Here is the current state of affairs, as we walk over Memorial Day weekend here in the United States, into the summer.
In New York State, the daily death rate due to Coronivirus is reported to have fallen below 100. While terrible, that is amazing compared to the peak near 800 just a few weeks ago.
The state has also announced criteria for regional emergence from “New York on Pause”, and some parts of the state are reopening for business. New York City, however, is at least a month away from being able to re-open. Also while the state is allowing beaches to open, the city is not.
Farther afield, various states have lifted various restrictions on activity, and everyone is eying the effects. Meanwhile, the cumulative death toll due to Coronavirus is approaching 100,000 for the nation.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve experienced a change in general emotional state. It’s a strange thing to remember how one felt just a short while ago, in contrast to the present.
I remember the end of March and early April, a period I generally refer to as, “when the city was on fire”, when every day brought new developments, new highs in infection rates and body counts, along with grim anecdata like refrigerated trucks being used as makeshift morgues and a Navy ship being brought in as a hospital. Death was right outside my window, right outside my door. Death touched every doorknob, every handle, every package, the slightest piece of mail.
I washed every grocery, and would toss my keys into a sink filled with soapy water when returning from outside. If I drove my car, I kept my mask on in the car. I stayed inside my apartment for over a week at a time, FaceTiming with David, using Teams with my co-workers, and Zoom with my club. It was a state of terror I hadn’t felt since the days immediately after 9/11.
Now, however, I’ve grown more lax. More data leads to changes in behavior. Supposedly surfaces are a less potent vector than other peoples’ exhalations. I still stay in my apartment during the week but have ventured out on weekends, either to David’s house or to walk in the park with him, to go to the grocery store or, in a couple of cases, to go kayaking at my club’s boathouse.
Three weeks ago I still felt like an astronaut; nowadays, more like a warm-water scuba diver. Some assembly is still required, but less than before, and it’s more routine.
Talking with others, taking in the news and the comments and the opinions all around, there seems to be an overall feeling of having shifted into a new sense of what is normal; whereas in the beginning there was a bit of a lark, ha ha we’re going into quarantine, oh my working from home is a zany new concept, look at me I’m baking with all this time on my hands. Now, there is experience on the one hand and a track record on the other.
We’re all experienced with whatever changes in our lives we’ve had to make. The novel is no longer new; it’s routine. For myself, I was already working from home before the pandemic occurred, and the only real changes have been 1) not going out for a daily constitutional and 2) not kayaking nearly as much.
The track record of governments and employers has come under scrutiny, and while it’s easy to forgive mistakes at the beginning (even if it’s debatable “when” this all began), three months since documented arrival of the virus in the United States and its subsequent spread, there is plenty of blame to go around.
Were controls put in place for people returning from abroad? Were necessary medical supplies procured or ordered? Were restrictions enacted wisely, and were they too soon or too late? What about economic adjustments for the thousands of businesses and millions of workers thrown out of work?
Also, not to forget, this is an election year, and America is less than six months away from its quadrennial decision about who gets to lead the country.
Summer is here, and the weather is nice. The world we live in today is not the world we will live in tomorrow; it certainly is not the world we lived in very recently. Things are better, but not good; improved, but disaster looms right around the corner.
That is the state of affairs as we pass through this gateway to summer.