Hunkering Down for the Long Haul

As if an Easter spent alone wasn’t depressing enough, the weather around here was awful. A bitter cold wind was shaking all the trees, the sky was a gloomy gray, and for a short while there was even snow. No one is more eager than we are end the shutdown of public life, but we hope it doesn’t so soon that it causes more deaths.

President Donald Trump had expressed a hope that the churches would be packed on Easter and the country would be “raring to go” by today, but of course that didn’t happen. Now Trump is hoping to reopen the country on May Day, but the same experts who talked him out of the Easter reopening are warning that date might also be premature. The shutdown has slowed the spread of the coronavirus, but it hasn’t yet stopped it, and that might well take a frustrating amount of time.

The impulse to hurry the reopening of the country is understandable, given the catastrophic damage the shutdown has done to the economy and the psychological toll it is taking on many Americans. Trump is eager to win reelection, and he’s right to note that voters are more likely to know one of the 17 million Americans who have lost their jobs than one of the more than 22,000 Americans who have died of coronavirus or even the half-million who have been sickened by it.

Many of Trump’s most outspoken supporters have taken to criticizing the medical experts who are urging caution, especially Dr. Anthony Fauci, but recent polling suggests the public has more faith in experts in general and Fauci in particular than it does in Trump. Fauci has recently become more outspoken about his differences of opinion with Trump, which will no doubt escalate the attacks on him, but Trump will likely have to put up with it for a while, as firing Fauci would be disastrous to his reelection chances.

The country is eager to get back to business, but it seems a majority don’t want that to happen until it be done without getting someone they killed. If Trump can get more people tested and hospitals better equipped to deal with the current crisis the happy day that’s clear might come sooner rather than later, but until then most Americans will endure hardships rather than sacrifice their own lives or those of their fellow citizens.

As hard as it is, which is damned hard, that’s where we’re at.

— Bud Norman

In the Age of the Coronavirus

The coronavirus seems to be steadily spreading around the world, and the panic about it is spreading even faster. Large events are being cancelled, vacations are being postponed, employees of major businesses are being asked to work at home, cruise ships are being held at sea, and stock markets around the world are tanking.

Even here in Kansas, where there has so far been no reported cases of coronavirus, some people are already taking precautions. They’re being extra careful to cover their mouths when coughing or squeezing, which is the polite thing to do even in the best of circumstances, and some are resorting to more extreme measures. Some folks we know are even washing their hands a few dozen times a day and singing “Happy Birthday” twice while doing so to make sure they’re there at it for the recommended 20 seconds, which used to be considered a severe symptom of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder but is now merely good hygiene. Although we try our best to be hygienic we probably won’t take up the habit until our neighbors start getting infected, as we’d feel damned silly otherwise.

Humans everywhere are also advised to avoid rubbing their eyes or otherwise touching their faces, but that’s an instinctively human habit that will be hard to break. These days we’re constantly slapping our foreheads and scratching our chins and rubbing our eyes as we read the news, and all these stories about the coronavirus don’t help.

Otherwise, we have few serious problems with the new protocols of the coronavirus. We’ve never been the touchy-feely types, and are uncomfortable with hugs even at a family reunion, and we only allow a person to touch our faces in very special circumstances after they’ve been thoroughly vetted, and we consider a respectful nod a sufficiently respectful greeting in most social interactions, so the new no human-to-human contact rules are fine by us. So far we’ve proudly never failed to shake a stranger’s hand, but if the new rules forbid it, so be it.

President Donald Trump has tried to reassure the nation by saying that all the experts are wrong and his “hunch” that everything will soon be fine is right, but that kind of crazy talk only seems to have increased the panic. The stock markets had a good day after the “Super Tuesday” Democratic fueled hope that self-described socialist and Vermont Sen. Bernie won’t be the next president, but on Thursday they were once again slumping on news of the spreading coronavirus. The stock markets are betting that neither Trump nor for-now presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden have a cure for this latest pandemic and its resulting panic, and we figure they’re probably right.

We’ll probably be slapping our foreheads and scratching our chins and rubbing our eyes as we watch it all play out, but we’ll hope for the best.

— Bud Norman