Day 229…
It is a dark, chilly and rather dreary day here in Manhattan. The sky is grey. It looks as soft as the pillow I just left on my bed.
I am standing on the line to cast my vote.
My polling place is at 102nd Street near Columbus Avenue. The end of the line where I am standing is actually directly across the street from the building where we vote.
To get in, however, I am going to need to follow the line all the way down 102nd to Amsterdam, uptown to 104th, then all the way back over to Columbus and downtown to 102nd again, and hang a right. Then back to where I started, on the other side of the street, we’ll head all the way to Amsterdam again. Then we turn left, head down the block towards 101st Street and then I can’t see what happens.
All told, that’s probably about three quarters of a mile, maybe more. Michael got here about half an hour before me. He’s already around the block from me.
I am praying that it doesn’t rain and that I won’t need to go to the bathroom. There are snacks in my backpack.
I’ve set the stopwatch.
In a television interview last night, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said, “We are not going to control the pandemic.”
They are not even going to try. Instead of trying to flatten the curve, their plan is, instead, to just get behind the possibility of a vaccine at some unknown future date and to continue to work on developing therapeutics.
It’s like we’re being invaded and the General of our army announces that we aren’t going to fight any battles at all. The General’s plan is to just let the invaders come in to do whatever they want but in the meantime the army is going to get together as many bandages and tubes of Neosporin that it can find.
We are now truly and solidly at the beginning of the much-predicted second wave of the pandemic. 42 states are seeing increases in their case numbers.
Yesterday, the rolling average of new DAILY cases of COVID-19 in the country hit 69,000. 69,000 people every DAY are getting infected by this virus. That’s the highest it has ever been.
Five staff members in the Vice President’s office have tested positive for the virus.
Instead of isolating, as the CDC mandates for someone with this level of exposure, the Vice President plans to continue his campaign travels uninterrupted. He still plans on presiding over the Senate confirmation vote later today for the President’s Supreme Court nominee.
This is the man who is the head of this Administration’s Coronavirus Task Force. This is the person who was appointed General of our Army to fight this pandemic. He is putting everyone who has to travel with him in harm’s way. He is risking the health of everyone he comes into contact with. He is putting every single member of the Senate at risk by his actions.
Senator Chuck Schumer from New York pretty much summed up the only possible response to all of this when he said yesterday, “God help us.”
The last month has seen a 40% rise in hospitalizations as a result of COVID infections. About 41,000 people nationwide are currently in hospitals receiving treatment. There is growing concern that some areas are reaching capacity.
Utah Governor Gary Herbert just announced that they may need to start rationing ICU beds. Stricter criteria will need to be put in pace to decide who gets treated and who gets turned away.
Medical Centers in Kansas City, Missouri this past month have been turning away ambulances because they have no beds left.
Some Idaho patients have had to be transported to Seattle and Portland to receive care.
Officials in El Paso, Texas are urging people to stay home for two weeks to try and stop the spread because their hospitals are at capacity. They have seen a 300% increase in hospital admissions over this past month.
Dr. Ngozi Ezike the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, broke down this morning when she addressed the people of her state and pleaded with them to fight the fatigue - to continue to wear masks and practice social distancing. They are seeing their system inching towards capacity.
I’m standing on this line to vote with hundreds of other New Yorkers. We’ve all already been through all of this here in the city.
Back in the spring, we set up temporary hospitals in Central Park and in our Convention Center. They even sent in a hospital ship to take some of our overflow.
All these other parts of the country were watching us as we drowned in virus cases. Was nothing learned? Apparently not. Nobody in this Administration appears to have learned a blessed thing.
The announcement ceremony that the White House held to introduce their Supreme Court nominee last month turned into a virus super-spreader event. Many staffers were infected. The President, himself, may have gotten it at that event.
The White House has taken everything that they’ve learned from the mistakes they made with that ill-conceived gathering in the Rose Garden and they appear to be throwing it all away. They are actually planning on holding the exact same kind of gathering tonight to celebrate their nominee’s confirmation after the Senate vote.
There are a multitude of issues facing the American people at this election. Climate change and the environment. Racial inequality, the economy and needed stimulus, the balance of the Supreme Court, are just some of them. Polling, however, is indicating that the single issue that is overshadowing all of them is the coronavirus pandemic.
How many more times can even the President’s staunchest supporters hear him say that we are rounding the corner on this virus without starting to question it? Just how many corners does the President think there are?
He says that nobody will be talking about COVID on November 4th. He is wrong.
It started raining despite the fact that my iPhone app assured me that it wouldn’t. I had to put my computer away and stop writing. I was about two hours into waiting.
An elderly lady made her way along the line having already voted. She was stooped over and had to rely on a walker to get by. She had her “I voted” sticker proudly stuck on to her lapel.
She paused to catch her breath near me, and I gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“Oh me,” she said, “I just can’t believe all these people are out here waiting on these lines to vote. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in all my days.”
This is a lady who lived through having to fight to even have the right to vote in this country. She knows, in her bones, what this privilege means.
The last forty minutes of the wait was under a row of trees which stopped the misty rain. I was getting to the point where I needed some water, but I knew if I drank some that I would then need to go to the bathroom. So, I just waited.
A local deli was out distributing free lunches to folks on the line. The guy in front of me got one. It looked good.
At one minute past the 3-hour mark, I got into the polling station.
They were extremely organized inside. It took me just nine minutes from the moment I entered the station, stood on the line to get my ballot, got the ballot, filled it out and scanned it into the machine, got my sticker and left.
60 million Americans have already voted which is already some millions more than the total number of people who early voted in 2016 and we are still a week before the election.
There were as many people on the line when I got out as there were when I started this morning. That lady is right. That may be one of the most beautiful things any of us could hope to see.
As Americans, we have the right to choose how our government is run. If we don’t like the direction we are heading, we can change our trajectory every four years.
It’s a big ship to turn around and it takes a while to start nudging it in the right direction. We appear to be heading towards a variety of icebergs. We need to start to change our course, now.
This morning, Michael and I joined 60 million Americans who, together, will determine which direction we will head in - to clear and calmer seas or ever forward into the ice field?
Eight more days left for everybody else to stand up and be counted.
Voting matters. Our voices make a difference.
Stand up. Let your voice be heard.
It’s your right.
❤️Get Up Stand Up
Don’t Give Up The Fight
Bob Marley
💕