I’ve been informed a couple of times that my recent posts or comments are “Trumpian” or “Trump-aligned.” These critiques are in reference to my comments about our nation’s inability to maintain the current level of shelter in place without destroying our economy beyond repair. And that I’m not personally afraid of contracting the novel Coronavirus.
I clarified, though I feel my original post was pretty clear, that when I say we can’t maintain this level of shelter-in-place for a year without destroying our economy, that I am not promoting some plan where we open up earlier than public health experts recommend. When I say that I am stating a fact. Our economy will be destroyed, for the great majority of Americans, if the level of unemployment keeps rising and then remains at these unprecedentedly high rates for a full year. That is an indisputable fact. And we don’t have the social services in place to help the people who will be the most adversely affected.
When I wrote that, it was part of a larger thought. Actually, it was part of a question. What is the end game here? All the plans I’ve seen for ways we might tentatively open up the economy and start living again rely on a level of testing we won’t be able to implement any time in the near future (if at all), access to PPE that isn’t currently available, the production of anti-viral medications (that would help younger people with bad outcomes manage the virus at home without needing hospital care) that don’t currently exist, and a vaccine that we don’t even know if we can develop, let alone manufacture and distribute at meaningful rates. So basically, none of the plans are viable, at least not in the United States. So how does all this end? I guess the answer is that we absolutely don’t know, but no one in power is willing to say it.
I feel like I can say that and not be pushing for the reopening of the economy on some Trumpian soapbox. But maybe I can’t.
As for me not being afraid to get COVID-19, that is my own personal feeling about my own personal situation. It is not meant to comment on anyone else’s feelings about the virus or how much they fear getting it. We all have different health histories and underlying conditions and the threats COVID-19 poses are different for everyone. And yes, I know that anyone can get very sick with the coronavirus, and be left relying on a respirator, or dead. While I am a relatively healthy individual, I’ve fallen into the small percentages of people that experience adverse outcomes in otherwise benign situations. My first pregnancy was an ectopic, and only 1% of pregnancies are ectopic. I also ended up with sepsis, from a case of mastitis I didn’t even know I had until I left home fine and arrived at a well-visit with a 104* fever. I could easily have died in either of those instances without modern medical care. So it’s not like I’ve never experienced being on the wrong side of reassuring medical statistics. I know anything can happen.
Maybe I am ignorant not to be afraid of getting the coronavirus. Or stupid. I’m basing my feelings on what I’ve read (in reputable new sources like TPM and the NYT) and what my friends and relatives who are doctors and nurses have told me. And my feelings only relate to me. I only mention it to explain that anxiety about getting this virus is not what is hard for me right now. It’s certainly is not meant to comment on anyone else’s fear or anxiety, and it’s especially not meant to comment on public health advisories or orders. Nor is it meant to suggest that we should be reopening the economy right now.
Besides questioning the closing of open spaces, I have never criticized the steps public health officials are taking to protect us. I follow the shelter-in-place orders as well as most people. I have never stepped foot in an open space that has been closed but is still accessible. I wear a mask and gloves the few times a month I leave the house to grocery shop. I have social distance walked with my parents twice, and visited their backyard once, but I stayed six feet away from them, and wore a mask when we were interacting. That is the only time I’ve “met up” with anyone during the shelter in place order.
I know people who still have nannies caring for their children, or are still using home childcare facilities, or are still having their parents watch their kids. My cousin, who is an oncologist, eats at his sister’s house, with her husband and kids, regularly. I’m not flaunting a refusal to follow public health guidelines, because I am not refusing to follow them. I don’t complain about quarantine cramping my style, or the hardships I’m personally experiencing (which are few and superficial) but I do write about mental health issues that our current situation have manifested for me. Maybe I lack resilience or grit, but I’m not bitching about the sacrifices we need to make as a society.
We recognize the threats that we see, that are right in front of us. I don’t know anyone, personally, who has had the coronavirus (at least who knows they’ve had it – and the fact that we’re now hearing that millions of us probably had it and never even knew is not helping me cautiously assess my personal risk right now). I know OF four people who have had it (a friend’s adult stepdaughter, a colleague’s ex-husband, etc). None of them were hospitalized. The lack of personal experience with the actual virus also probably makes me naive in my risk-assessment.
On the other hand I hear about the economic devastation every day. Our district will be laying off a lot of people to manage an unforeseen $4 million dollar budget deficit (this might seem like a small number, but we are a small district and it’s a very big number for us). My husband spends all day helping small business owners shut their doors forever, after losing everything to just six weeks of economic shut down. (I’ve read we can expect 75% of small business in the country to close, which means we’ll be even more dependent that ever on the giants like Amazon, who already have little incentive to treat their employees fairly). I’ve watched my friends be furloughed, before they most likely (in their understanding) lose their jobs. I listen to my good friend, who is a single mom, worry about defaulting on her mortgage now that her hours have been cut to almost nothing. The economic devastation is not something we can ignore if we care about the overall health of this country. I don’t understand why it’s so inappropriate to say that out loud. Especially when our country provides no safety nets to the families that are losing everything.
And what this is doing to the kids who are homeless, or facing food scarcity, or stuck at home with an abusive adult, or unable to access the services they need through schools… these are all very real concerns. There are some students I haven’t heard from in six weeks and I’m devastated to think of what they are living through. I doubt many of them will ever make it back to school again. This pandemic has wrought so many tragedies, it’s just easier to ignore them because they are effectively invisible. They aren’t counted in the newspapers every day.
Again, none of that is a call to do something. Or a critique of what is being done. It’s just the reality. I don’t know what the answer is, and I’m very relieved that it’s not my job to decide what kind of answer can be cobbled together with the reality of our country’s situation. I’m just bringing all this up because THIS is what causes MY anxiety. These are the realities that keep me up at night. I am very lucky to have relative job security, and to not have to worry excessively over the health of my immediate family. I am not worried about me personally. But there is still plenty to worry about. And the secondary effects of flattening the curve are what keep me up at night. They are what make it hard for me to concentrate, and what deepen my depression.
We are not a country that is built to help the people who will live but will be devastated. And we will not be able to make meaningful changes in time to mitigate the damage.
I do not believe we are doing enough to acknowledge the very real ways in which we are failing the people who are physically healthy, but have no hope for the future.
If feeling that way makes me Trumpian, then I guess I’m more Trump-aligned than I realized.
Post script: This ended up sounding more… defensive… than I intended. I will admit I felt offended by being called Trumpian. And I feel defensive about putting this out there. I am not, fundamentally, worried about how I feel about all of this. I don’t think I’m a bad person who cares about the wrong things. I do worry that because Trump harps incessantly on the importance of an economic rebound – for his own personal gain, not out of concern for the well being of Americans – that suggesting the economic devastation is important, or a cause for concern and anxiety, will be seen as callous and shallow. I do believe I have an attitude that is respectful to the severity of the public health crisis, while also being concerned about the severity of the economic crisis. I believe you can respect the severity of both crises at once. I believe you can recognize the horrors of the coronavirus, and not be horrified about getting it yourself. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Maybe I am fundamentally wrong about this. Or I can’t express it in a way that comes off quite “right.” If I’m being called Trumpian, I must not be making myself clear, because being Trump-aligned is the last thing I would ever consider myself. I know other people who feel the same way, people who work in public service and aren’t worried for themselves, but despair for their communities. I don’t believe these people are Trump-aligned. Maybe I’m just not articulate enough to express myself effectively.
Or maybe I am Trumpian, and I just don’t realize it.
If you have information or resources that would help me better understand the reality of our situation, please send them my way. I am always looking for ways to broaden, or deepen, my understanding of what is happening right now.
This is one opinion piece that I feel better articulates my thoughts than I do.
“I do believe I have an attitude that is respectful to the severity of the public health crisis, while also being concerned about the severity of the economic crisis. I believe you can respect the severity of both crises at once”.
You are 100 percent correct in the above comment you can respect both crises at once.I have read your blog for years and you are absolutely NOT Trumpian, please don’t think anyone thinks that you are.
I live in the UK and the situation here is exactly the same and many people are questioning the health v economy dilemma. It’s very real. It’s not wrong to think about it or talk about it. Currently no one has any solutions that are palatable – it’s hard.
“All the plans I’ve seen for ways we might tentatively open up the economy and start living again rely on a level of testing we won’t be able to implement any time in the near future (if at all), access to PPE that isn’t currently available, the production of anti-viral medications that don’t currently exist, and a vaccine that we don’t even know if we can develop, let alone manufacture and distribute at meaningful rates.”
This is exactly it ……..the UK is developing an app which will allow tracking and tracing of people who have been in any contact or close proximity to someone who tests positive. This means you need to have location settings switched on on your phone all the time and the government will then be able to track where you have been at all times…….which opens another can of worms.None of this is easy which may be the understatement of the decade!!
Sending you good wishes and the old adage that you are not alone in all this…… we are all going through the same questions in our heads and realising there are no great answers. Please don’t worry that your words were misinterpreted. Please keeping writing, I enjoy reading. Take care and good health.
I am very curious to hear how your tracking app works and whether or not it would be effective. I wonder how citizens of the US would feel about an app like that. We seem less willing to surrender our privacy to help the greater good. Maybe because we have so many companies that are willing to hide how they use our data so they can profit off of us. I don’t know. That is where things get very complicated.
I really do think it’s realizing that there aren’t any answers, and that no one is willing to say that out loud, that is so stressful for me. I also think we are doing very little to recognize and name the struggles people are facing. Staying home is not that difficult for those who can still work, and still communicate with those they care about. A lot of people are not in that situation and very real hardships are involved. We are doing so little to respect that and it’s frustrating. It feels like only one story is being presented as truth, and it’s not the story for most people in the world.
Sorry I can’t copy the link but it’s coming your way soon too it seems………..Nearly 3 in 5 Americans say they are either unable or unwilling to use the infection-alert system under development by Google and Apple, suggesting that it will be difficult to persuade enough people to use the app to make it effective against the coronavirus pandemic, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll finds.
The two tech giants are working with public health authorities and university researchers to produce a set of tools that apps could use to notify users who had come in close contact with a person who tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. The initiative has been portrayed as a way to enhance traditional forms of contact tracing to find potential new infections and help make resumption of economic and social activities safer in the months ahead.
But the effort faces several major barriers, including that approximately 1 in 6 Americans do not have smartphones, which would be necessary for running any apps produced by the initiative. Rates of smartphone ownership are much lower among seniors, who are particularly vulnerable to the ravages of covid-19, with just over half of those aged 65 or older saying that they have a smartphone (53 percent). Rates are even lower for those 75 and older, according to the Post-U. Md. poll.
You expressed basically all of my feelings to a T, though I haven’t been called Trumpian by anyone (and I’ve been pretty vocal about my feelings with people). Our society canNOT handle an extended shut down to January (which is what I keep hearing). It can’t. Too many people would be devastated financially, emotionally, mentally. Physical health is only one piece, and at some point here (soon, IMO), we have crossed the line of protecting only one piece of the puzzle of people’s health.
We do have dinner with my brother and his fiance and child regularly, but my husband is still working side-by-side with my brother every day, and my future SIL is helping watch my kids here and there when I have to run into my essential job at the medical center. I figure we are basically a core family unit at this point (and we live down the block from each other, so we can walk back and forth between our homes). Beyond that, we practice social distancing, and I freakin’ hate it. Maybe because I’m on the 7th week of it at the medical center (wearing PPE gear) and we have very few cases in our county (5! the last one diagnosed at our clinic was on 3/31), but damn, I’m ready for some things to reopen around here to prevent MORE fallout in other ways for my community.
Ok, I did call your take Trumpian. Because it DID seem like you were advocating opening things up (that’s what I hear when people say things like “we can’t stay at home another month. Our economy can’t take it.”) so I apologize. I too am very worried about everything, including the economy. The point I was making was that while it’s all bad, opening too soon bc of the economy would actually worsen the economy. It’s not going to magically go away bc we want it to. And just bc it’s currently low in one area doesn’t mean it won’t spread there. States and counties aren’t hermetically sealed off from one another. Some people just don’t seem to get that numbers are low/flat BECAUSE what we are doing is working. It doesn’t mean we need to stop!
An elderly relative of mine died from coronavirus. So it’s actually personal and as you said, any of us, healthy or not could get it. (And the “oh well they were old” takes are REALLY offensive.)
I’m sorry for the loss of your relative. No matter the age, dying from this disease is still traumatic.
I am so sorry for you loss. I lost my grandmother last year. She was 94 and couldn’t remember who we were or where she was and it was still a very difficult loss that I’m still grieving. I can only imagine how hard losing someone to this pandemic would be, at any age or stage of life. I am sorry that others have responded to that loss with anything less than full empathy. I hope my writing doesn’t convey a lack of empathy for those who have died or the losses their loved ones are grieving.
Just this morning I learned that one of my student’s grandfather died of COVID-19 complications. So already my post is inaccurate.
You are not the only one who referred to my posts or comment-replies as Trumpian or Trump-aligned, so clearly you are not alone in feeling my words echoed his. I’m trying hard to assess where I am coming from, and I appreciate everyone’s takes on my posts and replies.
I am thinking about widening our quarantine circle to include extended family. I think that would help ease the emotional and mental burden. I think if we are still in this tight of lock down during the summer I will extend our circle to my parents. I am conflicted because they are the most at risk of having serious complications, but they also want very much to be included in our circle. I still have a lot of time to think about it. We shall see.
Thank you for assuring me that you feel similarly. It helps me feel less alone.
I’m really hoping Newsom will loosen the restrictions to allow for social gatherings of fewer than 10 people up to two households. I know that my need for play dates isn’t as pressing as the issue of opening up schools or businesses but my god, this is getting really hard. Also, in LA, I think people are starting to crack. I keep on hearing about backyard get togethers at six feet apart. I also see people waiting in line to get juice or pastries and they all seem pretty close to one another. It’s disheartening. And it’s also disheartening because the LA numbers are still really high although it is hard to tell whether that’s mostly related to an increase in testing and a backlog of cases. Our hospitalizations haven’t dropped either but they also haven’t gone up in awhile.
I think Newsom is going to be one of the last ones to loosen restrictions. I think CA is pretty proud of how quickly they locked down and the press they are getting for their early action. I think CA will be one of the last states standing as far as lifting restrictions and I think people are going to start getting pretty angry when everyone else is easing up and we are still stuck at home. I guess we’ll see.
I wish I could share with all of you a recent talk I just attended on the SARS-CoV-2. It’s a sneaky virus as it’s entry point relies on one’s immune response. I’ll state again, what is killing people isn’t the virus but their immune reaction. People are dying because their immune system is going into hyperdrive and killing them as well as the virus (best analogy I have is injecting yourself with bleach). And we don’t know how exactly that is happening, meaning we can’t determine who will go through an infection without issue and who will die on a ventilator (10% survival rate).
Testing should have been widely available by this point. The reason it isn’t is solely due to political mismanagement of all of this. Bad tests have been flooding the market because there’s no real oversight and that’s a big problem as now we don’t know what works and what won’t. Also, PPE should have been easy to make available, but also not due to political mismanagement.
Finally, those most at risk are the ones who don’t have a choice. Healthcare isn’t a given in this country and the unemployment system is insanely out-of-date. Never mind that there’s no incentives for employee protection because we value the wealth of a few over the livelihoods of many. It demonstrates how broken our entire system is.
Yes, people need to get back to work. But I also know that those driving the ship are narcissists and unable to help do this without people dying in the process. And not just people who contract COVID-19, as the medical system will continue to be overwhelmed for a long while. The reality is, this virus will be with us for a very long while. We don’t know yet if seasonal vaccines are needed vs. a single one for a lifetime, but even then it will be a battle as antivaxers are aging steam again.
All this said, I do agree that we can’t keep this up forever, but the transition for reopening is going to be one that won’t be clear and likely will involve a lot of stepping forward and backwards. We’re already messing this up in a lot of respects and the only silver lining I see is people getting pissed off enough to vote in the upcoming election.
What I focus on is what I can support and how I can make a difference. That includes learning the facts and spreading them widely. It means getting involved with my community. It also means updating my will and having an idea of what family members want if they end up in ICU. This virus only has a 0.5-1% death rate, with a huge number of people who are asymptomatic, but I know all the stories about people dying alone on ventilators and family members find themselves in shock over it. So I’ll also continue to take precautions where I can as this is stressful for everyone.
Finally, we through “Trumpism” around as a way to silence people. But honestly, I’m glad it helped you reflect as this argument is one that’s about to get more heated and people are panicking. So knowing what you believe, being able to voice it, actually allows you to overcome the liberal, white, Democrat woman argument so many are also throwing around. All of it useless when what is needed is a blinding focus on the morons running Washington.
Thank you for coming here and always commenting with respect, and coming from a place of support. I know you understand this all better than I do, and I’m sure it’s frustrating to read what I have written, but you never criticize me for my ignorance or stubbornness. I hope I support others in my life the way you support me.
I meant to ask what you take is on that NYT opinion piece I linked to. I know it was written early, but I think points still apply. What do you think about that kind of opinion from a public health expert. Also, how do you make sense of Sweden’s relatively low death rate (or at least a death rate on par with neighboring European countries – despite a higher infection rate) and their almost complete lack of a national shut down. These are the things I can’t quite wrap my head around and I would love to hear what someone who understand this better than me thinks of these situations.
I don’t think Sweden has a low death rate compared to other Scandinavian countries. In fact, they have more COVID death rates per one million people than the U.S. https://www.vox.com/2020/4/28/21240381/coronavirus-sweden-death-rate-cases-new-york
Thanks for sending that article. I’ll take a look.
Honestly, the article is a month old, which means a lot has changed. But the thing I absolutely agree with is we need to test and track in order to eradicate this virus. That’s never going to happen in the US (look at all the protests fueled by the far-right). People want the illusion that they are free, even if it causes deaths.
What I can share is the work of some brilliant people. Trevor Bedford is now a well respected authority on COVID-19. He’s twitter feed is filled with great stuff: https://mobile.twitter.com/trvrb?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
Ben Kerr (https://mobile.twitter.com/evokerr?lang=en) and Carl Bergstrom (https://mobile.twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom) are pretty awesome too (I’m shamelessly biased). What it all comes down to is testing and tracking. Sadly, I predict the tracking will come without people realizing it as phones are already gathering this data and mining what exists would be extremely useful.
Regardless of the biology, I understand and sympathize with your concerns. Abuse is on the rise with this pandemic and many are suffering. What I argue is that it indicates we need massive change as this should never have happened.
The Swedish death rate is comparatively horrifying. Please update your information. That said, they are pushing for herd immunity. So far they haven’t overwhelmed their healthcare system. If we’re all going to get it anyway, and 1-2% of people are going to die eventually no matter what we do and they just end up there faster, maybe their way is better?
All that said, we aren’t there yet. We have already overwhelmed several hospital systems. When that happens, COVID patients die more often than they should, and other people with other diseases die because they can’t receive standard of care. Until we get to a point where that is not happening anymore, going for herd immunity as fast as possible in the US is IMO foolhardy.
I’m sorry. I must have read it wrong. I think the article I saw was comparing deaths to NYC, not the entire country. I also guess I thought that since they have a lot of empty hospital beds, they were controlling the surge in an acceptable way. But I guess what they are actually doing is letting a lot of old people die, which is definitely not a system to emulate.
I think you, like a lot of us, are realizing that we (as a country) are stuck between two terrible TERRIBLE options. None of us wants to sacrifice lives for money. But financial devastation for many families isn’t just “less money in the stock portfolio” it IS the difference between survival or not. Its really really hard, and it sucks that discussing this nuance automatically makes people assume you fall into the “Trumpian” camp, Its just not that black and white. I hear you. And yes, BOTH fears are fueling my anxiety—people getting sick & dying AND people losing their livelihoods and stability (and oh god, the kids without a safe space, I’ve been sad about this every since school closed).
Just finished seeing J*red said more dead in two months from virus than in 11 years of Vietnam War is an administration win.
I remember vividly Vietnam.
People need jobs to have income to spend money and support an economy. The rich people & companies who benefited from tax cuts actually DO need consumers to consume. I do not believe those in power today fully understand that. I think you do.
You are not Trumpian.
I wouldn’t have called you Trumpian but I was taken aback by this one sentence: “The death and suffering wrought of joblessness and food scarcity would far exceed that of the virus if we kept the current restrictions in place for over a year.” I don’t necessarily agree with that statement and it didn’t really sit right with weeks of you talking about how you wish you could go hiking and how nonsensical the restrictions were. But this post was clarifying. I think we are all making sense of this devastating situation where there are no good answers, compound by profoundly incompetent leadership at the federal level. We sometimes come to different conclusions at different times.
I’ve read that sentiment somewhere, usually when projecting the most dire possible economic outcomes. Deaths of despair have risen so exponentially in the last decade, and when people lose their livelihoods, they are more likely to fall into the cycles that lead to deaths of despair. Not to mention the deaths that are caused by people losing their health care along with their jobs. I think for many of us there is hope that things will be okay at some point in the future, but for a lot of people, that is simply not the case. Having said that, that sentence doesn’t sit that great with me anymore either. So fair enough.
As for the outdoor restrictions, I still believe that closing big, open spaces forces people to flock to the few open spaces that are open, or are unable to to cordoned off. I think our city officials realized the same thing because they have reopened many of the spaces they originally shut down, and shut down car traffic on streets in other areas to give people more spaces to walk/run/ride. I truly believe that the people who aren’t going to follow social distancing rules are going to do so regardless of which spaces are open – I’ve seen people meeting in parking lots, on front steps, in the grass in front of buildings, so I still think closing spaces that are meant for movement is counterproductive. I get closing spaces like playgrounds, where people don’t know who has touched surfaces before there were there, and beaches that can be used for movement, but are also more likely to be used for congregating (especially in places with warmer weather, like SoCal). Exercise was deemed an essential activity when the shelter in place was first started in San Francisco and I still believe that to be the case.
Having said that, after my initial critique of the shut down of open spaces, I didn’t write about it again. I understand that I’m not an expert and that officials have their reasons and I might not understand all the reasons they make the choices they do. I might not agree with them, but I follow them, and have never set foot in an open space that is closed but also accessible, even though I see a lot of other people using those spaces.
I read that policy makers are already thinking about how they are going to mitigate the effects of shelter in place for the people in densely populated urban areas where it’s harder to be outside and practice effective social distancing. If we need to stay home for many more months, through the warmer weather of the summer, there will have to be options for people who are living in, and sharing, cramped spaces. Hopefully they can figure it out.