As the impact of the virus now classified as COVID-19 became apparent here in the United States and as government officials began to make decisions that led first to restrictions, then to closures, and then to shelter in place or “stay home stay safe” executive orders, I watched in bewilderment.
Fairly early on in the progression, around the time universities had started to take measures to clear their campuses and to cancel classes or move them online, I had been in conversation with a former professor and friend via email. We were actually celebrating the accomplishment of the Exercise Is Medicine on Campus (EIMOC) team having achieved silver level recognition for the college’s program for a second year in a row. He and I had worked together to bring an EIMOC program to the college in 2018.
Though he developed the exercise science degree program there, and he was my professor for the three required exercise science courses, he had been, and still is, a proponent of me continuing to write. When I had asked him how things were going at the college as the chaos of the closure and transition to online teaching was unfolding, his final comment to me in that email threat was, “I hope you’re writing about this!”
Writing about this made sense since “this” seemed to be all there was at that time, and still does seem to be all there is. I did indeed write two blog posts that related to the now global pandemic, “The Listener Speaks,” about the role of the media and the lack of journalistic integrity I had observed as I watched the daily briefings; and “Shining Moments Missed,” about those opportunities and events that make life memorable and meaningful that have been lost forever to the virus and the closures and cancelations it has caused.
Even my post “On Easter Sunday,” that was meant to be encouraging and uplifting, had tinges of the grief mingled into its text due to the awareness of the virus.
Given that the last two blog posts were not well received, less so than the post critical of the media interesting enough, I became discouraged, despondent even.
Despondent encompasses the loss of hope and the loss of courage. While many of us are working to maintain our hope, I believe I am losing some courage, or perhaps the amount of energy it takes to exercise it.
My next blog post was going to be unique in that it was going to be a series of questions. I have said many times that I have a vast number of questions surrounding this crisis and the way it has been addressed, but I have few answers.
I had intended to post, and pose, several of those questions with perhaps some of the data and limited answers that I have been able to find just to get readers thinking, searching, and asking questions of their own, because critical thinking has to remain an essential skill regardless of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. In times of crisis it becomes even more important.
As I’ve watched things unfold over the past week though, and as I’ve seen the deep divide in our country growing ever deeper, and as I’ve realized that we are not remotely “in this together” – though the cliché sounds idealistic and lovely, and as I have chosen to express my thoughts amidst those of people who feel as if they can do so freely, I have come to discover that perhaps the time for quiet observation is at hand.
There are people who need to be asking questions right now. They need to be watching intently and asking the right questions based on what they are actually seeing The practitioners on “the front lines” need to ponder what they are observing clinically at the bedsides of their patients, and compare it with the protocols that they are being asked to follow. I know, because I have read, that some are – a fortunate thing for their patients both now and in the future.
The people who are making decisions based on models and projections need to be able to question those models based on what is actually occurring, noting differences across the nation, questioning why the differences, determining whether the models were accurate, whether they are reliable for future decision making, and where they can adjust.
Certainly the penetrance of this virus remains in question, and may for a very long time. Clearly people have contracted the virus. The people who I am aware of personally or through my family have all recovered. But as we know all to well, not everyone recovers. And as we also know, people who have lost loved ones, to the virus or to all other causes, cannot say a proper goodbye.
Though there is so much more being lost now, and likely considerably more loss, in both variety and scope, to come in the months and even years after this is but a horrible memory, the death toll and preventing it from rising are the focus in this moment.
With that being said, this writer has nothing more to say about this truly calamitous situation.
The Listener 