Op-ed pages #1: Lessons learned from a nasty virus…
[Note from Steve: As some faithful readers of this blog already know, it originally contained op-ed articles about current issues and events as well as book and movie reviews, author interviews, and articles about reading, writing, and the publishing business (all written in op-ed style). I stopped posting the first type because they often represented too long an investment in time to find the relevant background material and fact-check as much as possible. That said, I believe it’s now time to express my opinions again, so I’ll occasionally post such articles in the future. They’ll all start with the phrase “Op-ed pages” so you can skip over them if you like (I prefer that you comment, though, even if you disagree). Here’s the first post in this new (and old) category….]
Writing about lessons learned from the battle against COVID-19 can seem like finger-pointing, A week ago, I wrote about sci-fi stories with pandemic as a general theme (see the article “I Told You So”). It often seems like we’re living in a sci-fi story now. I just want to put the novel down and get on with my life—the quiet life my wife and I were living before. Many probably feel the same way. But it’s natural to ask questions about this real-life pandemic, and there are many lessons to learn.
Containment. If there’s a vaccine against a virus, it’s the best medicine against it. Anti-vaccine fanatics endanger all of us, as the measles virus has shown, and I never put credence in false religious or paranoid reasons to resist vaccination. For example, every student in a public or private school should be vaccinated against the common diseases or required to stay at home. Period. This isn’t just opinion. It’s a scientific fact: Vaccination programs, when available, are necessary to protect everyone.
But the best medicine against a nasty virus can only be containment if there’s no vaccine. You don’t have to be an infectious disease expert to know to beat a new contagion like COVID-19 is to contain it. That’s just common sense! Unfortunately common sense seems to be in short supply these days.
So the first question is: Why didn’t the Chinese government take steps to contain the virus? Note that I’m not blaming the Chinese people (or all immigrants, as Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s Heinrich Himmler, wants you to believe)—the citizens of China have little choice about what their autocratic government does. And that government did very little and covered up how bad things were until it was too late.
The virus quickly spread throughout China and beyond its borders, mostly from business and tourist travel, I suspect (remember Chinese New Year?). Before this plague was declared a pandemic, people died in the state of Washington (due to lack of testing, we didn’t know how early that occurred). It wasn’t difficult to understand even back then that sea- and airports should be closed then and there. And, in one major port, Mardi Gras visitors carried the virus back to their origin points, blanketing the US. There’s every indication that COVID-19 was also widespread in NYC early on too, mostly by European asymptomatic travelers, I surmise; we just didn’t know about it until people started dying.
The virus will continue to spread. Think you’re home free because you live in a rural area? Think again! As I write this, COVID is reaching rural areas, with small numbers of cases and fatalities, to be sure, but large as far as per capita measurements go. We’ve lost the battle of containment. We’re playing catch-up.
Information. Our current federal government dropped the ball and created a lot of misinformation, but they don’t own all the lack of information, in spite of Mr. Trump’s efforts. Why didn’t all those infectious disease experts supposedly in the know scream about the threat of pandemic? Why didn’t journalists pick up that story and blast it out in media outlets? It’s hard to believe that all the so-called experts and pundits just buried their heads in the sand. What happened? Was everyone following China’s lead and covering up the seriousness of this plague?
I don’t think so. Incompetence can be as effective a cover-up as political expediency. Maybe all the people who should have said something didn’t want riot in the streets. Well…now the riots are led by irresponsible knuckleheads who want to go back to the old normal, so those people who should have known better made a bad choice. I don’t know if the idiots who prefer to risk their lives and others for a paycheck, or some perceived freedoms that are being trampled on (the excuse) would have listened to the information, but honesty is always the best policy. Pandemics are serious business and not just themes in sci-fi.
Of course, the current administration has done many things that produced blowback. Their whole general anti-science attitude has enabled everyone and his dog who want to do so to blame scientists. CDC’s pandemic group was disbanded long before the administration ever let on that COVID-19 could be a danger. If Mr. Obama is to blame, Mr. Trump, why didn’t you correct his errors over the last three years you’ve been at the tiller of the ship of state? Yes, incompetence might just be a sickness worse than the virus!
Preparedness. Okay, maybe it was correct to play down the dangers of the virus if that bought time to prepare to battle it. That wasn’t the case, though. Why weren’t we more prepared? It’s interesting that some countries (not the US nor Italy, and for different reasons) have handled the battle better than others.
Let’s give the ladies their due: some of those countries waging a successful battle (so far!) are run by women—smart, strong female leaders who went against stereotype because they didn’t become emotional and competently managed the crisis in an objective, logical fashion, paying attention to the scientists and the data. Or maybe they were emotional in a positive way, that kind of emotion that allows them to put energy into caring about their fellow citizens above the political posturing exhibited by testosterone-filled macho leaders. (It’s curious that the protesters most vocal who are often armed with assault rifles are men.)
On the other hand, most of these successful countries also had national health systems that were well-coordinated and centralized and not small regional units driven by profit-seeking persons. The flip side of that: Are regional, chaotic health systems enablers for the vicious virus? And a national health system isn’t the be-all and end-all that certain political movements think it is—England, Italy, and Spain are counterexamples. I’m afraid incompetence added to desires for profits is the key problem here as well.
Why didn’t we have ventilators? Why don’t we have PPE, including masks? Why don’t we have tests and the materials necessary to perform them? The US is supposedly the most developed country in the world. Why couldn’t our country foresee a pandemic and all that’s necessary to combat it? And why do we allow grifters to promise all these things, take millions from the government (FEMA is a disaster), and then not deliver?
Answers. Let’s hope hindsight is truly twenty-twenty. That is, looking back, we can come up with answers to the above questions, both nationally and worldwide, answers that can truly be called lessons learned. That way, we’ll be ready for the next pandemic. And rest uneasy, there will be one, if not more waves of COVID-19 infections, then a new virus that wreaks havoc in our world. Let’s be ready for it. Let’s truly put pandemics back in the realm of sci-fi, calling it speculative fiction that no longer can occur.
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Comments are always welcome.
The “Esther Brookstone Art Detective” Series. Do you want to read some mystery/thriller novels that motivate you to keep turning the pages? Wags at Scotland Yard call Esther Brookstone Miss Marple and Bastiann van Coevorden, her beau, Hercule Poirot, but their adventures are very twenty-first century. In Rembrandt’s Angel, Esther obsesses with recovering a painting stolen by the Nazis in WWII. In Son of Thunder, she obsesses with finding the tomb of St. John the Divine. Both obsessions lead her and Bastiann into dangerous situations. Available in print format from your favorite local bookstore, Amazon, and the publisher, Penmore Press; and in ebook format from Amazon and Smashwords and all the latter’s affiliated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.) and lending and library services (Scribd, Overdrive, Baker&Thomas, Gardners, etc.). A third novel featuring this crime-fighting duo is in the works.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
