With regard to “reopening our country,” I think it’s imperative everyone considers a few mitigating circumstances. Please understand the following points are scientifically true, relevant, and not coming from any particular political perspective. This is just the science.

• Healthcare workers and researchers do not yet understand COVID-19
o They don’t know why some people have minimal or no symptoms while others die from it.
o They don’t know why it successfully attacks erstwhile healthy people of any age.
• COVID-19 can be spread by people displaying no symptoms whatsoever. Feeling fine doesn’t mean you aren’t contagious.
• This virus is referred to as, “slippery.” We now know it’s airborne, it’s highly contagious, at least six strains have been identified, and it kills in what are still random patterns to us—until we understand it better.
• The United States is still behind the industrialized world in testing per capita. Iceland, Estonia, Norway, Switzerland, Italy and South Korea are kind of putting us to shame on that point as of April 15, 2020 (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing).
• The United States isn’t tracking the rate of infection, we are tracking the rate of hospitalization. Those are two very different things.
• The United States is in the infancy of testing for antibodies, and again, we do not even know how long those give immunity, or if they do at all.
• There is not yet a proven cure.
o There are many anti-virals and other therapies in testing, including hydroxychloroquine, but they are all still in a testing phase with no proven, definitive clinical results whatsoever at this time.
o Potential therapies like hydroxychloroquine are not in themselves benign—people with diabetes and heart conditions, for example, absolutely should not be on them.
• We are minimally 12 months away from having a vaccine, and probably more like 18 months away.
• They are still studying whether the blood plasma of recovered COVID-19 patients may be able to help those currently suffering with it or provide a key to a vaccine, but again, that is a LONG way out.
• Officials are looking for fever as a tell-tale sign of the virus, but they don’t know enough about this virus to ensure that if someone doesn’t have a fever, they don’t have the virus.

In summation, there is an awful lot we simply do not know yet. And while I have heard a lot of Pollyanna bullshit on and roughly around the above points, they are, I must reiterate, the brass tacks. Let’s deal with known facts, shitty as they may be. Because, science, bitches.

Now for the opinion piece.

I have witnessed remarkably stupid behaviors in erstwhile normal people exhibited in my limited public forays that speak to the utter inability of people to self-regulate in way that is safe for them and everyone around them. (Let me give you a hint: If you wear a mask and gloves, you handle everything in the store, touch carts and other things that likely are contaminated, then without removing your filthy gloves start playing with your phone and putting it up to your ear, you’re being dangerously dumb.)

All of these facts and observations have led me to an inevitable conclusion: you can “open America up” again, but I’m not participating any more than absolutely necessary. And I know I’m not alone. I don’t need to go out to eat—I’m a reasonably good cook. I have no need to go out to a movie—we have a great home theatre here. I don’t need to go to a gym—I get plenty of exercise walking, farming, cooking, and cleaning. Most of what I need, I can order online. I did all my traveling in my youth, and I’m sure as fuck not eager to get on a plane any time soon. I’m just not that high-maintenance.

More importantly, I am extremely uncomfortable with what for all practical purposes is extremely risky behavior by others IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC, let alone what they might do once their guard is down again. I am not alone in this concern, as I have heard similar thoughts voiced by others recently. Not in the way our President “hears” things like windmills cause cancer. I actually have spoken with real, intelligent people who expressed these concerns.

Further, people who are either not very well educated or just really need to listen to news outlets that support their own personal beliefs whether or not the information presented is credible have led many to hold a false sense of security in the notion that even if they get sick the doctor can fix it. That is factually incorrect, but it leads them to put others in danger as well, simply by being around them. Fox News, incidentally, is being sued over their deliberately misleading rhetoric that was couched as actual news. You can Google it, but here two instances: https://www.gq.com/story/coronavirus-fox-news-lawyers-up
https://www.blackenterprise.com/fox-news-sued-for-claiming…/

Look, this pandemic is clearly devastating to our health, our healthcare system, and to our economy. I am incredibly grateful to have health insurance. I am incredibly grateful for my health. I am incredibly grateful I no longer own a small business. I am also incredibly grateful to have a wonderful husband who provides for us. I’m incredibly grateful to have a job, albeit part-time, that allows me to work from home. I am grateful to have a roof over my head and food on the table. I am grateful to all our healthcare workers and the many workers in our food supply chain who somehow carry on. But I think we need to get used to the idea of having a “new normal” in our society.

I will never again bring food or anything else into my house that hasn’t been wiped down with Clorox wipes or some other agent first.

I will never again be comfortable in a packed store of any kind.

I will never again feel comfortable eating at a restaurant or going to the movies, and I will minimize those activities in the future.

I will never again go to the mall just to get something from Sephora or Bath and Body Works—I can get it all online.

I don’t know if I will ever again leave my house without a mask.

I know for a fact that I am not the only one who feels this way and as such, there really is no “going back to normal.” In the last month, we have seen an incredible, rapid reorganization of our society, and come to a different understanding of what is important to us. We have seen extraordinary efforts by all kinds of people; heroism on unimaginable scales. We have also seen some appalling things, the stress and strain bringing out the worst in some.

But mainly, we have seen a shift, and our greatest societal weaknesses have been unveiled in all their cosmically abysmal glory. We are seeing the results of a fundamental lack of care for others. We are just beginning to see that our weakest links are our least cared for, discarded, forgotten populations in our society, as they threaten our health and even our lives simply by not having the basics. And on some level, we facilitated that. That includes, but is not limited to:

• Those who have no health care, who are hourly workers, who are barely making ends meet with two or three jobs and cannot afford to stay home even when they are sick.
• The homeless, who cannot even practice proper hygiene if they want to.
• The uncared for mentally ill.
• The elderly in nursing homes with minimal, overworked staff tending to them.

We are only beginning to wake up to what happens when health insurance is tied to a job, and food for poor children is tied to a school.

We are waking up to the vast disparities, many of them subtle, between rich and poor that are an embarrassment to us as one of the wealthiest countries in the world—disparities that a virus doesn’t care about.

We are beginning to see the consequences of voting (or NOT voting) with the notion that it doesn’t really matter to our lives in general—because it really does matter.

We are also seeing the earth rebound rapidly in our relative absence. It’s quite beautiful, really. Clear skies, water running clean, breathable air, enthralling night skyscapes. Our earth even quakes less, according to seismologists. True story.

Personally, I don’t think anything will be the same for many after this. Tens of thousands of small businesses will be gone forever. Just, gone. It’s a sad truth, but it is true. As a former small business owner, I can tell you most of us don’t have much of a cushion. We usually run lean and have maybe two or three WEEKS of cash on hand. That’s it.

We need to be prepared for a massive reorganization, which will probably look like a drunk blind guy stumbling through an unknown hotel room in the middle of the night. It has already begun, but I think many are not mentally ready to acknowledge that a lot of this is permanent.

Perhaps I have an advantage over most with regard to adapting in the sense that I’ve been through a drastic, rapid, life-altering shift already. When I was widowed at the age of 35, it was an immediate, “Things will never ever be the same again,” experience. It was the flip of a switch that could never be undone.

That is what we are in for, ladies and gentleman. Many will look to blame all manner of people and things, and there is indeed plenty of blame to be laid at the feet of our current administration at the very least. That’s a simple one to solve going forward, really. Vote him out. But what we fundamentally need to focus on is how we move forward. People will talk about “rebuilding,” “getting back to normal,” “going back to the way things were.”

News flash: there is no going back. There is only going forward. The switch was flipped, and it’s permanent. The sooner we all accept that, the sooner we can move through the new world in a skillful manner. Also, please remember, a lot of desperate cockroaches are going to try to prey on you in order to continue their own way of life. Remember, they do not care about you; they care about restoring the life they knew and loved and/or capitalizing on desperation. Follow the money.

This whole pandemic is, in point of fact, a unique opportunity. Let’s do an After-Action Report. Let’s review the utter grandeur of our previous failings, realistically. Let’s acknowledge what we did wrong, and figure out how to create something new and better.

Do not bother looking for things to go back to what we previously considered normal. They probably won’t.
That is a positive statement. That is an invitation to get creative. That is a cry for help. That is a plea to do what most of us know is the right thing to do. Your neighborhood, your society, your livelihood, your life depends upon you doing just that.

Stop with the misleading bullshit because you like it.

Step up and do something new.