Locked down for the greater good

I make notes on my desk pad of topics that could make a decent post. I make a lot of notes on the pad, and line through them when done. Eventually the sight of the desk pad could make me crazy, and I tear it off and start with a shiny new sheet of paper. 

For the first time ever, somewhere in the six or eight weeks of the top sheet of paper, I’d lifted that sheet and wrote a note on the next sheet, that I’m using now. It says “nothing that’s wrong with me will kill me, but it all slows me down.” Apparently I thought that a fine topic sentence.

And now I thought, that’s some gruesome homily to throw out at Covid-19.  But it’s not, as long as I don’t actually have the virus. On the other hand, avoiding the virus is slowing me down. 

Interesting,  the drastic measure of shutting down the country has held the death rate of the virus to a very few percentage points above the annual death rate of flu, or heart disease. The flaw in this thinking being, we have a vaccination for flu and we know how to prevent heart disease.

Human nature being human nature, we spit at heart disease. We smoke, we drink, we are obese, and we rely on modern medicine to save us. We fill up entire hospital wards with our heart problems, and bring up new generations of heart specialists to save us.  

Enough of us are vaccinated against the flu viruses to hold down our hospital bed occupation to the same as the heart patients. And the hospitals are nearly full, and the health care professionals are all occupied, and here comes Covid-19.

We’ve been warned before. We had a flu epidemic in 1918 that killed more millions that are truly known. But that was a century ago, you know. Four generations. We didn’t invest in better education, more health care professionals, more research labs, more hospitals. They cost, and the money flowed elsewhere. It could even have flowed into great funds available to slam into a problem the instant it’s recognized.

But you know me, the tree hugging liberal—all the money has gone to make a pitiful few grossly rich, and an even more pitifully few of them willing to put their money to the solution. Not the way it should be, in my opinion.

Back to the present, here we are, locked down for the greater good. And suddenly we have rebellion, fomented by the leader of the country, to end lock down, back to normal, now, overnight, with no plan. There is a price for this, of course, and some of us know what the science professionals are telling us, the price is the lives of the children and their grandparents. 

Collateral damage, as it’s called. But it allows the generation in the middle to make money, keep up the house payments, go to the beach, send the children to college.

I don’t know an answer. Just a few could be, send tax dollars to research. Earmark some to fund emergencies from the bottom up, from household income to hospital expansion. Use common sense. Make your employees help in a plan of six foot distancing, hand washing, face masks, going home if sick. Agree to emergency measures for the short term; off site schooling, and work.

This is my grandmother, at age sixteen. Already her mother had died in the flu epidemic of 1918. The previous recession had so restricted he father’s income that her mother made their home a boarding home. My grandmother still did all the laundry, cooked the meals, and cleaned up. There at home she was working as hard as the health care professionals of her time. 

My mother was raised with the same work ethic. Even though she has retired from a regular job, she walked into our studio and said “teach me to weave.”  When she passed, we found we had to hire two weavers to replace her.

I grew up knowing I was ultimately responsible for my upkeep. My daughters hopefully learned the same.

I think the solution to pandemics is meeting them with a plan. Not my plan, but one worked out by our leaders, for the greater good, and with our agreement. 

Another interesting fact, there have been no cases of Covid-19 in my zip code, or some abutting zip codes. The official reason cited is “The National Park”, and lack of people. How about a lot more parks! 44264, that's me.