Post 27 - April 7, 2020
Day 27…
There is anecdotal evidence that communities of color are being victimized by this virus far more than the white community. For example, in Chicago, as of two days ago, it seems that 68% of the city deaths have involved African Americans.
If this is, indeed, true, the fault may lie not so much with the messaging as with the messengers. The overwhelming majority of State and Federal government representatives whom we see on television advising us are white.
Most of the experts called upon to present data are white.
Most of the people just standing around the President and the NY Governor are white.
At a time when we should be joining together more than ever, this lack of representation during daily broadcast briefings can only be serving to force us further apart.
The economic disparity between people also means that some have resources available to them that others patently do not.
That HAS to be addressed.
To quote an article in the Daily News, “The demographic data out of New York City and the state so far has been mostly anecdotal, but Mayor de Blasio said Sunday that there is “a striking overlap of where this virus is doing the most damage and where we’ve had historic health care disparities.”
A group called Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law have issued a letter to the Federal Department of Health and Human Services as well as a freedom of information request to the CDC demanding that they release demographic data relating to the virus but thus far have not gotten a response.
Come on.
Let’s behave like we are all in this together because, guess what?
We are.
Countries around the world are not learning from each other.
Given that the US may be the worst offender of all, our global neighbors are not doing that much better. I don’t know whether it is national pride or xenophobic distrust, but whatever it is we are not learning each other's lessons.
Despite the what was happening in Italy, Boris Johnson in England was inclined to go with the “herd immunity” idea. Let the virus take its course and in time enough people will have survived it that they will, in essence, protect the rest. That’s what vaccines do - when enough people have had a vaccine, the disease or virus has a great deal more difficulty jumping between people. The vaccinated people are roadblocks.
With COVID-19, nobody has immunity so it can jump anywhere.
In the "herd immunity" theory, after enough people get it, the survivors are in effect, immunized. (although that hasn’t been definitively proven yet.). They create a natural blockade to the rest of the population.
Even in light of what he saw was going on in Italy, Johnson was slow to close down public gatherings.
Well, now the virus is running its course in England and Boris Johnson is now in the ICU suffering from it, seriously, himself.
This leaves the country without leadership right when it needs it the most.
To temporarily fill the vacuum, the Queen took the rare step of addressing the nation herself.
Her speech was, well, fantastic.
Love her or hate her, you cannot deny that she has immense power as a person and perhaps as an institution.
She thanked all of the health care workers and others carrying on essential business.
She expressed her hope that in the future, Britons would be able to look back at this time with pride in how they behaved.
The thing she said that I found particularly moving was, “And though self-isolating may at times be hard, many people of all faiths, and of none, are discovering that it presents an opportunity to slow down, pause and reflect, in prayer or meditation.”.
It’s the “and of none” that I think is kind of remarkable.
With those three words, whatever her own beliefs (she is the head of the Church of England), she included EVERYBODY.
However successful the speech, however, that was pretty much the limit to what she can do.
Until Johnson recovers, the country is without its leader.
Should Johnson not survive it is unclear how they would proceed.
It takes time to install a new leader and there isn’t any time.
Then Spain. Poor Spain.
They are truly suffering although the number of deaths has now fallen for four days in a row which is a hopeful sign.
They, too, were extremely slow to respond, thinking, like the United States, like England, that it was a THEM problem, not an OUR problem.
Every single country around the world and every single race and every sing creed are susceptible to this virus.
If tigers can get it, then it’s likely that other animals will too.
As of a couple of days ago, only 18 countries on the planet have no reported cases: Comoros, Kiribati, Lesotho, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, North Korea, Palau, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, the Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Yemen.
Some of those may actually be able to avoid this as they are tiny remote island republics.
Others like North Korea and some of the others probably do have cases, they just aren’t being acknowledged.
It’s not about THEM.
This is about US.
Now, more than ever, we need to forget about our differences and concentrate on what we have in common.
The main thing that we have in common right now is that we are all, all of us all over the world, susceptible to these tiny bits of DNA surrounded by a layer of fate.
ALL of us.
We have to resist it together.
There is actually no other option.
We, all of us in every country on the globe, need to keep our distance from each other while, at the same time, looking out for each other.
And learning from each other's mistakes.
We can’t change what our government here in the US is doing now except by speaking up.
And, come November, VOTING so that when the next crisis comes - and there will be a next crisis - we have a leader who will be able to get us through it.
Some of the countries who are being as poorly lead as we are don’t have that option.
They aren’t allowed to speak up.
They aren’t allowed to vote.
We are.
We have the power to choose who leads us.
Let’s wield it.