After Shocks
When an earthquake rolled through our city last week, it did more than shake buildings; it shook people from their reverie. What followed were nearly 200 aftershocks, although less than 5 of those were noticeable, slight adjustments in the fault lines proving as unpredictable as lightning in their direction and intensity. Just as in California or the Philippines or Naples, scientists warned that "the big one" was still to come and people huddled down for a day or two, then emerged like gophers, poked their heads out and self-assuredly told themselves...nah. That was close but it wasn't really going to happen, not for a long while yet; time to get back to work. And despite our lockdowns and our stay-at-home orders, one can almost feel that shift beginning to happen again, that overload of news, that asking of when we can "get back to normal." New vocabulary is entering our lexicon...social distancing, flatten the curve, boomer remover, 201k's. And perhaps that one word proving to be most dreaded by hospitals and healthcare workers, triage. It's a word saved for war, a decision to be made when the influx of patients can't keep up with a shortage of time or equipment; as frontline medic and ethicist, Dr. Dominic Wilkinson, told The Conversation: Treatment, whether that is medicine, or oxygen, or a breathing machine, will often be provided for a period and then reviewed. If it is working, that will be fantastic. But if the person is not getting better or is getting worse, it will be very important to recognise that and to stop the treatment. Added the piece: Here, modified from US surgeon Atul Gawande’s inspirational book Being Mortal, are three things that I will talk about with my family this week. First, if you were to become seriously ill with coronavirus, what would be most important? What would be your top priority? (And your second priority, if the first isn’t possible?) Second, what is concerning you the most about becoming seriously ill? What are you most worried about? And, third, if you became seriously ill, what outcomes would be unacceptable to you, what would you be willing to sacrifice – and not sacrifice?
A Bloomberg editorial (30/03/2020) put it more succinctly: This is a difficult moment. Maybe you know someone with Covid-19 or others who have struggled to get tested. If you're healthy, I hope you're socially distancing to help flatten the curve. Meanwhile, we've all watched the markets tank, businesses come to a screeching halt, our daily routines get upended. Working from home always sounded great, until it became the new normal. Just months ago, an historic yet unloved bull market lulled us into thinking that stocks only went up. How distant and quaint that time already seems. For so many, the future looks far from certain -- dire even, especially for small businesses...not even our prescient coverage of the coronavirus ("We are so not ready for this,"...) could prepare us for he speed with which the global economy would succumb to the pandemic. For emergency and health care workers, almost daily exposure is forcing difficult decisions on their personal lives: how much risk are they putting on themselves?; how much risk are they putting on their families?; with shortages of both sleep and equipment will they make a mistake?; is there a way or a place or a time to vent their frustrations?; will another wave of this virus come back even stronger?; when or will this all end? Psychiatrist Dr. Jessica Gold told STAT: These choices are not easy to make --between protecting oneself and one’s family and doing one’s job-- on top of the life-or-death decisions they may be forced to make due to limited resources. It is no wonder they are not sleeping, are anxious, or afraid. It is no wonder that the preliminary research on coronavirus in China showcases high rates of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, insomnia, and distress, which are much higher in nurses, women, and those on the front line...Our mental health system is deeply flawed and understaffed and is in no way prepared to manage the onslaught of mental health issues in health care providers and the citizenry in general after such a mass tragedy...Mental health cannot be an afterthought in coping with a pandemic.
So back to you. There you are, following the guidelines, washing your hands all the time, making sure to not touch too many things, keeping a safe distance from others, trying to remain indoors as much as possible, and then you notice a few things, your temperature is rising, it's getting a bit difficult to breathe, there's a slight cough...and the symptoms start to worsen. This can't be, you think, you -- just had a baby, just retired, just lost your job, just got back from working out, just turned 17, just planned your wedding, just lost your spouse, just bought a house, just became a billionaire, just attended a world conference, just became homeless, just turned 90, just finished a shift at the hospital, just dropped off your last package, just got off the bus, just lost your insurance. This virus doesn't care. It is changing us, foring us to wonder just how random and how vulnerable we all are. Sarah Zhang wrote in The Atlantic: Recently, in this time of coronavirus, I got home and dutifully washed my hands to two cycles of “Happy Birthday.” Then I did what I automatically do when my mind is idle and my hands are free, which is to take my phone out of my pocket—the same phone, I groaned upon realizing, that I had just been using with unwashed hands while riding the bus and buying groceries and touching doorknobs. I set my phone on the counter but immediately regretted it. Did I need to disinfect my counter now? What about the inside of my pocket? Oh my God, did I just touch my face? As the coronavirus has spread, I’ve noticed this second-guessing—not always rational—start to infect my everyday habits. When these deliberations start to spiral, I realize that I can wage total and obsessive germ warfare, or I can get on with my life. It’s not that I necessarily fear the virus itself—most cases of the disease it causes, known as COVID-19, have been mild. But the deluge of coronavirus news has made its potential but invisible presence foremost in my mind and extracted a kind of mental tax.
People are making diaries these days, posting thoughts either through social media or as journalists. Slate's Greta Privitera wrote this from her isolation days in her Italian town (Italy and Spain have been particularly hard hit with both infections and fatalities from Covid-19): It’s 9 a.m. Like I’ve done for the past six days, I turn on the news before drinking my coffee. The number of infected people has increased, but an expert is about to explain why we still shouldn’t worry too much...Even if we wanted to wear one—which we don’t—masks are basically impossible to find. All of the pharmacies are out, and people online are selling them at insane prices. I am curious as to where all those masks went, though, because over the past few days, when I have gone out, I haven’t seen many people wearing them...The day is spent with Peppa Pig on loop, emails, new rituals of washing our hands (now while singing “Happy Birthday”), and a break to bake cookies. Between episodes, I try to catch newscasts, which are now as addictive as Netflix. One reason why I like the TV news is that I’m trying to avoid social networks. Yesterday, I risked a confrontation with a Facebook “friend” who posted an article on why we should close the borders on immigrants—right in the middle of the days when other countries are closing their borders on us. If it’s not this kind of thing, it’s irritation from how everyone I know has become an expert in virology and public health, or the frustration that comes from those who believe “coronavirus is a joke, it’s just like the flu,” or, on the other hand, those in the panicked “we’re all gonna die” camp. I have the feeling there are many more people who are simply respecting the rules to limit the infection, but they’re not the ones posting. Robert Kaplan wrote a piece in The Atlantic titled: The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease Are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet. The year it was published was 1994...26 years ago.
Little of this matters if you're worried about your next meal or whether you'll be evicted. A Hispanic man came up to my door last night, handed me a card about landscaping, and said only, "I want to work, man." If you're a business, even with the best of intentions, how long can you keep your employees?* And if you're a former employee or a restaurant or a flight attendant or a packager at a warehouse, how anxious are you to return to facing people and picking up glasses or touching keys or not worrying about a sneeze? Now think if you're a nurse or doctor and facing hundreds of people who are already or may be infected and your "protective" equipment pieces are the same items you used yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. And you still have a baby or family to return to at night? As David Brooks wrote in an op-ed about social solidarity: It's an active commitment to the common good -- the kind of thing needed in times like these...Solidarity is not a feeling, it's an active virtue...It's out of solidarity that health care workers stay on their feet amid terror and fatigue. Some things you do not for yourself or another but for the common whole...Judging from my social network, the absence of social connection is making everybody more ardent for it. People are geniuses at finding ways to touch each other even when they can't...We'll need a great reset when this is all over. We need to start planning a great social festival and ask the obvious questions: Why did we tolerate so much social division before? Why didn't we cultivate stronger social bonds when we had the chance?
Amidst all of this there are great stories emerging, restaurants barely making it but still making meals for those who need it or working to just get their employees through this period; food trucks and library trucks and school lunches still trying to make the rounds; teachers and counselors doing whatever they can to keep students involved; people "touching" elderly relatives through windows. Allstate's The Renewal Project is just one of many sites featuring such sites featuring such stories; local news stations and city bulletins keep trying to update people as long as they can (our local city bulletin just began asking for minimal donations as advertisers drop off). We may be witnessing a cascading collapse economically but we are also witnessing a determination to make it through. Think of yourself as an everyday person...you run into some government money or an unexpected paycheck; what will you do with the money? Book a cruise or head to Disneyland? Go to a restaurant or a nightclub? Book a concert or a flight to a distant country? Head to Las Vegas or a convention? Quite likely your choice will be none of those things...perhaps a meal out or a few friends over; but the seed has been planted...this virus is indeed the unknown and while it may slowly fade away we likely won't really be sure if it's "gone."
Yuval Noah Harari wrote in his book Sapiens: ...how everything is impermanent, and what we think of as eternal social structure --even family, money, religion, nations-- everything is changing, nothing is eternal, everything came out of some historical process. And yet one has to believe or to have faith or have compassion...doesn't one? With the world going on shutdown we are perhaps seeing the true divide as rulers and governments seem to continue their battles by not wanting to share or work together, separate from the billions who are simply struggling to get past this or to save others or to just survive. A "million prayer" log was being passed around on social media and while its thoughts were seemingly geared to a more organized religion, I (a self-declared non-religious but more of a spiritual person) found this prayer by Rev. Samuel F. Pugh (who lived to the age of 103 and passed away in 2007) a bit more meaningful: O God, when I have food, help me to remember the hungry; When I have work, help me to remember the jobless; When I have a home, help me to remember those who have no home at all; When I am without pain, help me to remember those who suffer, And remembering, help me to destroy my complacency; bestir my compassion, and be concerned enough to help; By word and deed, those who cry out for what we take for granted. Amen.
*One surprising story came from Home Depot with their bulletin to customers of what their new policies were during this uncertain time: price freezes on all products, diverting masks and protective equipment to hospitals and first responders, donating millions to hospitals and healthcare workers, giving employees 80 hours of paid leave to use as they please (double that for employees over 65), covering co-pays and retaining all insurance for employees, retaining pay if an employee is hospitalized, and providing extra bonus pay for those continuing to work. Stores and businesses are trying, but money will only last so long. Stored food will only last so long. Supply chains will only deliver so long. Credit will only last so long. Hope and faith may also only last so long...but everyone is trying. Social solidarity...stay healthy and safe, everyone. Care for yourself, and for others...as the old saying goes, if not now, when?
A Bloomberg editorial (30/03/2020) put it more succinctly: This is a difficult moment. Maybe you know someone with Covid-19 or others who have struggled to get tested. If you're healthy, I hope you're socially distancing to help flatten the curve. Meanwhile, we've all watched the markets tank, businesses come to a screeching halt, our daily routines get upended. Working from home always sounded great, until it became the new normal. Just months ago, an historic yet unloved bull market lulled us into thinking that stocks only went up. How distant and quaint that time already seems. For so many, the future looks far from certain -- dire even, especially for small businesses...not even our prescient coverage of the coronavirus ("We are so not ready for this,"...) could prepare us for he speed with which the global economy would succumb to the pandemic. For emergency and health care workers, almost daily exposure is forcing difficult decisions on their personal lives: how much risk are they putting on themselves?; how much risk are they putting on their families?; with shortages of both sleep and equipment will they make a mistake?; is there a way or a place or a time to vent their frustrations?; will another wave of this virus come back even stronger?; when or will this all end? Psychiatrist Dr. Jessica Gold told STAT: These choices are not easy to make --between protecting oneself and one’s family and doing one’s job-- on top of the life-or-death decisions they may be forced to make due to limited resources. It is no wonder they are not sleeping, are anxious, or afraid. It is no wonder that the preliminary research on coronavirus in China showcases high rates of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, insomnia, and distress, which are much higher in nurses, women, and those on the front line...Our mental health system is deeply flawed and understaffed and is in no way prepared to manage the onslaught of mental health issues in health care providers and the citizenry in general after such a mass tragedy...Mental health cannot be an afterthought in coping with a pandemic.
So back to you. There you are, following the guidelines, washing your hands all the time, making sure to not touch too many things, keeping a safe distance from others, trying to remain indoors as much as possible, and then you notice a few things, your temperature is rising, it's getting a bit difficult to breathe, there's a slight cough...and the symptoms start to worsen. This can't be, you think, you -- just had a baby, just retired, just lost your job, just got back from working out, just turned 17, just planned your wedding, just lost your spouse, just bought a house, just became a billionaire, just attended a world conference, just became homeless, just turned 90, just finished a shift at the hospital, just dropped off your last package, just got off the bus, just lost your insurance. This virus doesn't care. It is changing us, foring us to wonder just how random and how vulnerable we all are. Sarah Zhang wrote in The Atlantic: Recently, in this time of coronavirus, I got home and dutifully washed my hands to two cycles of “Happy Birthday.” Then I did what I automatically do when my mind is idle and my hands are free, which is to take my phone out of my pocket—the same phone, I groaned upon realizing, that I had just been using with unwashed hands while riding the bus and buying groceries and touching doorknobs. I set my phone on the counter but immediately regretted it. Did I need to disinfect my counter now? What about the inside of my pocket? Oh my God, did I just touch my face? As the coronavirus has spread, I’ve noticed this second-guessing—not always rational—start to infect my everyday habits. When these deliberations start to spiral, I realize that I can wage total and obsessive germ warfare, or I can get on with my life. It’s not that I necessarily fear the virus itself—most cases of the disease it causes, known as COVID-19, have been mild. But the deluge of coronavirus news has made its potential but invisible presence foremost in my mind and extracted a kind of mental tax.
People are making diaries these days, posting thoughts either through social media or as journalists. Slate's Greta Privitera wrote this from her isolation days in her Italian town (Italy and Spain have been particularly hard hit with both infections and fatalities from Covid-19): It’s 9 a.m. Like I’ve done for the past six days, I turn on the news before drinking my coffee. The number of infected people has increased, but an expert is about to explain why we still shouldn’t worry too much...Even if we wanted to wear one—which we don’t—masks are basically impossible to find. All of the pharmacies are out, and people online are selling them at insane prices. I am curious as to where all those masks went, though, because over the past few days, when I have gone out, I haven’t seen many people wearing them...The day is spent with Peppa Pig on loop, emails, new rituals of washing our hands (now while singing “Happy Birthday”), and a break to bake cookies. Between episodes, I try to catch newscasts, which are now as addictive as Netflix. One reason why I like the TV news is that I’m trying to avoid social networks. Yesterday, I risked a confrontation with a Facebook “friend” who posted an article on why we should close the borders on immigrants—right in the middle of the days when other countries are closing their borders on us. If it’s not this kind of thing, it’s irritation from how everyone I know has become an expert in virology and public health, or the frustration that comes from those who believe “coronavirus is a joke, it’s just like the flu,” or, on the other hand, those in the panicked “we’re all gonna die” camp. I have the feeling there are many more people who are simply respecting the rules to limit the infection, but they’re not the ones posting. Robert Kaplan wrote a piece in The Atlantic titled: The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease Are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of Our Planet. The year it was published was 1994...26 years ago.
Little of this matters if you're worried about your next meal or whether you'll be evicted. A Hispanic man came up to my door last night, handed me a card about landscaping, and said only, "I want to work, man." If you're a business, even with the best of intentions, how long can you keep your employees?* And if you're a former employee or a restaurant or a flight attendant or a packager at a warehouse, how anxious are you to return to facing people and picking up glasses or touching keys or not worrying about a sneeze? Now think if you're a nurse or doctor and facing hundreds of people who are already or may be infected and your "protective" equipment pieces are the same items you used yesterday, and the day before, and the day before. And you still have a baby or family to return to at night? As David Brooks wrote in an op-ed about social solidarity: It's an active commitment to the common good -- the kind of thing needed in times like these...Solidarity is not a feeling, it's an active virtue...It's out of solidarity that health care workers stay on their feet amid terror and fatigue. Some things you do not for yourself or another but for the common whole...Judging from my social network, the absence of social connection is making everybody more ardent for it. People are geniuses at finding ways to touch each other even when they can't...We'll need a great reset when this is all over. We need to start planning a great social festival and ask the obvious questions: Why did we tolerate so much social division before? Why didn't we cultivate stronger social bonds when we had the chance?
Amidst all of this there are great stories emerging, restaurants barely making it but still making meals for those who need it or working to just get their employees through this period; food trucks and library trucks and school lunches still trying to make the rounds; teachers and counselors doing whatever they can to keep students involved; people "touching" elderly relatives through windows. Allstate's The Renewal Project is just one of many sites featuring such sites featuring such stories; local news stations and city bulletins keep trying to update people as long as they can (our local city bulletin just began asking for minimal donations as advertisers drop off). We may be witnessing a cascading collapse economically but we are also witnessing a determination to make it through. Think of yourself as an everyday person...you run into some government money or an unexpected paycheck; what will you do with the money? Book a cruise or head to Disneyland? Go to a restaurant or a nightclub? Book a concert or a flight to a distant country? Head to Las Vegas or a convention? Quite likely your choice will be none of those things...perhaps a meal out or a few friends over; but the seed has been planted...this virus is indeed the unknown and while it may slowly fade away we likely won't really be sure if it's "gone."
Yuval Noah Harari wrote in his book Sapiens: ...how everything is impermanent, and what we think of as eternal social structure --even family, money, religion, nations-- everything is changing, nothing is eternal, everything came out of some historical process. And yet one has to believe or to have faith or have compassion...doesn't one? With the world going on shutdown we are perhaps seeing the true divide as rulers and governments seem to continue their battles by not wanting to share or work together, separate from the billions who are simply struggling to get past this or to save others or to just survive. A "million prayer" log was being passed around on social media and while its thoughts were seemingly geared to a more organized religion, I (a self-declared non-religious but more of a spiritual person) found this prayer by Rev. Samuel F. Pugh (who lived to the age of 103 and passed away in 2007) a bit more meaningful: O God, when I have food, help me to remember the hungry; When I have work, help me to remember the jobless; When I have a home, help me to remember those who have no home at all; When I am without pain, help me to remember those who suffer, And remembering, help me to destroy my complacency; bestir my compassion, and be concerned enough to help; By word and deed, those who cry out for what we take for granted. Amen.
*One surprising story came from Home Depot with their bulletin to customers of what their new policies were during this uncertain time: price freezes on all products, diverting masks and protective equipment to hospitals and first responders, donating millions to hospitals and healthcare workers, giving employees 80 hours of paid leave to use as they please (double that for employees over 65), covering co-pays and retaining all insurance for employees, retaining pay if an employee is hospitalized, and providing extra bonus pay for those continuing to work. Stores and businesses are trying, but money will only last so long. Stored food will only last so long. Supply chains will only deliver so long. Credit will only last so long. Hope and faith may also only last so long...but everyone is trying. Social solidarity...stay healthy and safe, everyone. Care for yourself, and for others...as the old saying goes, if not now, when?
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