By all accounts there wasn’t much that frightened Earnest Hemingway. From the front lines of WWI to the chaotic carnage of the Spanish Civil War, and all manner of exploration, fearless was not a misplaced adjective as applied to the literary legend’s disposition. However, one scenario did unnerve him throughout life, to the point of self-imposed worry and distraction. Franco fascists “papa” could deal with, but catching the Spanish Flu or its offspring terrified him.
It really gets down to the most basic of human urges, control of our circumstances. Pandemics exert their will and distribute harm to any and all, nobody gets special dispensation. Rich or poor, smart or stupid, anyone dependent on basic socialization is asking for it. Hemingway, who was born to connect the dots and convey stories based on the consequences of humanity’s struggle for purpose, was simply terrified by the randomness of the flu’s trek , and the purposelessness of its damage. Really, who can’t relate to that?
If the normalization of US history’s ugliest public servant has demonstrated anything at all, it’s that Americans are pathologically committed to our routines. Nothing seems powerful enough to deter that obsession. Veterans returning from any war of the 20th and 21st century struggled with hometowns and loved ones utterly the same as when they waved goodbye. Whatever chaos and hell our boys experienced abroad, when they returned nothing had changed. Clubs, weekly meetings, church pancake breakfasts, high school basketball games, one could still set their watch by each of them. The dichotomy between ceaseless repetition and war’s devastating spontaneity was in itself a trigger to many a troubled transition back to civilian life.
After 9/11, the most traumatic event in American post-war annals, the crusade was to get back to our routines. The Towers were still smoldering and Rudy was in his box seats for the World Series. Everywhere the mantra was “don’t let them win, get yourself to a mall!” Sure we were heading off the cliff of endless war and occupation without markers and plenty of unprecedented ugliness, but Saturday soccer mornings would not be denied! In America the occasion, whatever occasion, must go on. That’s all about to change. The critical question that will literally determine the death toll we suffer, is if we’re capable of changing enough.
Our White House resident infant’s constant idiocy aside, this is a genuine, certified, lose-some-serious-sleep crisis. In Italy, a doctor’s desperate Facebook posts have gone viral, and it’s horrific. Wave after wave of hospital admissions, all diagnosed with the exact same thing… bilateral interstitial pneumonia, Coronavirus’ clinical calling card. Dr. Daniele Macchini, who works in the northern city of Bergamo, provided chilling details of overwhelmed resources and exhausted staff in a “war zone” setting. While youth may spare most, the “target group” elderly in northern Italy are surely dying, only to be replaced by a new group of critical patients…. again and again. The country is now locked down and nobody is worrying about canceled weddings. Deadly serious stuff.
Here, our Executive government has utterly failed us. Trump, a soulless child at his core, has publicly demonstrated over and over he is not up to the task of crisis management. When Hitler turned on Stalin and blitzkrieged Russia, the murderous Bolshevik went into denial and hid from view for several days, leaving his entire realm without any leadership at all. Trump has been no different, instead of a Dacha, it’s Mar-A-Lago and the links of Doral, but the denial is the same. Children have trouble with proportion, to Trump three percent is “a real low number.” Dr. Brian Monahan, physician to Congress and the Supreme Court, believes between 70 to 150 million Americans will get Coronavirus, with a one percent fatality rate. That’s 700,000 to 1.5 million dead, uh yea, a real high number! Anybody witnessing our President’s goofball routine at the CDC had to wonder whether any kind of coordinated response is possible.
Thankfully, seemingly overnight, serious adults are acting with the haste required. A plan now seems to be taking shape, as state and local governments rush to fill the void, taking their cues from the best national and international guidance they can determine. In other words, anybody but Mike Pence and Alex Azar!
The emerging strategy is to try and slow the progress of the virus as much as possible in order to stagger the numbers of seriously ill people taxing the medical infrastructure. This can only be achieved by preventing socialization, particularly events with large crowds. March Madness will be spring silence as the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament will be played with only family and essential personnel in attendance. Whether CBS et al will try to drum up hype by filling up sports bars for viewing frenzies, thus sabotaging the whole point of the effort, remains to be seen. The NBA just suspended its season after a player tested positive for the virus. Now, that is messing with routines.
Yet and still, some routines are more valuable to certain groups than others, and without governmental coercion, it becomes like an honor system; some will act responsibly, others won’t. Some officials will be Roy Scheider in Jaws, some will be Amity’s mayor. The stakes now pertaining to those decisions are very high.
In Panama City, Florida they are raking the sand and preparing for the annual spring break invasion of college kids from every corner of the country. Judging from their civic leaders’ public declarations, with the exception of worthless lip service to following hand washing protocols etc., all systems are go. Few aren’t familiar with how that looks. Thousands of near naked young people doing just about everything one could imagine to spread a contagion… beer bong anybody?
After a week of this annual gropefest, they will then disperse back to countless cities and towns to spread whatever they have received. Being young and in good health, most will suffer minimal symptoms while fully transmitting the virus to all they encounter. Whatever good work has been done to counter the disease’s spread will quickly be undone as typhoid frat boys and girls unknowingly convey illness to those they love. Will Panama City Beach reconsider its plans? Will Governor Ron DeSantis, heretofore a mindless Trump lackey, make the call for them? One example out of thousands, one looming disaster out of thousands of other potential calamities. The movie script writes itself!
It’s the height of irony that, at a time we need national unity most, lockstep cooperation and sacrifice of our most precious touchstone, the routines we follow to the letter, we are as divided as can be. Maybe this desperate exercise in collective discipline will bring us back together and prevent countless deaths. I hope I live to see that.
Many of us have felt alone since January of 2017. Now, many more surely feel the same way, and before this is over many others still may suffer such fears. But we are all in this together, and that must be enough to bind us. We can be confident as things worsen this President will lash out for scapegoats and pursue the division he needs for continued relevance. Only if we ignore him and stick to the plan, while supporting each other, can we get back to the precious routines we measure normalcy by. Our greatest challenge. BC