The past few weeks have certainly given us plenty to think about. Not that I have had more time to think. I haven't. As someone working in health care this pandemic has resulted in several very difficult weeks of long hours as we have been planning how to manage the ever-changing situation. My heart goes out to the many who have been impacted by this virus.
I think it was mostly the unexpected nature of our situation that has been the hardest on people. We have gotten used to people dying from the flu, from heart disease, from cancer. It is not so much the "numbers" that are the most scary about the coronavirus, but the unknown. If I tell you 10,000 people will die this month from the flu, we can accept that. If I tell you 10 people will die from an alien attack, we freak out. We don't have a category in our mind for "alien attack." This is new. This is unexpected. This sounds dangerous. How do we know if it will only be 10?
But now that we have gotten more accustomed to the concept of a coronavirus, I have found my mind beginning to ask some fundamental questions about all of this. I don't know that I have the answers. Just a few pickled thoughts at best.
The main 3 questions I have right now are:
1) Were We Ready? Were we ready for this virus as a nation? I'm not asking if we responded quickly enough to the Wuhan situation. That will be debated forever. I just mean in general...were we ready for something like this to happen. Seems like we should have been. A virus is not a new thing. Even a pandemic is not a new thing. This wasn't our first go-around with an infectious disease. In all fairness, it seems like we were ready in some ways, but not ready in some other ways. To not have enough masks and other PPE seems almost inexcusable. It felt like we were inventing how to respond on the spot. Did anyone ever use the terms "social distancing" before now? Have we tried this amount of "shutting down" before? Did we debate this type of response publicly long before we actually had to pull the trigger and do it? I don't recall it. It sounds silly, but even the run on toilet paper has happened in the past. Still, we couldn't respond in a timely way, and weeks later our stores still can't keep up with the demand. I guess from the perspective of a citizen, I would give us a "C" in our readiness overall.
2) Did It Work? The next question I'm wondering about is whether our response as a nation has actually worked. Did it save lives? If so, how many? The answer isn't obvious or easy. How do we know what the results would have been if we had done nothing? Models tried to answer that question. But models are just guesses with data, and as the data keeps changing, the models keep changing. I honestly don't know how we ever really get to know the answer to this question. Scientifically the answer would require clinical trials, a control group, blinding, crossovers, etc. Since that is unlikely, we will mostly just be left with opinions. My opinion? Yeah, it helped. Less people got sick and died as a result or our efforts. We flattened the curve a bit. How much? I don't know. I'm not sure anyone ever will.
3) Was It Right? Specifically, is what we have done as a country with respect to mandatory social distancing and the closing down of businesses just and fair? Was this the right response? Is it consistent with our fundamental beliefs, our constitution, our liberty and our notion of freedom? Did we have to respond this way? Here I am a little more sure of my own answer to this question at the moment. My answer is no.
I am honestly struggling with how our approach to this could be right. I believe it saved lives. And the philosophy of pragmatism says "if it worked, it was good." But I don't live by an "ends justifies the means" worldview. Does the lesser evil of what we did compensate for the greater evil of lost life? I just can't wrap my head around it. I'm open to being shown I am wrong. I hope to remain open minded. I surely wouldn't wish death on anyone. But I just can't see how a free society can do what we did.
What did we do? As I see it (I'm open to reconsider), we basically said to 1 group of people "You are in a non-essential job. Therefore, you must stay home. You must close up. You must give up working. You must give up your business, your livelihood, your employees, your products, your means of providing for yourself. Give up your health insurance. You must stop getting paid, you must give up all sense of dignity that comes from employment. You may lose your home, your car, your property. Everything you worked years to build you must dismantle for the sake of others." Make no mistake, that is what we did. Not to 1 person. Not to a few dozen. But as of the writing of this post there have been 17 million unemployment claims in 3 weeks as a result of our social distancing rules. Will all suffer equally? Of course not. But some will be severely hurt for sure.
And to another group we said: "You are essential. You can keep working, keep getting paid, keep your dignity, keep your homes, cars and all your stuff. Work in a hospital or pharmacy? You're fine. Work for the government? You're fine, keep working. Work in a job that was already or easily converted to remote work? You're fine, paychecks may keep flowing in. You all get to keep your jobs."
It bothers me deep in my soul that the most vocal people about the importance of mandatory business closings and social distancing are those who are not impacted at all by the rules. Politicians are not impacted. The media is not impacted. Whenever I see people say "just stay home" it is almost assuredly someone who has seen little to no economic impact themselves. I'm sure there are exceptions. It is just a bit too convenient in my opinion to vote for and promote restrictions that only impact other people.
Yes, I'm glad that unemployment benefits will help a lot of people. But I'm also pretty sure that a check can't fix everything. It just doesn't seem right.
Conclusion: I've run out of thoughts for now. My heart goes out to the sick. My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones. My heart goes out to those who have lost jobs, income, a business, their savings. This isn't really a conclusion. It is only the end.
Tomorrow is Easter. I'm reminded there is hope. I'm reminded that what my sins did to Christ on Good Friday, God's Grace overcame on resurrection Sunday. This world was in a mess long before coronavirus. There is a bigger debt than our national debt: the debt we owe to God for our sin. And His recovery plan was accomplished at Calvary. See you at the cross.
