course, those who didn’t commit crimes in the first place, and are disproportionately people of color. Even for those who have fairly earned their sentences, however, we might wonder if they deserve to be trapped in what amounts to a COVID petri dish.

Finally, there are the folks who work in meat-packing plants, often foreigners placed at close quarters, working with animal parts. Many of these plants are in fly-over states, and in those states, they are often COVID hotspots. Most of us meat consumers probably prefer not to know where this part of our diet comes from and how the animals (still another forgotten group) are raised. While I’m sure that most of the vegans and animal-rights enthusiasts don’t support seeing humans get sick, they may be pleased that a spotlight is shining into a corner where the majority of us don’t want to go. It has been suggested by some that COVID itself is Mother Nature’s way of paying us back for the abuse that is done to animals, as the disease itself is believed to have jumped from animals to humans, who are not naturally immune from it.

These groups are the ones currently getting some extra attention due to the virus, and I’m sure you can think of others. It usually takes a really inconvenient truth to shake us out of automatic thinking, and once in a while, we need that.

Testing, Testing...Is This Thing On?

If you’re having trouble getting your head around this coronavirus testing issue, you’re in a very large club. The way it has been explained, there are two basic types of tests. The first, the PCR, is diagnostic and tells you if you have the virus, though you may not feel sick. If the test is positive, you need to be quarantined, and those who have come into contact with you recently need quarantining too. The second is the serology test, basically a blood test that determines if your immune system produced antibodies and successfully fought off the virus in the past.

The first test is a snapshot: you either have the virus or you don’t. if it comes out negative, It only means you did not have the virus when you were tested, but you might catch it later. The other test sounds like better news: you defeated the virus with antibodies, and maybe you are now immune. If so, it is you who may lead us on the long road back to normal.

How might this work in practice? If you are indeed immune, theoretically you could get a certificate that says you’re clean and return to work. If you never had the virus, you may not be able to return until you test negative via the PCR first. Even then, you might have to take repeat tests periodically to check your status.

The tests have been hard to get. There are a number of versions with varying degrees of accuracy. A lot of them are missing swabs, reactive chemical agents, or some other component needed to make them work. As with many shortages right now, it’s all about manufacturing and supply chain issues -  tough problems, but soluble. But we just don’t have the right President now.

Those in the know say we need to get a lot more testing done, with the tracing of contacts of virus carriers, to determine the penetration of the disease before we open up the economy. Others say we won’t really be safe until there’s a vaccine. But can we stay locked down for six months, or a year or more? In my own humble and unprofessional opinion, there is a tipping point coming, where we may have to open parts of the economy up, if only to save a little public sanity. That will come when improvement in our testing program intersects with the level of risk we are willing to tolerate. And whatever we open, we might have to close again.

Are we at this tipping point yet? No, and I fear that the governors of those states where the reins are being loosened may find the virus teaching them some hard lessons. The states hanging back will learn from the experience, or the mistakes, of those opening too soon. As for the protesters in the lockdown states, a few cops armed with cameras and books of tickets, each carrying a fine of a couple hundred bucks for violating local mask and separation orders, could easily thin those crowds out.

There will be plenty of time later to call out those who dropped the ball in responding to this crisis. In my view, It wasn’t all about negligence or denial; some of the mistakes were just unfortunate. Now, however, it’s time to pick up that ball and put our index fingers down - and then wash our hands, of course.

Nuts and Bolts on COVID-19

In the city I used to live in, they had a weekly festival in the downtown area on Thursday nights. It was sort of a combination farmer’s market and art fair, where vendors could set up booths. One of the most popular was called Ask the Rabbi. To borrow a line from the old billboards in the New York subway, you didn’t have to be Jewish to ask him a question. I don’t remember whether he even charged anything. But if they had a booth called Ask the Virologist, here are a few questions I’d pose about the coronavirus:

*Is social distancing only good for taking the pressure off hospitals, or does it also help cause the virus to “run out of fuel” and eventually die?

*What kind of measurement would you be comfortable with in starting to “reopen” the economy? I’m not asking for a date here, just the metrics.

*As for full testing and tracing contacts of infected people, isn’t it too late for that in places like New York and California? But cam it still be done in the less populated states?

*I know the question of immunity has yet to be settled, but who should be released from lockdown first – is it only those who have recovered from the virus? Does testing negative mean they can no longer transmit the virus to others? Should they wear a badge or carry a card saying they are “clean”?

*What about those who have not caught the virus. Must they stay locked down until there is a vaccine?

*When there is a vaccine, who gets it first? How is that decided?

*At what point can this disease be considered “over”?

*Can this particular virus mutate to another form before it runs its course?

*Most people will survive COVID-19, and many will have only mild symptoms or none at all, depending on their immune systems. Is this resistance or immunity trait passed down genetically to their children?

OK, I admit that I was too lazy to just Google these questions or ask Alexa, Siri, Cortana, Quora, or whomever to help me, but it would be nice if our media, mainstream or otherwise, dug in to some of these things.

Random COVID Thoughts

I’d like to get all gushy and spiritual about how transformative the coronavirus experience is, but let’s not forget that it is a giant PITA (spelled a little differently from the animal-rights group acronym). It is NOT normal and never will be. It will end sometime and we will return to a version of our old lives, though perhaps not quite the same one.

That said, COVID-19 is part of a natural process which involves all living creatures. It’s like the weather. We can’t control it, at least not yet. But just because it’s raining, it doesn’t mean we have to stand out in the downpour and get wet. We can manage ourselves as we deal with this plague. That’s what these restrictive lockdown rules are all about.

We can write lovely poetry about how the coronavirus has taught us how much we value our families and relationships. But we are Americans, and we also like space and the ability to move around. While sitting at home with the kids doing jigsaw puzzles might be amusing temporarily, some of us simply don’t enjoy being cooped up with the same people for extended periods of time. It’s a sad fact that domestic violence is increasing under these lockdowns.

It seems our little contribution at home to pandemic heroism, then, has to be the development of  patience For the moment, though, we can celebrate with newly unlocked Wuhan, China, knowing that our own liberation will come.

One good thing for us now is that autopilot has been switched off. We are learning the true value of all those formerly invisible folks who make what we call normal life possible. We take fewer things for granted, especially paper products.

A thought I’ve had lately is that our President has missed a giant opportunity. If the man who loves distractions so much had embraced COVID-19 as a national emergency much earlier on, he might now be a genuine hero with a slam-dunk re-election in sight. Had he been more effectively guiding us through this single calamity, at least some voters might be prepared to overlook other parts of his record during the past three-and-a-half years. His late arrival to this party is now just another piece of baggage.

But as I have said before, it’s not yet the time to dwell on woulda, coulda and shoulda. The only thing that counts right now is gonna.