Tag: COVID-19

Buzz. Killed.

August 6, 2020 / Paul E. Veith

In my personal sports fan bubble, this past weekend was hard to top.

Starting Friday night and through Sunday, nothing went wrong:

The Chicago Cubs swept the Pittsburgh Pirates, taking firm hold of first place in the NL Central.
The Chicago White Sox swept the Kansas City Royals, bouncing back from a shaky start to the season and showing much-anticipated signs of promise.
The Chicago Blackhawks returned to the ice and took a 1-0 lead in their series against the Edmonton Oilers, riding Actual Youth and the Fountain of Youth to a surprisingly impressive 6-4 win.
Finally, two Illinois basketball players who were flirting with the NBA – guard Ayo Dosunmo (the Illini’s best player) and center Kofi Cockburn (the reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year) – announced they were returning for their junior and sophomore seasons, respectively. Instantly, Illinois was a preseason Top 10 team nationally, and Illini fans were given reason to dream big again.

The Buzz

Finally – for the first time in months – I paid rapt attention to sports. I wore out my remote control flipping among the Cubs, Sox, and Blackhawks on Saturday afternoon. I shared excited one-word texts with Illini fans: “Ayo!” “Kofi!” I watched post-game highlight shows to see replays of the six Hawk goals that I’d seen live. And then watched each goal again on my smartphone. I studied box scores – particularly those chronicling White Sox games. If you are not yet on that bandwagon, join. That lineup is must-watch TV, and Sox rookie centerfielder Luis Robert looks like the product of a science project to create a baseball playing machine. Imagine – if you can relate – Anthony Michael Hall’s character and his buddy in Weird Science setting out to build the ultimate baseball player, and not Kelly LeBrock.

It was all so … normal. Live sports. Lounging away a weekend afternoon. A little guilty that I wasn’t being productive, but not really. Optimism. Hope. I thought the kinds of thoughts I haven’t thought in months. Boy, David Ross seems to have these guys playing loose. How would you ever pitch around this Sox lineup? Is this the most talented Illinois hoops team since 2005? The deepest Illinois hoops team in my memory? Has Kirby Dach grown from boy to man in the last four months? Has Jonathan Toews turned back the clock? Is Dominik Kubalik the Next Big Thing? What got into Tyler Chatwood? Did Adam Engel really leave 10 men on base as a hitter in a nine-inning game? (He did.) Is that some sort of record? (Looks it up.) Nope. But close – former Cub Glenn Beckert once left 12 on base.

This. This is what I missed. Wallowing in thoughts about the games and the players and the records. Dreaming of what Luis Robert and Yoan Moncada and Eloy Jimenez could become. Thoroughly enjoyable. For me, thoroughly normal.

The Kill

But as it turned out, the sports pages offered no respite from the invisible, dark cloud that has been hovering for months – COVID-19.

Outside my little bubble, it turns out, the virus carries on, upsetting daily life in America:

The Miami Marlins did not play baseball at all last weekend, and neither did the Washington Nationals or the St. Louis Cardinals or the Milwaukee Brewers or the Philadelphia Phillies or the Toronto Blue Jays. Positive tests. Lost games. COVID.
The Rutgers football team suspended all team activities following a wave of positive tests traced to attendance at a party. College kids – left to their own good judgment – decided to cut loose and attend a party. Who could have predicted that? COVID.
By my rough count, nearly 60 NFL players have opted out of playing the upcoming NFL season – including a key piece of the defense for the Beloved Bear, nose tackle Eddie Goldman. COVID.
Rafael Nadal withdrew from the U.S. Open. COVID.

So as much buzz as the weekend could generate, COVID-19 killed it. Sure, Chicago’s MLB teams appear to be legitimate contenders. But is the sport going to make it to the finish line in 2020? Sure, Ayo and Kofi are back. But back for what? Are we going to even have a college basketball season when it’s not possible to confine college kids to a bubble and expect that there won’t be positive tests?

I cannot help thinking it was all a tease. The optimism, the hope, the anticipation. But “it’s all going to go away,” right? Right? A Tweet from ProFootballTalk’s account, of all things, summed up the situation pretty well, I think:

More than 150,000 American are dead. There are people who take the situation seriously, people who have grown numb to it, and people who continue to twist and torture the facts and logic to continue to downplay it. How many more have to die before they’ll admit they were wrong.
@Pro football talk, twitter post, august 4, 2020, 10:38 pm

What I have learned during the pandemic, I think, is that Americans – collectively – are pretty selfish. And fiercely individual. And prone to read and believe and repeat what they want to read and believe, and deny facts that inconveniently decimate their view of the world.

The optimism and hope and excitement I felt this past weekend did not have to be fleeting. But – as a nation – it looks like we blew it. We took a halfhearted approach to locking down and dealing with COVID-19 this Spring, and as a result we sit here in August, not really sure we’ve made much progress in overcoming this pandemic. Yes, we have gotten better at treating the sick. Yes, the progress toward a vaccine is encouraging. Yes, we are doing more testing now than we were doing in March and April. All good things.

But my sports fan’s buzz was killed when my thoughts drifted back to the dark cloud that is COVID-19. My buzz was killed when I scrolled through my social media accounts and continued to see debates about mask-wearing and the wisdom of doing all that testing. The thing that makes me most unsettled about the future of this country, and the present, is that a substantial number of Americans gobble up misinformation like fried food at a state fair. The ease with which people can propagate bad, unchecked, agenda-driven information has created a toxic environment in this country.

On the COVID front, the United States is, I am told, the best at testing. And yet many have to wait in hours-long lines and then wait days for results. But screw testing, others say – more testing means more positive cases. And we don’t need those! This is nonsense, of course. (If you are at all taken by the argument that the nation would be better off if we did less testing, please reach out to me privately and I’ll try to explain why doing more testing and detecting as many cases as possible is a good thing, not a bad thing, if we want to put COVID-19 in the rear view mirror.)

Put simply, we Americans have done a miserable job, collectively, at dealing with COVID. And that’s on the politicians and their constituents. We are lousy consumers of information, because we are lazy consumers of information. Just because you agree with a person or a party’s position on immigration or welfare or the corporate income tax does not mean you should lap up what that person or party feeds you about matters of public health. The rejection by some of science and scientists who have spent entire careers preparing to guide a nation through a crisis like this blows my mind.

Hindsight is 20/20. I get that. But a bunch of countries suffered like the U.S. suffered earlier this year. And they asked their citizens to sacrifice more than the U.S. asked its citizens to sacrifice – again, collectively speaking. As a result, many nations we would consider our peers (you know, if we weren’t uniquely “great”) are preparing to send their kids back to school without the fear that grips parents and educators on this side of the pond.

Interestingly, the two professional sports leagues that seem to be getting back to play without reports of cancelled games or outbreaks are the NBA and NHL. What are they doing that baseball isn’t doing, and that football won’t be able to do? The short answer: bubbles. Players are being confined, and limited from contact with the outside world. They are engaged in a collective effort, pursuant to a plan designed by league officials who consulted medical and public health experts in putting it together. No exceptions. Everyone pulling on the same rope, in the same direction – trying to keep the games going. Imagine that.

Go ahead – send me all the articles you’d like to send me, all the statistics that say I’m being too hard on the good old USA. We’ve done a terrific job, right? It will all, magically, go away? It is what it is, right? Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but foresight counts too. And it appears that many, many nations had more than we did. And they did not let a pandemic become a political football.

Statistics can be fickle. They can be spun and massaged and cherry-picked to make about any point you want to make. So I’ll just mention a few here that cannot really be spun and massaged. They are cherry-picked, I suppose, but only because they are the ones that matter most to me. If you want to cherry-pick your own, go for it – here’s my source. As of August 5, 2020:

161,601 Americans have died due to COVID-19
as a percentage of total population, 91 of every 1,000,000 citizens in the world have died due to COVID-19
as a percentage of its population, 488 of every 1,000,000 Americans have died due to COVID-19 – or more than 5x the world average
of the 215 nations tracked, the United States ranks as the 11th worst in deaths as a percentage of population (to be clear, being 11th is bad, not good)
stated another way, the United States has about 4% of the world’s population, and about 23% of the deaths due to COVID-19

For the richest, most technologically advanced nation on Earth, that’s not good. And it kills my buzz. And it does not kill my buzz any less because most of the dead were old. Or had diabetes. Or high blood pressure. They had months or years or even decades left. Many died early, and unnecessarily so.

***

As I wrote this piece, I was flipping between the Cubs and Sox games, and then added the Blackhawks Game 3 vs. Edmonton to the mix. The Cubs win – again. The Hawks improbably score two late in the third to take a 2-1 lead in the series. I wander to bed after midnight – and the buzz is back. Maybe there’s hope. Maybe the Hawks hoist another Cup and the Cubs and Sox face off in the World Series? Maybe we are really headed back to normal.

***

And then I woke up, walked the dog, and started reading. I ran across this headline and read the accompanying story: As problems mount, college football’s outlook appears grim: ‘You can feel the tidal wave coming.’

After months without sports, and tens of thousands of deaths, the tidal wave is coming? Then what just happened?

It’s time to go to work. Buzz killed.

From Serenity Now!! to The Serenity Prayer – How To Survive a Pandemic

May 20, 2020 / Paul E. Veith

The actor Ben Stiller’s father Jerry died on May 11, a month shy of his 93rd birthday. Jerry Stiller was a comedian and actor whose career spanned more than half a century. Like the spring-loaded plunger that sends a pinball into the field of play, Stiller’s death (which was not attributed to Covid-19) sent my thoughts bouncing around the bumpers and flippers in my brain, unexpectedly leading me to the answer to a most vexing question: How should I live my life as the Covid-19 pandemic plays out?

“SERENITY NOW!!”

Fans of Seinfeld know Stiller as George Costanza’s father, Frank. George is famously “neurotic, self-loathing” and “prone to occasional periods of overconfidence that invariably arise at the worst possible time.” Frank was perhaps best known as the prickly champion of an alternative to the Christmas holiday known as Festivus – a product of his “disgust with the commercialism of Christmas and his dislike of tinsel decorations.” Frank did not conceive of Festivus himself, or declare that feats of strength and the airing of grievances would be among its core traditions, but to me Frank is Festivus, and Festivus is Frank.

Festivus aside, I remember Frank Costanza best for “SERENITY NOW!!” – the phrase he bellowed when his frequent fits of anger reached a zenith.

Frank’s outbursts were often prompted by exchanges with his shrill, nagging wife, Estelle. As Frank explains: “The doctor gave me a relaxation cassette. When my blood pressure gets too high, the man on the tape tells me to say ‘serenity now.’” When pushed to his breaking point, Frank looks skyward, holds up both hands with fists clenched, and shouts that phrase at the top of his lungs – there is nothing relaxing about it.

Frank first used the phrase on the show when Estelle refused to move her front seat forward to give him more leg room in the back seat of George’s car. Frustrated by Estelle’s resistance and ignoring George’s reminder that they were only five blocks from home, Frank loses it: “Like an animal! Because of her, I have to sit here like an animal! SERENITY NOW! SERENITY NOW!”

George asks about, and Frank explains, the inspiration for the phrase. Then George asks: “Are you supposed to yell it?” To which Frank responds, “the man on the tape wasn’t specific.”

What does this have to do with a pandemic? Well, at times over the last couple of months, I’ve absolutely felt the urge to channel Frank, to look skyward and shout, “SERENITY NOW!”

In my first blog post, I described my feelings about the Covid-19 pandemic as follows: “Unsettled. Anxious. Uncertain. A little bit scared. Disoriented.” Two-plus months in, I might choose a slightly different set of words. For sure, I would add frustrated and restless to that list.

Frustrated

My consumption of news regarding Covid-19 has trailed off. I became frustrated that this pandemic – a public health crisis prompted by a virus that literally does not care where you come from, what you look like, or which political party you support – has achieved the impossible: it has further divided a country that was fast becoming a nation of Hatfields and McCoys. If a public health emergency cannot bring us together, exactly what can? Would it take war between nations? A meteor strike? An invasion by extraterrestrials?

The debate du jour, of course, is about the pace of “opening up.” Judging from a non-scientific survey of my social media accounts, there are three camps: (1) Full Throttle; (2) Proceed With Caution; and (3) Slow Down.

Those in the Full Throttle camp want to open up the economy NOW!, and some consider being asked to wear a mask to be a threat to personal liberty on the level of being forced to donate a kidney. Some – not all – in this camp are willing to tote guns and storm state capitols to prove … something. These are many of the same folks, of course, who originally thought (because they were told to think so) that the whole coronavirus thing was a hoax. As the bodies have piled up (we could nearly fill the Rose Bowl with the dead, at this point), they have now pivoted to alternately blaming bats, the Chinese, Bill Gates, the World Health Organization, and Obama. Some have taken to acts of defiance of rules and guidelines promulgated in the name of public health. They ridicule the snowflakes who wear masks and practice social distancing. The Full Throttle folks are convinced this crisis is being manipulated by “the media” to control the masses and help tank the economy for political ends.

Those in the Proceed With Caution camp (spoiler, my camp) are typically sane and rational and conflicted. People in this camp understand that this pandemic poses a once-in-a-century quandary, and that difficult decisions are being made based on a delicate balance of legitimate, competing interests. They tend to want public and private decisions guided by data, science, and compassion, but are also resigned to the fact that cold, hard economic analysis needs to be considered as well. They know that being 100% confident in the wisdom of any decision is a pipedream. These folks want to save as many lives as possible while minimizing the economic and other collateral damage inflicted by any set of policies that shackles commercial activity.

I think the vast majority of Americans are in this centrist camp, and that they hold many different opinions and points of view because there are really difficult, vexing problems to be solved, and reasonable minds can differ on how to solve them. Doctors, public health experts, economists, experts in the transmission of respiratory illnesses, economists, actuaries, supply chain experts. I say bring all of them to the table to help forge a path forward. You’ll note I omitted politicians; in a perfect world, all of the politicians would be quarantined – together – on Madagascar (with apologies to Madagascar).

Doubling up on the protection, for good measure

Then, there are those in the Slow Down camp. A few on the fringe in this camp are convinced politicians urging open economies want to kill the most vulnerable in some twisted Darwinian experiment. They are by nature nervous and cautious, and wonderfully stubborn about saving lives. They will advocate taking any and all steps to ensure that the inevitable second wave can be controlled. Whatever the economic impact, they want all of us to wait patiently for the virus to be brought to its knees – by a vaccine or otherwise – before getting all the way back to “normal.” As much heat as they take, they are the most compassionate among us, and their voices need to be heard even if the ultimate course we take strays from their ideal course.

I’m not frustrated that there are differences of opinion – that’s to be expected in a society where information (and disinformation, sadly) flows like beer at a frat party. What’s frustrating is the moving targets, the demoralization of institutions that should be leading our national response, the inconsistent approaches taken by states that share borders simply because different political parties control their governments. It’s all so silly and on-brand for America, circa 2020, that the imperative that we vanquish a common, non-discriminating foe has driven us to hate, berate, and distrust one another even more.

Restless

While my frustration is largely borne of what I know and see today, my restlessness relates to the future and its unknowns. I am restless because I realize that I need to figure out – for myself – how to forge a path forward. I don’t fully trust elected officials to call the plays, and therefore I need to figure out exactly where I stand on the “open up” versus “go slow” spectrum and be prepared to improvise. None of us is an innocent bystander; we are all participants. Going forward, the outcome here – that is, how much worse things get before we can say this pandemic is over – will depend on the choices we make, individually. Day by day. Hour by hour.

We all take risks, every single day. We drive, sometimes too fast. We eat delicious Italian beef sandwiches dipped in gravy, and ice cream, and sushi. We ski and skateboard. We jaywalk. By and large, we respect formal and informal rules – that’s part of the social contract under which we live. But to different degrees, we are willing to push the edges of those rules.

And now, mundane things we never associated with risk are – even if to some tiny degree – risky. Riding a commuter train. Using a public restroom. Going to a grocery store. Singing in a choir. Pumping our own gas. Judged against staying home, every single one of these actions increases the risk of contracting the coronavirus and suffering from Covid-19.

How each of us navigates this pandemic will be a study in risk tolerance. Every day.

I desperately want to get back to normal. I want a haircut. I want to eat in a restaurant. But I also want my 89-year-old diabetic mother to see her 90th birthday in October, and to join our family in my home on Christmas Eve.

The restlessness. The frustration. At times it leads to those “SERENITY NOW!!” moments. I don’t get there daily, or even weekly. But every once in a while – usually when I read a story about some defiant, selfish jackass – I get to that peak and feel like letting go, like Frank.

So how did Jerry Stiller’s death help me develop a framework to use going forward? My musings about Frank Costanza and SERENITY NOW!! and individual responsibility and negotiating risk led me to think about The Serenity Prayer. You may not know it by that name, but I suspect you’ve seen it:

God, grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr, American theologian

This prayer was composed in the early 1930s, during the Depression, and gained widespread secular use. It was later adopted and popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous, and the famous atheist author and philosopher Ayn Rand said of the prayer:

… that statement is profoundly true, as a summary and a guideline: it names the mental attitude which a rational man must seek to achieve. The statement is beautiful in its eloquent simplicity.
Ayn Rand, The Metaphysical Versus the Man-Made, as published in Philosophy: Who Needs It (1982)

I fancy myself a rational man, and if The Serenity Prayer offers up “the mental attitude which a rational man must seek to achieve,” I’m all in – so much so that I have decided to use it as a North Star for finding the way back to “normal.”

Accepting Things I Cannot Change

Going forward, I know I will encounter things I cannot control or change, and must accept. Among them:

+ I cannot change that some people will insist on viewing the “open up” versus “hunker down” debate as a political debate. It’s nonsensical and counterproductive and I wish people would stop. But they won’t – I’ll have to accept that and move on.

+ I cannot change that some people will view minor inconveniences (wearing masks, staying physically distant from others, not getting to play blackjack at casinos) as major assaults on their liberty. There have been oceans of ink spilled onto pages by people who have actually suffered a deprivation of liberty – none of those pages describe the horror of being asked to wear a cloth mask at Costco.

+ I cannot change the hearts, minds, and souls of the truly asinine – the kind of people who respond to polite requests by becoming violent and menacing and confrontational.

+ I cannot change that some will spend an inordinate amount of time looking to assign blame, rather than looking for solutions.

+ I cannot change that not everyone will assess the risks that are presented ahead through the same lens as I do. I have no choice but to accept that I will encounter some who do things I find unacceptably risky, and some who will believe I am the one being reckless.

+ I cannot change that my state, village, or employer will impose rules on the road back to normal that I think go too far. I’ll accept the rules, and do my level best to comply with those rules. But I might – unwittingly or intentionally – violate a rule here or there. I won’t do so intentionally, though, if I think I am putting anyone else in harm’s way.

+ I cannot change that things won’t snap back to normal overnight, that we have miles and miles yet to go before we get to normal.

+ I cannot change that when I watch baseball or football or hockey again, I’m likely going to be watching athletes in empty stadiums and arenas. Sad, but true.

Having The Courage To Change Things I Can

But there are many things I can control and change, going forward:

+ First and foremost, I can change my mindset to a pandemic mindset when I am out and about. Early on, I read or heard great, simple advice: whether you believe you are infected or not, behave as if you are a contagious carrier of the virus determined not to infect anyone else. This is the Covid-19 Golden Rule, as far as I am concerned. If everyone followed this rule consistently, we would all be OK. I am going to do my best to do so. (And, by the way, having tiptoed back into society over the last few weeks, I will be frank – lots of people are not living by this rule.)

+ I can control my level of education about the virus, how it spreads, and which precautions are most effective. Statistics about how many have died, how many have been tested, how many ventilators are in use, and how many ICU beds are open are important – but they don’t really do me any good, individually, as I forge ahead. I will read seemingly credible sources that provide practical advice, like the one I’ve linked here. Facts about the disease, and how it spreads, are critical to understanding how I can follow the Golden Rule. When I’m outside, 150 yards from a playing partner hitting a golf shot (using a club no one else has touched), I’m not a danger to anyone. When I am in line at the deli at Sunset Foods with 20 of my closest friends on a Saturday morning, I am a threat. So I will wear a mask, keep my distance, avoid coughing or sneezing, and keep to myself. And in the unlikely event someone invites me to join a choir, I will politely decline.

+ I can hunker down when sick – this is the most important application of the Golden Rule. In the past, I’m sure I’ve gone to work or to a restaurant or party when I’ve felt just a wee bit under the weather. No more. If I am even the least bit feverish or “off” in any way, I’m staying home. Period. Sure, I might have to overcome FOMO (the Fear of Missing Out) from time to time. But until we are truly back to normal – and maybe even after we are back to normal, I’m not going to apologize for sidelining myself if I am feeling ill. Those among us for whom never missing a day of work is a badge of honor? Please get over it; it’s not so honorable to get others sick.

+ I can control and change my tolerance of other points of view and degrees of sensitivity to social interaction. Look, some people are going to be very anxious in public for the foreseeable future. They will wear masks even in situations where they are not obviously needed (alone in their cars, for example). They will feel more comfortable around me if I wear a mask, or keep my distance. I’m sure there will come a time – likely a long, long time from now – where I think to myself, “wow – didn’t he hear the news that we are past this thing?” Shame on me when (if) I have that thought. Why should I care if you choose to wear a mask in public in 2025? Why should I care if you choose to cross the street to avoid me when I am walking toward you? Let’s try something new, as a society, and be universally respectful and tolerant.

Was the bearded guy’s gun really necessary?

+ I can control how I react to the defiant, rude, selfish oaf who refuses to live by the Golden Rule. My hope is that my reaction to that person will be the same as my typical reaction to any troublemaker I encounter in life. First, respectful re-routing. Second, cautious and measured engagement (if necessary). Third, extraction and flight. Growing up in the city helped train me for this moment. As someone who walked city streets every day and encountered the normal collection of drunks, menacing kids, creepy adults, etc., I learned that the best way to avoid trouble was to simply avoid it. Cross the street. Choose another seat on the bus. Move to another table. Get off a stop early. Simple survival tools. If I encounter someone who decides to make a spectacle of himself by defying rules or ridiculing those who impose or follow them, I will likely adopt that same strategy – avoidance. If forced to engage, I’ll try to do so calmly and with reason, aiming to avoid a SERENITY NOW! moment for everyone. And if all else fails, I’ll get the hell out of Dodge and, if I’ve witnessed something really, really bad, I’ll do what I can to ensure that a person charged with keeping the peace is aware that a troublemaker is on the loose.

+ And finally, I can control and change the choices I make as a consumer. When businesses re-open, those who understand and respect differing levels of comfort among their clientele will thrive. Those who celebrate being allowed to open by raising a figurative middle finger to best practices will suffer. If you are a business owner, compassion and common sense will breed comfort and loyalty. Simple gestures will matter. Case in point: the local Waterway car wash/gas station has earned my business by taking the simple step of placing boxes of disposable plastic gloves next to its pumps. Small measure, small cost. But it tells me its management knows that some people will appreciate not having to contact a touch screen or gas pump that many others have touched that day. If I owned a business that interfaced with the public, I would not want to alienate a significant percentage of my potential customer base by seeming not to care all that much about Covid-19.

The Wisdom To Know The Difference

The final ask of The Serenity Prayer is for the wisdom to know the difference between what we can change and cannot change. As the Honorable Richard M. Daley once said (I think), “it ain’t a rocket scientist thing.” We generally know what we can and cannot change. And I’m not sure the changes I have listed above necessarily require a great deal of courage to be executed. It seems that simply being considerate, tolerant, and exercising common sense will go a long way here. But that’s usually the case, right?

So that’s my plan going forward – accept the things about living through a pandemic that I cannot change, and change my mindset in small ways to be a better pandemic citizen.

Of course, I reserve the right to become frustrated. If it becomes too much, I will close my eyes, raise my clenched fists, and in memory of Frank Costanza I will wail “SERENITY NOW!!!” (But I won’t do so in an elevator or other confined space.)

-30-

Will COVID-19 Change Things Forever?

April 11, 2020 / Paul E. Veith

Nobody knows. That’s the answer. But don’t stop reading.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, rock star public health expert, was interviewed on The Wall Street Journal’s frequently enlightening podcast, The Journal, earlier this week. It’s 24 minutes of Fauci answering questions posed by a Journal reporter, uninterrupted by politicians or captains of industry or anyone else. I think the podcast is well worth your time. Dr. Fauci was asked, among other things, what we can expect over the coming weeks and months as the nation aims to return to “normal.” Dr. Fauci did not pretend to have all the answers – that’s one thing that makes him endearing, I think. He did say that things won’t return to normal suddenly. He said transitioning from our present state to normal is not like a “light switch, on and off.” In his view, it would not be advisable to “jump in with both feet.” None of this is particular alarming, surprising, or ground-breaking. As far as specifics go, Dr. Fauci talked about the possibility that we might see restaurants re-open but with tables spaced out, as one of several examples of how we might get from here to “normal,” gradually.

What Dr. Fauci said that few would dispute is that American life will eventually – albeit gradually – get its mojo back. He pointed to the availability of a vaccine, which he is hopeful (even optimistic) we’ll see in 12-18 months. He thinks a vaccine is the “game-changer” for truly getting back to pre-COVID normal. But Dr. Fauci also said, “I don’t think we’ll ever get back to completely normal.” For example, he suggested that the practice of shaking hands as a common form of greeting may never come all the way back, and that obsessive hand-washing may remain in vogue long after this particular strain of coronavirus stops infecting people. In that respect, I suspect Dr. Fauci was projecting what he hopes will be a lasting impact of COVID-19. Given his chosen profession and what he has seen over the years, he has probably been anti-hand shake and pro-hand wash for a long time.

Even before I listened to that podcast, I have been semi-obsessed thinking about the question of how COVID-19 will change the American way of life in the long term – starting, say, two years down the road, when we’re all back to work, back to attending sporting events, concerts, festivals, and weddings without worrying that we are putting ourselves or others at risk.

In the short term, the impact is plain for all of us to see. In the mid-term (say the next two to eight months), I suppose we’ll see a “gradual” return to normal. I think we’ll see sports come back, but maybe initially in venues that exclude or severely limit the number of fans allowed to congregate. I’m not sure buffet lines come roaring back in the mid-term. I don’t think cruise ships will swell with passengers any time soon. When those of us who play golf are allowed to golf again, I suspect at first the length of conceded putts will expand to avoid forcing golfers to touch the flagstick or retrieve a golf ball from the cup. (I am personally 100% behind generosity on the greens in the name of public health and safety, by the way.)

In the medium-term, people will experiment with all kinds of accommodations to make people feel better about returning to work, and restaurants, and public places generally. And those among us who are skittish may wear masks. I, for one, won’t judge anyone who wears a mask in any setting for a long, long time – maybe forever.

It’s “forever” – the long-term – that interests me most. When it comes to permanently-life-altering events, essentially no one alive today has lived through something quite like this pandemic. In my memory, the last event that had a lasting, noticeable impact on daily life in this country was the coordinated terrorist attack of September 11, 2011. But I’m not sure 9/11’s impacts were even that life-altering. To be sure, traveling through airports is different. The security process is more time-consuming. 3/1/1. Limits on liquids. No lighters. No pocket knives. Take off your shoes (prior to the godsend of TSA Precheck, at least). You can no longer access the gate areas without a ticket. I think all these changes can be traced to 9/11, but are these really life-altering? Essentially, we have all had to learn how to modify how we pack a suitcase unless we want to check a bag, and maybe leave for the airport a little earlier – to be safe. For enhanced safety, not a bad tradeoff.

Beyond that – what else? Office buildings in large cities are certainly more secure – security desks are now common. Enhanced security at high-rise buildings is a good thing, don’t get me wrong. But no security desk or array of armed guards could have prevented what happened at the World Trade Center. Incidentally, the only time I visited that complex was in July 2011, and I found it to have the tightest security of any building I had ever visited. I am sure others – obviously those who lost family or friends, and particularly New Yorkers – could point to other ways in which 9/11 altered everyday life in America and had noticeable cultural impact. But in the end, I’m not sure 9/11 had a tremendous impact on the way Americans go about their daily lives. To be sure, we are all probably a little more anxious when we fly, more aware of our surroundings, and most of us are more tolerant of the government snooping around to prevent the next attack. But mostly, we got back to normal.

The long-term impact of COVID-19 remains to be seen. I am, however, 100% confident in each of the following predictions for the coming months:

Politicians at all levels from all parties will take credit for having taken actions that saved lives.

Politicians at all levels from all parties will blame politicians from other parties for failing to take actions that would have saved lives.

Some people will say that “we” – Americans, as directed by our leaders – overreacted to the COVID-19 pandemic and that social distancing directives and shut-down orders went too far.

Some people will say that by practicing social distancing as directed by our leaders, we collectively saved lives. (Incidentally, this article has an interesting discussion of the certain debate between the “we saved lives” and “we overreacted” camps. As the article points out, some people will say that the epidemiological models over-estimated the number of sick and dead as proof that we overreacted. Others will argue that our good, conscientious behavior caused us to achieve better results than the models predicted. It will be kind of aggravating to watch that debate, which will mostly take place between cocksure panelists on night-time cable news channels. My bet: few of them will be experts in medicine, public health, statistical modeling, or any other relevant discipline.

We will be smarter and better, next time. Driven by better data than has ever been available concerning a pandemic and tremendous ability to process that data, an explosion of important, intelligent, science-based, peer-reviewed work studying our experience dealing with COVID-19 will be published – making us better prepared to deal with a threat like this in future, as long as the right people pay attention at the right time.

The balance of this post is dedicated to answering a twist on the question that sits at the top of this post: “How will COVID-19 make our lives different two years from now – on the weekend of the 2022 Masters?” I pick two years because I am optimistic that vaccination and/or herd immunity will have mostly gotten us “back to normal” by then. Let me start all this by saying this: most Americans are resilient and adventurous sorts. We like our personal liberties and hate being told how to live our lives. Many hate being told to do something demonstrably proven to be beneficial to your personal health and safety. There are many people who still refuse to wear seat belts or motorcycle helmets – actions that clearly, measured broadly, save lives and reduce injuries. So I have little doubt that we’ll get back to normal – because normal was pretty great.

Here’s my take on how COVID-19 might change our lives down the road – admitting these are nothing more than guesses. I encourage you to share your thoughts in the Comments.

People who wear masks in public won’t be dismissed as weirdos. In the past, public mask-wearing has not been a super-common thing in the USA. On the five or so times I have traveled to Asia, I’ve seen many masked travelers in airports and subways – likely in part because Asian countries have more experience with virus-borne and transmitted illnesses. Going forward, anyone wearing a mask gets a pass from me – perhaps unless you are approaching a bank teller. Those with compromised immune systems and those themselves suffering from a malady causing them to cough or sneeze who must nonetheless be out and about should probably wear masks. I could even see an industry of fashionable masks developing. We’ll see.

Hugs ‘n Kisses? Maybe not so fast. Dr. Fauci doesn’t want anyone shaking hands, so I suspect his head would explode if some random member of the public sees him in an airport in a couple of years and approaches to give him a bear hug in appreciation for his public service. My guess is that handshakes in a business setting come back all the way – except that it will be more common for people to beg off and say, “I’ve had a bit of a cold, so if it’s okay I’m not going to shake your hand.” And I think all of us will be absolutely okay with that. Not a slight. Among bro-friends, the fist bump had been on the rise – I think it continues to gain popularity. But what about the huggers and cheek kissers among us? Will they be shunned? Eventually, I suspect the practice of hugging a close friend or family member comes back – I mean, it feels good if someone thinks enough of you to offer a hug, right? But begging off or pulling back a bit will, I think, become more common and won’t be judged as an affront.

“Self-quarantine” will become a thing if you’re sick. There are people who take pride in never missing a day of work. Through thick and thin, coughing, hacking, sneezing, and wheezing – they show up and answer the bell. The Cal Ripken of the Accounting Department. I think this will change. If you’re sick, stay home, ride it out. I think people riding public transportation who cough or sneeze repeatedly will be viewed as having committed a felony. I can imagine angry words being exchanged – heck, can you imagine if someone breaks the church-like silence of a quiet car on a Metra train with a big, hacky, coughing fit? That could lead to fists being thrown. I think most people get that now, and will be quicker to stay home if they are symptomatic. Especially because …

The practice of working remotely will increase. Over the last month or so, many of us have been forced to work from home. For those of us in office/desk jobs, this isn’t a big deal. With high-speed internet at home and the proper hardware and software, not a big deal at all. With connectivity tools, face-to-face meetings are possible. Conference calls? No problem, obviously. Access to materials? Most come and go electronically, anyway. I will admit that before this experience, I was a little old school about this. I think there is value – at least in a large law firm – to being physically present and interacting with colleagues. Plus, I have always thought I am more productive in the office than at home. But I have surprised myself – and I save two hours per day otherwise spent commuting or making myself look presentable. I look forward to getting back and seeing my colleagues – but I think I will be a little more open-minded about working remotely in the future. For businesses in which mentoring, interacting with colleagues, etc. is not a really big deal – I suspect what was already a trend toward remote work will pick up steam. Commercial real estate experts, is this a worry? Will we drive a little less? Could this actually be a positive development in reducing pollution?

The practice of socializing remotely will increase. My 89-year-old tech-challenged mother who is quarantined in an assisted-living facility learned how to use FaceTime the other day in about five minutes. I have attended several Zoom “happy hours” with friends near and far. I have hosted on-line poker games with the participants engaged in banter during via companion Zoom meetings. Technology has made this all really, really easy. Particularly for folks separated by distance, the group meet-up options are now super-easy. The increased use of these tools will stick. That’s not to say the Zoom meet-up with people who all live within a mile of one another is going to take the place of an actual party – but where great friends and family are spread far and wide, there is no longer a good excuse to not “get together” every so often.

We will all have cleaner hands, forever. In the future, I cannot imagine any public establishment not having hand sanitizer available to its guests. And I think more of us will stop and take a squirt of sanitizer. Likewise, we will linger a little longer at the sink – and use soap. In the interest of having cleaner hands, I think we’ll all use cash less – even less than now. And the practice of swiping or inserting a credit card into a machine will likely give way to holding it close to devices that allow contact-less transactions.

I’ll end with one final comment. That regal looking mutt at the top of this post is our family dog, Ellie. COVID-19 changed her life for the better in the short-term. More companionship, more attention, more walks. Long-term impact? I think not. Ellie will eat her two scoops of Purina Pro Plan twice a day, get walked around the block two or three times, and sleep a lot. Her owners’ lives might change modestly. But post-COVID, a dog’s life is will continue to be pretty great – of that I am confident.

This Ain’t No Party, But This Ain’t No War

April 4, 2020 / Paul E. Veith

Unsettled. Anxious. Uncertain. A little bit scared. Disoriented.

That’s a summary of my feelings about the Covid-19 pandemic. But something good – maybe – came out of Covid-19. I cleaned my closet, and my long-threatened blog became a reality because there is no time better to start a blog than a once-a-century global pandemic. I don’t plan to make this a Covid-19 diary chronicling the existential questions I find myself facing every day, like “Should I shower today?” “Did I shower yesterday?” “Is it Tuesday or Wednesday?” “Do I watch Better Call Saul or Homeland tonight?” “Two episodes or three?” I promise to move this blog to other topics soon, but humor me for now.

For whatever reason, a lyric came into my head the other day as I was thinking about our nation’s engagement with Covid-19. It was part of the soundtrack of my college years: “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.” I did know that the lyric came from a Talking Heads song; what I did not know was the name of the song in which those lyrics appeared: “Life During Wartime.” It starts:

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons, Packed up and ready to go
Heard of some grave sites, out by the highway, A place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance, I’m getting used to it now
Lived in a brownstone, lived in a ghetto, I’ve lived all over this town
“Life during wartime,” the talking heads, 1979

Fighting the “Invisible Enemy”

Is this wartime in America? I don’t think so. To be sure, you may have heard politicians on television likening our current situation to war – albeit war against an “invisible enemy.” And politicians are not the only people who have compared pandemic to war – Bill Gates did the same in 2018, when he warned of the need to prepare for a pandemic (you know, the pandemic that no one could have predicted).

At a certain level, I get it. By telling people “we are at war,” leaders might hope to convey the gravity of the present situation. “We are fighting a war” makes for a better soundbite than “We are attempting to mitigate a global health emergency by flattening the curve.” Strangely, using a familiar word like war might even bring comfort to Americans dealing with an unfamiliar predicament. Some might think: “We’re in a war? Oh, then we’ll be OK. After all, we have the strong, powerful United States military protecting us.” And, if I can wear my cynic’s hat for just a second, a politician might even summon war and all the best words about war hoping to benefit from what some have called a “rally ‘round the flag effect.” Politicians live to give the voters candy: and who doesn’t want a strong, powerful ally in a fight? Who doesn’t marvel at the spectacle of a big, gleaming military ship sailing into port promising to provide backup hospital beds – even if gathering to marvel at a ship is exactly the wrong thing to be doing right now?

This Ain’t No War

Like many, I have immersed myself in reading about Covid-19. I am powerless to turn away. Give me my candy: teach me all about things I knew nothing about until recently, like R-naught, shelter-in-place, asymptomatic transmission, N95 masks, PPE, and social distancing. I devour epidemiological models and articles explaining what it means to “flatten the curve.” Some of what I have read has been helpful – mostly stuff written by experts and those who skillfully explain the work of experts. Other stuff I’ve read … not so much. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I know a heck of a lot more today about pandemics than I did two months ago. Thankfully, I don’t consider myself an expert on war, either. The wars that have been fought during my lifetime are not wars that had a great impact on American life at home the way, say, World War II did on those living in the 1940s.

But from my seat on the couch, I cringe a little whenever I hear our national engagement with Covid-19 compared to war, or when I hear this time compared to war time. This isn’t wartime, and it might be really dangerous to think so.

The differences are plain. During wars, humans on one team attack humans on another team for the purpose of securing land or resources or a way of life, I suppose. The end goal of a war is submission of one team to the other – surrender. Wars are fought with bombs, battleships, planes, drones, guns, and tanks – often on some godforsaken far-off battle field in a place we would never think to visit. They typically end with agreements to stop the bloodshed and divide the spoils. During pandemics, viruses attack humans on all teams. While we all can easily visualize enemy soldiers trying to kill our soldiers, it’s not so easy to visualize a virus – or to even understand what a virus is. Try this explanation. Fascinating. What jumps out at me are the numbers. I am a sucker for numbers.

For starters, viruses are easily the most abundant life form on Earth, if you accept the proposition that they’re alive. Try multiplying a billion by a billion, then multiply that by ten trillion, and that (10 to the 31st power) is the mind-numbing estimate of how many individual viral particles are estimated to populate the planet.
see link immediately above

And viruses are described as “very efficient. Viruses travel light, packing only the baggage they absolutely need to hack into a cell, commandeer its molecular machinery, multiply and make an escape.” In short, the “enemy” in a pandemic is way different than an enemy in a war, and viruses don’t much care what team you are on.

During wartime, it’s good to be “strong” and “powerful” and have more planes and boats and guns and stuff to wage an attack on the other team. Good luck with your planes and boats and guns in dealing with a highly contagious virus. During pandemics, the machinery of war is pretty much useless. Sure, military resources can play a role – the aforementioned hospital ships and the Army Corps of Engineers’ assistance in building temporary hospitals are examples. But for the most part, the weapons of war stand idle when the enemy is a virus.

During wartime, you usually need to confront your enemy to win. We are largely past hand-to-hand combat and it seems much modern warfare aims to keep the warriors off the battlefield. But eventually, to win a war there must be some physical human-to-human confrontation. Beating the coronavirus, as a nation, involves literally the opposite of confrontation. During a pandemic like this one, the only surefire way to defeat the enemy is to take all measure to avoid confronting it. Sure, we might find some pharmaceutical solution – a way to “take the fight to the virus” with medicine. That might help the infected, but the national goal here is to minimize infection.

When history is written about wars, the heroes tend to be the commanders and generals and soldiers – the warriors. That’s not to minimize other contributors during wartime, including the code breakers and medics and mechanics and countless others. But – with a few notable exceptions – the movies are made about the fighters. During a pandemic, the heroes are the caregivers (and those who allow them to do their jobs). The doctors and nurses and paramedics and administrators and medical technicians and lab technicians and janitors … the many, many people who come into direct contact with the sick are the heroes during a pandemic.

During wartime, many of us – to be honest – don’t have much of a direct role to play. Sure, for the general civilian population a wartime effort might involve supporting the troops from afar in many ways – by working for industries at home that provide direct support, buying war bonds, paying taxes, etc. But during a pandemic, every single citizen has a direct role to play – avoid getting and, especially, avoid spreading the virus. This is why social distancing is being encouraged or, in most places, mandated. This is why many of us are working remotely and spending most of our waking hours in sweatpants. Sitting in the same house or apartment, day after day, week after week – it’s not great. But keeping to yourself or your family unit is a 100% surefire way to “beat” the virus – if everyone does it. The old adage of a chain being only as strong as its weakest link applies – and that’s why we get so infuriated at Spring Break revelers and elected officials demonstrate stunning ignorance of the basics. They are weak links.

The Wartime Comparison Is Dangerous

Last Fall, my wife and I stood on the beaches of Normandy where young American men were dropped off into a Nazi shooting gallery. We stood in the very same concrete bunkers where the triggers were squeezed. During actual wartime, young Americans joined the military in service to their country, got trained up, were sent overseas, loaded on to landing boats, and led to violent deaths on a beach. During the same trip, we visited the American cemetery and its meticulous, staggering sea of white crosses marking 9,388 grave sites over 172 acres. We also visited small towns and the surrounding countryside where thousands of other young Americans jumped out of airplanes into enemy-occupied France to play their role in winning the war.

Having that experience, it seems incongruous to compare what I am doing – working from home, watching Netflix a lot, eating Klondike bars, and practicing social distancing – with what Americans have done in serving their countries and risking their lives during actual wartime.

But the real danger does not lie in diminishing what the soldiers have done or in pretending like we are doing something heroic. The danger in the wartime analogy is something I alluded to earlier. For most Americans, winning a war is largely the job of others. We are happy to go on with our lives and allow others to be heroes. We will stand and cheer them when they are saluted during sporting events, we’ll vote for politicians who promise to make it a priority to keep our military strong (spoiler alert, every politician makes this promise), and we’ll generally maintain respect for the military as an institution. That’s a small price to pay for the people and the machines that win wars.

Overcoming a pandemic – I use that word because I’m not sure a virus can even be defeated, exactly – is not the job of others. A pandemic does not end until the virus runs its course and stops infecting people. We “win” by reversing exponential growth of the number of infected. Most viruses aren’t a super big deal – they aren’t infectious enough to shut down large swaths of the economy for the sake of saving lives. But this virus is a big deal. I am impressed that most of us – at least in my circles – seem to be taking this really seriously. But I fear what happens when April turns to May, and the weather improves. The pressure to re-start the economy will ramp up steadily. Cabin fever will drive people to leave their homes, to take risks – all of us. Those who lead us – both in the public and private sector – have difficult decisions to make.

Let me wrap up with my old friend: numbers. The focus of the reporting of most models has been on the question of how many Americans will die under various scenarios? The models are all over the place. The “open up the economy” set like some; the “shut it down” folks favor others. The thing about models is that they are, well … models. Predictions based on assumptions; educated guesses, at best. One thing I know is this – our ability to make valid assumptions right now is dubious, at best. We are in uncharted waters. Thankfully, pandemics don’t happen a lot. But the one set of numbers that the federal task force referenced earlier this week in extending the stay-at-home recommendation projected deaths in the range of 100,000 to 240,000. Again, I have no idea – and they have no idea – if 100,000 Americans are going to die after contracting Covid-19. But that’s far from the ugliest estimate, and that’s still a Rose Bowl full of people. And among those who die – among those who already have died – are people who had a lot of life yet to live.

If we get through Covid-19 and only 40,000 or 50,000 or 60,000 die, should be pat ourselves on the back, collectively? Should politicians take a bow? I think not. But I know this for sure: the one and only surefire way to make sure that you don’t contribute to that number is to behave as if you have the virus – even if you don’t – and make it your mission not to infect anyone else. You don’t need to be a warrior to do that, you just need to be smart and respectful of others.

If it motivates you to be a good citizen, go ahead and consider this wartime. Wartime with Netflix and Zoom meetings, if you will. We can agree, at least, with the Talking Heads in this respect: it’s no time for fooling around.

Tag: COVID-19

Buzz. Killed.

From Serenity Now!! to The Serenity Prayer – How To Survive a Pandemic

Will COVID-19 Change Things Forever?

This Ain’t No Party, But This Ain’t No War

Fighting the “Invisible Enemy”

This Ain’t No War

The Wartime Comparison Is Dangerous

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