Day 491…
COVID-19 still seems to be part of almost every single waking moment of our days. Even now, nearly 500 days in, when things are starting to get back to what we dimly remember as normal, it hasn’t gone away.
It’s impacting on almost every area of the project that I’m doing. The cast and crew can’t really interact. Props need to be continually wiped down. Everyone in the building is required to be tested regularly. The times for testing go on the rehearsal schedule next to the regular work sessions without a second thought. I’m in constant discussion about when on a particular day it might be best to call in the nurse practitioner so that people don’t need to be brought in from the hotel just to get tested. Initially, everyone had to prove they were fully vaccinated before they could start working. Late arrivals had to have a negative test before they flew in and then be tested again within 48 hours of arrival. People who cannot prove that they have been vaccinated, aren’t allowed to be in the building with us.
Nobody is exempted. From the top of the ladder to the bottom, we are all in the same boat. On each of the required days, we have different testing people show up. When the one comes up who really shoves the swab all the way in, we all look at each other and just grit our teeth. Sometimes the swab goes so far in, it makes you tear up. When I walk onto the landing and see someone wiping their eyes with a tissue, I immediately know which nurse is there.
We are all required to always wear our masks indoors. That means that performers are singing and dancing with their masks on. The director is directing with his mask on. I am calling out break times and missed lines with my mask on. The crew is loading in with their masks on. For the actors, it’s hard to work when all you have to react to is body language and eye movements, but they seem to be doing it. It’s also hard for all of us to hear each other. Everything is muffled. There are air purifiers that sound like jet engines that have to go on during every single break. We almost don’t have to call the end of a break because when they get turned off, people can suddenly hear each other again, and they know that we are starting up again.
We are being fed by the Producers during the times we are working to keep us all together. Gone are the days of open chafing dishes with sterno underneath them. Sealed individual meals are laid out on a table. It’s always a surprise what they are because we’ve had to choose the menu the week before and we all forget what we thought we might want so many days hence. We then head outdoors to the parking lot or the covered area next door- rain or shine - to eat. Once outside, we can take our masks off. After hours at a time wearing one, finally being able to take it off is a relief almost like no other. A little rain doesn’t stop us.
Beyond our group in the rehearsal studio, though, the good people of Cleveland seem to have completely stopped wearing masks. All of us must still put one on when we go into our hotel lobby or into the grocery store or anywhere indoors, but almost nobody else besides us is following that rule. We tend to stick out.
There are busy restaurants and active restaurant areas scattered around downtown Cleveland and those places attract a lot of people. The rest of downtown though - the giant office towers and imposing state and federal buildings are mostly empty and deserted.
Like New York City, Cleveland has a huge homeless population, many of whom are clearly suffering from some sort of mental illness. When the pandemic started, I started using my credit card almost exclusively, so I haven’t had any actual cash in my wallet to hand out for ages. I don’t think I’m alone in that. If there were just one or two people out there it would be easy enough to just buy some food for them and hand it out, but there are often three or four people on every block of every street all the time. Instead of handing out change, it seems a much better idea to give support to local social organizations that in turn can then reach out and help these people. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much evidence of groups like that around. I am sure that they are there, but they must be utterly overtaxed and underfunded and stretched far past their breaking points by now.
In New York during the early days of the pandemic, inmates of crowded prisons and mental facilities were relocated in hotels throughout the city to try and keep the virus from spreading in cramped quarters. Of course, there were not nearly enough social workers or police officers to monitor them once they were out, so the inevitable happened. Crime went up. It seems the same here. I am on full alert when I’m walking around here to avoid being harassed. Being asked for money is one thing, but when somebody starts screaming at you and following you for blocks on end that’s quite another thing altogether.
The result of this is that, just like a malfunctioning string of holiday lights where only a few are lit, here in downtown there are small, bright islands of what feels like almost normal pre-pandemic social activity strung together by huge desolate and empty voids. 4th Street, which not far from where we are staying, has ropes of party lights overhead, music blaring from speakers, and is filled with restaurants. It feels just like 2019 once you are in it, but to get there you pass through a lot of 2020.
Last week there was a 10% rise in COVID cases across the country. The seven-day-average was about 12,600 which is a far cry from the near quarter of a million cases we had in January, but the fact that it’s rising at all is concerning. The new delta variant is 60% more contagious than the alpha variant which came out of the UK some months ago which, itself, was far more contagious than the original strain. Delta has now been detected in all 50 states and will probably become the most dominant type here within a few weeks.
This variant is spreading lethally among the unvaccinated. For every person who has an actual physical issue that prevents them from getting the vaccine, there are scores who are simply refusing it. According to Dr. Fauci, 99.2% of all COVID-related deaths in June happened to unvaccinated people. Vaccine supply is not the issue in the US anymore as much as it’s the unwillingness to get it done. Compassion for our fellow humanity is what I know, in my heart, I should be feeling, but I find it hard to muster up more than a kind of “oh well,” when I hear about all the anti-vaxxers getting sick.
Unfortunately, there are also a rising number of cases of people who have been fully vaccinated contracting COVID anyway. Reports in Israel are saying that the Pfizer-BioNTech is proving to be less effective against the delta variant than it is against the others. While it still prevents 90% of hospitalizations, more than half of Israel’s reported new cases are from people who have been fully vaccinated.
Here in the United States, as of this past week, 57.4% of us have been fully vaccinated. 66.5% have received one dose which falls a bit short of the White House’s hoped for target of 70% by July 4. Two weeks ago, Governor Cuomo announced that 70% of New Yorkers had had at least one dose. Ohio, on the other hand, which seems to have a wider rate disparity from community to community than New York does, has a lower overall inoculation rate.
The Centers for Disease Control released guidance in May saying that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks indoors or out and it is sticking to that. On the other hand, the World Health Organization believes that everyone should continue to wear masks and take precautions. Health officials in Los Angeles county are also recommending that vaccinated Californians continue to wear masks in some circumstances. Dr. Fauci said that if he was in an area with a low vaccination rate that he would consider wearing a mask.
Friends who are in rehearsals for shows of their own already have stories of vaccinated cast members getting sick and their rehearsals grinding to a halt for a few days until contract tracing can be done. I just don’t want that to be true. As much as we would all like all of this to just be over already, the virus is clearly not in that much of a hurry to leave. So, we are stuck with being responsible. And careful. And, it seems, we need to keep wearing masks.
This past weekend, our show’s COVID team got a whole supply of brightly colored tie-dyed masks to hand out in the morning to cheer everybody up. It did for a while. Nobody likes dress-up more than a roomful of theatre folk.
That we are in a room, working with each other at all, though, is what is important. That is the prize that we should be keeping our eyes on. It’s the same with being able to go out and eat in a restaurant, see our friends and families in person, and go to the movies or to a show. We spent well over a year not being able to do any of those things. Wearing masks and being responsible for a while longer may ensure that we can keep doing all of it. For how much longer? I don’t know. Does it really matter?
We’ve got a show to do, so let’s stop worrying about it, and get to it.
Mask up. Back inside. Break is over.
Incisive and sobering, life is
💕a beauty of a read Richard...how safetly the show that must is going on.
Tie-dyed masks....what a vision