THOUGHTS ON THE CURRENT EPIDEMIC
by
Connie Willis
(originally posted March 16 on Facebook)
Back in the 1980s I wrote a novel called DOOMSDAY BOOK. It was about a time-traveler who went back to the Middle Ages and found herself caught in the middle of the Black Death. The book featured the bubonic plague, an influenza epidemic a lot like the Spanish flu epidemic, a future Oxford under quarantine, and a shortage of toilet paper.
And now. Thirty years later, here we are.
The Eiffel Tower’s closed.
So’s Broadway and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
And Disney World.
Rome and Venice and Times Square are deserted.
March Madness has been canceled
And the opening of the baseball season delayed.
Conferences and comic cons and conventions have been called off.
There’s no Purell to be found anywhere.
Or toilet paper.
Store shelves are empty.
Schools and libraries and state offices are shut.
And it’s starting to feel eerily like the end of the world.
It isn’t.
This isn’t the Black Death or the Spanish flu, thank God,
but there are definitely parallels:
1. People blaming everyone and everything they can think of for the disease. Trump’s calling it a “foreign virus” and blaming Obama. Secretary of State Pompeo is calling it “the Wuhan flu.” And Fox News is calling it “the Chinese virus.”
2. Fleeing it. I saw an article today about rich New Yorkers fleeing to the Hamptons and to Florida to escape it, and when Trump put a travel ban on Europe and the UK, thousands of people frantically tried to get home. This kind of action, of course, only spreads the disease farther and faster, as witness the nightmare photos of crowds at O’Hare, jammed together in customs and waiting to be tested for the coronavirus, trapped in beyond-close proximity and unable to escape.
The problem is that, although diseases mutate, human nature stays the same, hence the fight-or-flight response, the scapegoating, and the other fear responses, like panic buying of toilet paper and hoarding. My grandmother had a neighbor during World War II who hoarded so much sugar in her attic that the floor collapsed, showering her entire house in sugar.
People during epidemics also grasp at superstitions and crazy cures. Rubbing onions on the boils and drinking arsenic and mercury was supposed to cure the plague. (It did. Or at least they didn’t die from the plague.) In this epidemic, televangelist Jim Bakker is selling a solution of colloidal silver that’s supposed to cure COVID-19. (it doesn’t, but it does turn you permanently bluish-gray), and Alex Jones is hawking a “nano-silver” toothpaste which “kills the whole SARS-corona family at point-blank range.” (It doesn’t.)
Hopefully, there will be more positive parallels, too. Like working together. The Boy Scouts did yeoman work during the Spanish flu epidemic, delivering medicines and groceries to the sick, and countless nuns, priests, and monks sacrificed themselves to treat the sick during the Black Death. Several villages voluntarily quarantined themselves during the Black Death to keep from spreading it further, and in some cases, the whole village died.
Unfortunately, we can’t do many of the things we would normally do to help in times like these, like huddling together, holding each other close, and reaching out to aid friends and neighbors. Right now, those are the worst things we could do.
But there are some good things we can do:
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2. Donate money to your local food bank. They’ll be swamped as people can’t go to work, and the needy will be hit first and hardest.
3. Countless community theater and musical groups have had to shut down (like the production of SISTER ACT my daughter was in.) This means they’re stuck with all the costs of putting on the production and none of the revenue, so make a donation to them or to your State Arts Council. They’re giving grants to these groups to help keep them afloat.
4. Give blood. (Contact the Red Cross for information.)
5. Donate to your local hospital or to groups that assist the sick and elderly.
6. You’re not supposed to go to restaurants, so they’re going to lose income, and local ones might go out of business, so buy gift cards from them. That’ll bring in income right now, and you’ll be able to use them later. (I put more money on my Starbucks card.)
7. Donate to politicians who you believe are doing a good job (or would do a good job.) If they’re running for office right now, they’ve been cut off from fundraisers and other money-making events. Help them out so they can help save your life the next time around. And vote.
8. Take care of yourself. Follow CDC guidelines. Wash your hands. Stay six feet away from other people. Don’t shake hands. Stay home. And if you’re sick, quarantine yourself. The point of all this is not just to keep you from catching the virus, but to keep you from SPREADING it, and by doing so to slow it down to the point that it doesn’t overwhelm the medical system, like it’s doing right now. There was a great tweet showing stripped grocery store shelves. It said, “This is what happens when everyone tries to buy groceries at once. Now imagine this is your hospital…”
And finally,
9. Remember people are amazing. They’re capable of rising to the most impossible of occasions in unexpected and wonderful ways. In Italy, where the people are living through a horror movie right now, they’re sitting on balconies and in windows, playing instruments and singing together. (If you haven’t seen the video, just google “Quarantined Italians singing.”)
Let’s follow their example!
Have courage.
Stay well.
My thoughts are with you.
Connie Willis
