The Pangs of Isolation

I'm not a social butterfly, but I do like to be around people, even when I'm not interacting with them. And I like to be outside. I love to go to pretty places and explore the beauty of this earth. One can't do that when a bug that threatens to overwhelm hospitals is holding the world hostage, forcing them indoors.

My husband and I began to social distance, as its called, in early March after COVID-19 cases began to flare across the US. We hunkered down even more at the beginning of April when the governor of North Carolina signed a thirty-day Stay-at-Home order that allowed just about everyone to go out for a variety of reasons. So what have we been doing?

• My husband is a pastor, so he was able to keep up with his pastoral duties, doing visitations via calls, some services via Facebook Live, and having drive-in services on Sunday morning (governor stated that was okay, as it should be since there is zero risk to attendees.)

• I've been able to work my part-time job. At home, I keep busy with hobbies. To date, I've crocheted eighteen 20 x 20 Diamond-Motif squares for an afghan. I've also been making masks. That hasn't been going as well since I barely know how to sew, but I have made a few decent masks that I was able to hand out.

• We've tried to support stores by shopping online, but they and shipping services are overwhelmed. Orders take forever to arrive, and I've received the wrong product with no response from customer service, so we put a stop to that.

• We're doing our own hair. My husband cut his--and did a surprisingly good job for his first time--and we colored mine. It's now a darker auburn to better match my roots, thus eliminating the need to repeat that traumatic action. 

And that sums up our lives since early March. And y'all, after five or six weeks of social distancing and doing the same thing every day, I. Want. Out. We need a break. Everyone in the state needs a break. People around the world need a break. Many need to get back to work. The economy needs to open before it crashes for good (sadly, some will rejoice over that prospect.) But we all need to get back to living our lives.

And we should. The primary reason for social isolation has never been about saving lives--that's the secondary goal. I say this because tens of thousands of people die from the flu each year* and absolutely no social isolation regulations are put into place. The main goal of social distancing has been to prevent hospitals and medical personnel from being overwhelmed by COVID cases as they have in Italy and in New York.

That's not to say we can run out throwing caution to the wind. Preventative measures are still needed, but home quarantine for the vast majority of the population is not. Those who are concerned, who are elderly, and those who have underlying medical conditions should continue to quarantine themselves as best as possible, taking precautions when they do go out. Family members of those people need to take precautions as well if they plan to visit them. Otherwise, the rest of us should be able to go about our business as we did when we completely ignored the threat of deadly flu.

I'm ready. We're all ready. It's time to get out.


*CDC estimates that the burden of illness during the 2018–2019 season included an estimated 35.5 million people getting sick with influenza, 16.5 million people going to a health care provider for their illness, 490,600 hospitalizations, and 34,200 deaths from influenza (Table 1). 

I cannot find data for the 2019-2020 season, but as of Feb 2020, over 20,000 have died from the flu.

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

"It's been a tough year this week."

That was just one of several amusing memes that showed up in my Facebook feed last week. What was the funniest?

Credit Unknown.

Fear and panic over just the idea of the newest form of the coronavirus, named COVID-19, have shut down countries and sent Americans into a panic. Are you familiar with the old movie, "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World?" According to the description on IMDB, it's about, "a group of motorists (who) hear about a crook's hidden stash of loot, and race against each other across the country to get to it."

Over the past few weeks, it's been a mad, mad, mad crazy mad world, but instead of hidden loot, Americans have been racing from one store to the next to stock up on hand sanitizer and toilet paper.

Yes, that’s right. Toilet paper. For a respiratory illness.

I think the driving force behind that odd choice was the fear that we'll be told to quarantine at home as residents in Italy were forced to do, but that was never said outright. And yet, panicky people flooded stores, emptying shelves of paper products and soap (seems few were washing their hands up to this point, and everyone felt they oughtta start.) It didn't help that after the first wave of hoarders did their damage, schools closed, colleges switched to online classes, airlines were asked to curtail their flights and Americans were urged to "socially distance" ourselves from one another and to cancel all gatherings of over 100 attendees, then 50 attendees, and then 10 attendees--all within a week's time. Woo doggie, that sent everybody back to the stores. This time, they grabbed cereal, sugar, chicken, potatoes, rice--lots of rice--beans, and milk. Oddly, the coffee and canned goods sections were still full at our stores, as was the wine section. It's been a form of chaos that would even befuddle the likes of Ian Malcolm.

Seriously, we didn't see this level of fear and reaction during the Ebola crisis a few years back, and Ebola turns ones insides to liquid and makes them bleed from the eyes.

We keep hearing talk of "flattening the curve." While I can appreciate the desire to stop the further spread of this virus, I would have preferred that we take the same measures we did during the aforementioned Ebola threat and the 2009 H1N1 crisis, which I didn’t even know was a pandemic until now. Ebola was stopped in its tracks. The numbers for the flu pandemic? According to the CDC:

(The) final estimates were that from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010 approximately 60.8 million cases (range: 43.3-89.3 million), 274,304 hospitalizations (195,086-402,719), and 12,469 deaths (8868-18,306) occurred in the United States due to pH1N1.

Granted, that’s far too many, just as the 20,000 plus flu deaths so far this season are too many. What precautions were taken for both influenza events? Not many beyond being told to get a flu shot. More measures should have been taken, but society didn’t shut down. Countries and churches didn’t close. The stock market didn’t tank. People didn’t flip out and stock up on toilet paper as if it were a crook’s hidden treasure.

So why now and not then? Many of us are asking that question. We don’t understand the events that, in a short amount of time, turned this into a mad, mad, mad, mad world.

Christian, I’m not worried. You shouldn’t be either. Instead, be a light in the darkness during this time. With your faith anchored in Christ, check on the elderly, encourage others, be humorous, stay home if you’re sick or have been exposed to any illness, and show the world the salvation and peace of Christ.