March 28, 2024

Trying to Keep Calm & Carry On

Rehoboth Ramblings

Posted

These are scary times and things are changing fast. Anything I write today (March 30) may be out of date by the time this is printed. First, a small but important practical matter: do not flush disinfectant wipes down the toilet unless you want to have plumbing problems (just what anyone needs right now). And why are people buying bottled water? This virus is not a water-borne disease.

Who would have thought that things would change so terribly fast for the worse? It seems like an entirely different world, BC (before Covid-19). Who would have thought we’d feel like we were risking our health just going to the grocery store?

Some people seemed reluctant at first to grasp the magnitude of the crisis, but just in case anyone hasn’t yet, here is a quote from a New York Times writer (a previously healthy guy, age 45) who almost died from the virus. Jeremy Egner writes from the hospital: “This a national health emergency, and we must treat it with the seriousness it deserves. We must listen to the health professionals. And we must do everything we can to help them save us.”

Anxiety can be useful if it helps us focus, but it’s not so great if it just causes our thoughts to race like a hamster on an exercise wheel. I am a very anxious traveler so we cancelled our family vacation to South Florida in mid-March well ahead of time. You read about people trapped on cruise ships with sick passengers, or trying to find flights home from abroad, or herded like cattle through airports – just hearing about these stories makes my hair stand on end.

I have never liked so-called dystopian books and movies, including the ones   about pandemics. I’ve always felt that real life could be scary enough, and I’ve been proven right. It doesn’t help to know that a number of real-life scientists have long predicted that such an event would happen someday. Why anyone would want to watch a movie about a pandemic right now is beyond me. We’d probably benefit more from watching old clips of Mr. Rogers instead.

As we sail into uncharted territory, like a ship blown off course, I’m also reminded of those antique maps that showed the known world surrounded by an unknown area labeled “Here Be Dragons” (sometimes illustrated with drawings of sea monsters). Now we are facing a two-headed dragon; one head is a new disease that is highly communicable and wildly unpredictable as far as its effects on individuals, and the other is a severe economic crisis.

There are so many people to worry about these days, in addition to the sick – first of all, doctors, nurses, other medical staff and first responders, the elderly and frail, people who work with the public, everyone who suddenly lost their job with all the businesses closing, people who need hospitals for other urgent reasons, including mothers having babies during this crisis. And let’s not forgot the millions cooped up at home, parents trying to work while trying to help with the kids’ schoolwork.

We are all getting a crash course in epidemiology these days. I hope that people seek information and advice from trusted professionals – such as doctors and public health experts – and not from social media where anyone can say anything and who knows how much, if any, is true. Also, be on the look-out for scammers who hope to profit from people’s anxiety.

We in Rehoboth are lucky to have more open space to walk around in and fewer people to bump into while outside. One side benefit of the current crisis is that people (and their dogs) are getting more outdoor exercise.

At least we are cooped up when the days are getting longer and warmer (not in the Siberian winter of 2015, for example.) Soon we’ll be able to open the windows and let in fresh air and spend more time out in the yard. It is still spring out there, and an early spring at that. Peep toads and wood frogs are chirping, birds are singing, daffodils and forsythia are blooming. Spring is always welcome, and never more so than in these difficult days.

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