Rod Dreher's Blog, page 162
March 19, 2020
Pandemic Diaries 2
From Boston:
Hello Rod. I’ve tried to write this email to you a few times and have nothing but trouble. It feels weird talking about me when the rest of the world is going to Hell, but I needed someone who might understand what I’m going through. Having read your work for almost a decade, I think you will.
I’m currently an inpatient at a prominent hospital in Boston, diagnosed with a stage 4 sarcoma. Two days ago was when the doctors decided that there was no further avenues for treatment for me, and the best thing to do would be control the pain. Usually, they said, that could happen in the hospital.
But then this freaking corona.
A new policy was coming, not sure if from the government or just from the hospital, that would significantly curtail visitors. As the nurse explained it to me, I would be allowed none, because of my “unique” status as not an inpatient or outpatient, but a little of both.
So, I would die of cancer alone, in a hospital, without my family. How the heck am I supposed to do that? What kind of choice is that?
There are some people working tirelessly for me, to get me into a hospice that might have a more lenient visitor policy, like family might be able to stop by. But what is this pandemic making us? It’s clear that society will have some hard decisions to make, but how do we recover from those decisions?
Thanks for taking the time to read my email. Please pray for me and for my family.
He wrote back to say he’s moving to a hospice tomorrow. Please pray for this dear man and his family.
From Eugene, Oregon:
I live in Eugene, Oregon. We are moving into springtime, with daffodils and crocuses in bloom everywhere, some of the trees flowering, most of them just beginning to put out buds or tiny green leaves that you can only see if you are looking closely. Lots of sunshine. It’s normally a beautiful, exuberant time, when most of us are outdoors walking, running, or cycling, but this time of coronavirus has already changed things. It’s quieter, the sidewalks and streets emptier, with a sense of calm before a storm.
My husband and I are in our 60s. After raising our children, I worked in retail for 16 years before retiring last August. My husband is a bicycle mechanic working for a company that has manufactured folding bicycles locally since 1995. He cannot work from home, obviously, and had decided to continue working as long as he had a job and no symptoms of illness. Yesterday was his last day. As far as we know, we’re not sick, but the supply side of business has been problematic for awhile since many components come from China, and now demand has dropped off to almost nothing. No one is flying or bicycle touring these days, and many people have no job and no money. The company will probably shut down next week, and hopefully will be able to get some help to re-open in the future. We had begun to make small withdrawals from our savings to supplement his income this year, and with our toilet paper apparently worth more than our 401(k) these days, we are pretty concerned about how we are going to keep paying rent and bills and buying food if this goes on for a long time.
We are set with food and medicine for now (thank you, Wyoming Doc) and have been staying home except for his work, and now we will both continue to hunker down. One of our sons is married and living in the LA area, a college chemistry prof who is figuring out how to teach online. We had planned to visit earlier this month to see them and meet our first grandchild, but cancelled our trip because we wanted to be responsible and minimize our risk of getting or transmitting the virus. The other son is in Seattle, working at a dental lab that is so far staying open, but a shelter in place order could come at any time. He is in a serious relationship with a young woman in New Orleans. At a time when they had planned visits so he could meet her family and she could meet us, they are stuck in 2 of the top 3 coronavirus hotspots on opposite sides of the country, which is a bummer. We are emailing and texting a bit, and all maintaining a sense of humor. We are so blessed to have food and shelter, a big pile of books, and most of all each other. Every day that I wake up to see the sunrise I am profoundly grateful, and filled with a quiet joy in spite of everything. Out of our limited food stores, I scatter breadcrumbs and peanuts for the squirrels and crows, and make nectar for the hummingbirds. They have given me friendship and joy and amused my cat every day for years. “Freely you have received, freely give.”
So far there are 88 confirmed cases in Oregon and 3 deaths, but I’m pretty sure this is just the tip of the iceberg since there has been very little testing. We are midway between Seattle and the Bay Area and probably not far behind them in terms of what is coming. Our governor has limited gatherings to 25 and ordered schools closed and universities and colleges to go to online courses through at least April 28. Dormitories and dining halls are permitted to stay open for college students who have no place else to go, but they are supposed to stay in rooms as much as possible and maintain social distancing elsewhere. Sack lunches are being distributed here for kids who depend on school lunches and are now home. Bars and restaurants have been closed except for take-out/delivery options.
Other non-essential businesses have been asked to consider closing, and many have done so. Groceries, pharmacies, gas stations, bike shops (for many of us, that’s our transportation and bike couriers are stepping up to help with food delivery), as well as post office, police and fire departments, and health care facilities are all considered essential. Also, because it’s Eugene, dispensaries are in that category, too. Aside from legit medical uses, some folks might riot in the street if the government took away their weed! (We don’t partake, but it’s definitely a thing here.) Starbucks is offering drive-thru only as there is apparently some debate about whether coffee is essential.
Entertainment venues are closed. Our annual Eugene Marathon in April is postponed indefinitely and may not happen this year. The library went on reduced hours last week and is now closed. Dentists are only seeing patients on an emergency basis for the next three weeks. Buses are running on a limited schedule, again requiring social distancing as much as possible. We live on a busy street, but there has been significantly less traffic over the last week. Happily, our utility company has suspended shutoffs and late fees for the time being.
On my last grocery run, some of the shelves were empty or depleted significantly, but there was still quite a bit of food available. Grocers that sell most of their food in bulk had stopped accepting personal containers but made bags available. The store clerks were good natured and helpful, and they are working insane hours and putting their lives at risk so the rest of us can get food. To me, they are unsung heroes. Local breweries are using their equipment to make hand sanitizer, which they are either donating or selling at reasonable prices, one to a customer. Churches have mostly moved their services online, I believe, and cancelled everything else. On my last grocery trip I saw one had posted on their message board:
Wash your hands and say your prayers,
Germs and Jesus are everywhere!
Health care facilities and first responders are doing their best to prepare, training people and putting up big tents to expand their space, but I expect they will be overwhelmed. We have a drive-thru testing station as of yesterday. Our governor has been in touch with VP Pence asking for more tests, PPE, and ventilators, but I’m sure her counterparts in every other state have also, and I am not sure how timely or adequate any response will be.
Compounding the seriousness of our situation is a significant homeless population. It is tough to obey the basic directives like “wash your hands” and “stay home if you are sick” when you don’t have a home to stay in and finding a bathroom to use is a logistical challenge each and every day. The city has put up 15 hand washing stations and has plans for 30 more. The mission shelter is doing their best to leave more space between beds and separate people who show signs of illness, as well as stepping up the cleaning and disinfecting. Overnight shelters are staying open 24 hours to help keep people off the street and give the sick a place to rest. The Lane County Event Center, our largest building by far, has opened its doors to the homeless and has a healthcare professional screening those who enter to separate those who are ill. Many are older people with underlying health issues compounded by years of exposure and malnutrition. Churches who provide meals are trying to find the safest ways to continue to do it. Many who volunteer with the homeless are seniors, so at this point one vulnerable population is putting themselves at risk to serve another. People in charge of these efforts are asking young people to step up.
On the upside, this is a pretty creative and resilient town. Yes, it is a hotbed of liberal politics — Bernie country for sure — and in lots of ways is insufferably “woke.” Many of the homeless are energetically mentally ill and their antics and some criminal behavior are the despair of our struggling downtown businesses, and our city council has been very ineffective in addressing the problems. I grumble that I would rather write in Donald Duck next fall than re-elect these people.
But I love my city anyway, not because it’s perfect, but because it’s mine. It’s a place of great natural beauty, and there are lots of us aging hippies who know how to grow food, raise chickens, fix things, use solar energy in practical ways, and make useful and/or beautiful things out of scrap materials that more affluent folks have thrown away. We are used to baking our own bread and making our own music. There is a serious permaculture movement with some amazing sites. All of this stuff may end up being useful if society ends up being permanently disrupted. We also have great indie bookstores and theaters, and last weekend we bought a gift certificate online from our favorite bookstore since we’re not out shopping and we really hope they can make it through this. Awesome bakeries, also, and independent grocers who stock mostly local products.
In our acquaintance we’ve got Trump enthusiasts, folks to the left of Bernie, and everything in between, but we all get along and we’ll help each other out any way we can; we know the virus doesn’t care about our politics and we’re all in this together. Our #1 DJ, Downtown Deb, is still on the radio every Saturday night bringing us music from the Grateful Dead. Her last show closed with the refrain “We will get by, we will survive.” I admit things look pretty grim, but I’m betting on us anyway. In the midst of “coronavirus winter,” I am cherishing our spring.
Thanks for all you do and I hope you and your family stay safe.
From Finland:
Here is an update from Finland, where our unique social norms may help combat the virus.
Finland has thus far been spared the brunt of the virus. There have been some 300 infections and no fatalities to date. Some Finns explain this by national character, social distancing is here the norm not something you need to adapt. Forgoing kisses, hugs or handshakes requires no effort in country where private space is widely held to be a literal arms-length. Finns have always made a point of standing as far apart from each other as possible. That was the explanation for our love of the mobile phone; it removed the need for face to face communication.
While all public events have been cancelled and bars are closed, cafes and restaurants remain open. The argument is that widely spacing tables, roughly a yard apart, is sufficient. Should things escalate, roughly half the country has an ace up their sleeve. Finland has the lowest population density in Europe and many citizens own cabins in the vast woods that cover nearly 80% of the country. These are the very woods made famous during California’s fires when Donald Trump incorrectly informed Americans that we rake our forests. Although, to be fair to Trump, a lot of woods are cleared of underbrush. In any case, here living in seclusion is not a social nightmare but quite the opposite, the Finnish dream.
Finland’s female prime minister Sanna Marin received world-wide press when she assumed office and there is no doubt that the country is being run with a feminine touch. Marin’s female majority government declared a state of emergency on Tuesday, but this has not led to ultimatums and stern warnings of dire consequences. Instead the government strongly suggests on what is desirable behavior. This softer touch has led to some uncertainty about what is and is not allowed, but it has also alleviates tension.
True to their culture many Finns have resorted to the Sauna, of which there are one for almost every two Finns. An age-old adage claims that if booze, tar and the sauna don’t help, there is no hope. Health officials have been forced to inform the public that bathing in a 200-220 Fahrenheit degree sauna is not, unfortunately, effective against the virus. It does build a mighty thirst though and beer is selling well.
Social distancing as “the Finnish dream.” Ha! They’re keeping a sense of humor in Finland, sounds like.
From Spain:
Greetings from Alicante
The lockdown started to get serious yesterday, Army (but Army lite, think National Guard with fire trucks) and police stopping people on the street asking the nature of their trip. The first few days were much more casual. Today is Fathers Day in Spain so only the pharmacies are open. Day one of the lockdown the stores were visibly low on stock. Being southern Spain pork and “good” rice were not to be found but surprisingly unlike the US pre snow storm/hurricane, cigarettes and booze were and remain plentiful. Yesterday the grocery stores were only short of “good” local rice.
Spain was JUST starting to get back to pre financial crisis levels, this is devastating. I honestly have no idea how Spain will bounce back from this. There was less than no slack in the system and now….who knows.
People seem as cheerful as is possible under the circumstances but there is an underlying sense of serious unease, not so much from the virus but from what comes next. One very sane, very Catholic, friend openly wondered why were were having to choose between our grandparents and our children’s future. Dang good question and not easily answered.
Cheers and hope y’all stay safe.
This one from Connecticut is more of a Pandemic Diary than a VFYT:
You had previously mentioned wanting to support your local book sellers, can we give a shout out to the local restaurants who are trying to stay afloat through this time? Attached is an image of our to-go dinner from Ariana’s Restaurant in Lyme, NH. My dinner (Sauté of Shrimp, broccolini, baby spinach, tomatoes in a garlic, wine butter sauce, orecchiette) is on the left, my wife’s (Penne Bolognese, beef, veal and pork, house marinara, cream, penne) on the right.
Please send more diaries, readers. Let us all know how you’re doing, what you’re seeing, what we can pray for, and the rest. And please don’t forget to pray for our Boston reader who is moving to hospice care, and his family.
The post Pandemic Diaries 2 appeared first on The American Conservative.
Trump Is Right: It’s China’s Fault
I get why people are bothered by the president calling it the “Chinese virus.” It is impossible in our language to discern between Chinese ethnicity and Chinese nationality. A Chinese-American reader e-mailed me last week:
The issue in the Asian American community with the term Wuhan virus or Chinese virus is that this term is a linguistic set up for blaming the virus on China which will inevitably spread in the US to blaming “Chinese people” (aka people who look Chinese in the US). Once Trump realizes he can’t spin his way out of this disaster, he will pivot to blaming others — immigrants, Chinese Americans, etc. everyone recognizes the power or mental framing and labels.
As a Chinese American (moved here when I was 5, lived here for 25 years, US citizen), I am worried the combination of geopolitical confrontation with China will easily combine with fear against coronavirus and then lead to racism and discrimination against the millions of Chinese Americans.
There is already schoolyard bullying against East Asian kids because of the virus and the attempt by politicians to label this the China Coronavirus will further entrench this racism in the public. I’ve already had numerous Uber drivers cancel when they see me as they drive by to pick me up. Deliberate labels by politicians are a set up to start blaming China if/when things get worse in the country. Yes there are theories about the virus origins (eg it wasn’t a seafood market, etc) but until those theories have evidence they remain in backed theories.
So yes wokeness can be too extreme but there’s a real racial tension that these labels exploit and exacerbate.
This is a real thing, and because of it, I don’t think the president should use the term “Chinese virus,” but honestly, I think there are about ten thousand things more important to worry about. Maybe I would feel differently if I were Chinese-American.
However, what many Americans don’t understand is that the People’s Republic of China has been running a coordinated propaganda campaign, through its ministers and its ambassadors, to blame the United States for the virus. The New York Times has a great short documentary detailing how they’ve done it. Whatever you think about Trump, I strongly encourage you to take three minutes and watch this excellent work:
This out today:
Chinese propaganda in full blast seeking to blame the virus on US: https://t.co/5T017zqmy0
— Ben Judah (@b_judah) March 19, 2020
Think of that timeline in this context: A study by the University of Southampton reckoned that if China had intervened to fight the virus three weeks earlier than it did, 95 percent of its spread would have been arrested. In other words, had Beijing taken the first warnings out of Wuhan seriously, and not tried to suppress that information, the world would almost certainly be fine right now. All the death, all the sickness, all the economic destruction that we’re enduring would not have existed — if not for Beijing’s actions.
This is why Beijing is going all-out to deflect blame from itself, and put it onto the US. The Chinese Communist Party first victimized the people of China, and now it has victimized the world. Are there better ways to fight this propaganda war than Trump crudely saying “Chinese virus”? Yes, of course. But it must be fought. The Chinese people didn’t do this to us; the Chinese Communist Party did. The Chinese people were their first victims. Now the world is suffering from the CCP’s incompetence and malice.
That does not excuse the failures of President Trump, or any other Western leader. But let us never, ever forget who brought this curse upon the world: the Chinese Communist Party.
When this is over, and we all devote ourselves to rebuilding out of the economic rubble, the new world order must exclude a China run by the Communist Party. Andrew Michta tells is like it is:
The idea that the People’s Republic of China can become a responsible stakeholder in the international community—that it can “be like us”—is being laid to rest behind the masked faces of petrified Westerners scurrying through airports to get home.
Amidst the 24/7 breathless media coverage and calls for politicians to “do something,” one fundamental question still needs to be addressed forthrightly and in the open: Who did this to us and what to do to prevent it from happening again?
The question about assigning agency and blame is pretty straightforward to answer: The communist Chinese state, which for more than three decades has been draining capital and knowledge from the West, benefiting from our greed and myopia, has just let loose a virus that in the coming months is about to effectively paralyze Europe and the United States and bring severe pain, both human and economic on the world. The “eruption at a wet market” explanation for the virus has to be questioned until we know the full story, if for no other reason than the fact that Beijing suppressed data for two months when the coronavirus first appeared, and even to this day refuses to come clean as to exactly what happened. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is now spinning propaganda stories that both seek to somehow pin the blame on the United States, and that try to frame their bungling, denial-ridden, heavy-handed reaction as some kind of model for the world.
As a result of all this, the West is now shutting down, at least for a while. The ultimate cost to the world, in terms of new government debt, failed businesses, and human lives and suffering, is difficult to quantify at this point. But there are indications that the fallout from the Wuhan Virus could be transformative.
More:
Should the fallout from the Wuhan Virus prove to be as damaging as it looks like it might be, the first casualty should be China’s quest to become the premier manufacturing center for the world. Few corporations will want to again risk being caught in a situation where their entire supply chain has been locked into one country—much less a palpably hostile dictatorship. The subsequent era will, I hope, be one of strategic reconsolidation, with a special focus on onshoring critical supply chains that have been moved to China. Even the siren song of potentially-vast consumer markets in China may end up being more than offset by the trauma we are about to face.
Read it all. This is not “scapegoating.” To scapegoat is to blame an innocent party. There is nothing innocent about the Chinese government, and what it has done. The catastrophe now befalling our economy will at least make the hard decoupling easier. Never again should we be at the mercy of these villains.
Here’s Shadi Hamid, a liberal scholar who has no sympathy for Beijing. He recounts the ways the Chinese government downplayed the crisis at first, suppressed reporting on it, and thereby allowed it to escape Wuhan. Xi Jinping’s regime did this, and the world should keep this front to mind. Excerpt:
[I]s this a time for blame? Yes, it is. Accounting for responsibility when a disaster happens—particularly one likely to devastate entire countries, leaving thousands dead—is not beside the point, particularly as Chinese officials move to take advantage of the crisis and launch a disinformation campaign claiming that the U.S. Army introduced the virus.
Well before the new coronavirus spread across American cities, the Chinese regime was already rather creatively trolling U.S. publications, expelling American journalists, and “weaponizing wokeness” over anything it perceived as critical of China’s role in mishandling the epidemic. To hear Chinese spokespeople use the language of racism and prejudice is somewhat surreal, considering this is a regime that has put more than 1 million Muslims and ethnic minorities in “reeducation” camps.
Of course, Americans will have to be vigilant against scapegoating Asians in general or the Chinese people in particular. With one of the highest infection rates and death tolls, Chinese citizens have suffered enough. The Chinese leadership, however, is another matter. A government is not a race. It’s a regime—and easily one of the worst and most brutal in our lifetime. Criticizing authoritarian regimes for what they do outside their own borders and to their own people is simply calling things as they are. To do otherwise is to forgo analysis and accuracy in the name of assuaging a regime that deserves no such consideration.
Read it all. Once again, Shadi Hamid is a liberal, and no fan of Donald Trump. But he’s keeping his eye on the true villain in this civilization-shaking crisis. So should we all. All around me, in my city, friends are losing their jobs, and seeing their businesses destroyed. None of this had to happen, if the Chinese Communist Party had acted responsibly.
The post Trump Is Right: It’s China’s Fault appeared first on The American Conservative.
They Knew, And Didn’t Tell Us
NPR has a scoop about how the Republican head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, warned a private group of wealthy constituents about what was coming from coronavirus, at the same time the government was withholding that information from the public — and President Trump was downplaying it. Excerpts:
The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee warned a small group of well-connected constituents three weeks ago to prepare for dire economic and societal effects of the coronavirus, according to a secret recording obtained by NPR.
The remarks from U.S. Sen. Richard Burr were more stark than any he had delivered in more public forums.
On Feb. 27, when the United States had 15 confirmed cases of COVID-19, President Trump was tamping down fears and suggesting the virus could be seasonal.
“It’s going to disappear. One day, It’s like a miracle. It will disappear,” the president said then, before adding, “it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens.”
On that same day, Burr attended a luncheon held at a social club called the Capitol Hill Club. And he delivered a much more alarming message.
“There’s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,” he said, according to a secret recording of the remarks obtained by NPR. “It is probably more akin to the 1918 pandemic.”
He went on to say we could see the military deployed to assist in the response. Read it all. The story has the audio of the speech.
Look what Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal tweeted on February 25. Keep in mind that legally and ethically, he couldn’t reveal what he heard in a classified briefing, so don’t blame him for not spilling the beans:
This morning’s classified coronavirus briefing should have been made fully open to the American people—they would be as appalled & astonished as I am by the inadequacy of preparedness & prevention.
— Richard Blumenthal (@SenBlumenthal) February 25, 2020
Think about it: Trump certainly knew how bad it was going to get, but kept on downplaying it, at a time when being straightforward would have given people time and impetus to prepare. Trump’s most loyal backers then were calling it a hoax, and dunking on people like me for hyping panic, and so forth. This top Senate Republican (and no doubt other Senate Republicans) knew that the president was misleading the public, and said nothing. If he felt comfortable telling wealthy donors about this, why didn’t he tell the general public? Because it would contradict the president’s messaging? Why?
Having senior Republican lawmakers contradicting the president at that relatively early stage, based on information they knew, would have been in the country’s best interest. Sen. Burr told rich, well-connected supporters what was coming, but not the people who elected him. He owes them an explanation. And I would like to know why the Senate Republicans, all of whom surely had the same information, did not challenge the president, and warn the public while we still had time.
Covid-19 obsessives like me saw it coming, but the US then was full of deniers, especially among conservatives. On February 25, US senators were told what was coming. What a difference it would have made if Republicans had come out and told the American people the truth, instead of sticking to the White House line.
UPDATE: Well, well, well. From ProPublica:
Soon after he offered public assurances that the government was ready to battle the coronavirus, the powerful chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Richard Burr, sold off a significant percentage of his stocks, unloading between $628,000 and $1.72 million of his holdings on Feb. 13 in 33 separate transactions.
As the head of the intelligence committee, Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has access to the government’s most highly classified information about threats to America’s security. His committee was receiving daily coronavirus briefings around this time, according to a Reuters story.
A week after Burr’s sales, the stock market began a sharp decline and has lost about 30% since.
To be honest, it’s not his stock-selling that bothers me — it’s that he had reason to believe the coronavirus crisis was going to be a lot worse than he was letting on in public. He ought to have been warning us all. I knew what was coming, and was writing about it here at the time. But I was getting slammed by some conservative readers, who were still buying Trump’s line that it was all hype and hoax. Had a prominent Republican who knew what the true story was come out and told the truth, how much better prepared might more Americans have been?
UPDATE.2: Endorse:
Tucker Carlson calls for Senator Burr to resign and await prosecution for insider trading if he cannot provide a reasonable explanation for his actions. He goes on to say it appears that Senator Burr betrayed his country in a time of crisis pic.twitter.com/q7yJa5wjuA
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) March 20, 2020
The post They Knew, And Didn’t Tell Us appeared first on The American Conservative.
March 18, 2020
Pandemic Diaries
With this post I want to start a new series: Pandemic Diaries, descriptions from readers of what life is like in your town, city, country. Send them in — I will keep your identities confidential, unless for some reason you want me to tell people who you are. I will move all testimonies and field reports to this Pandemic Diaries subject heading, including those from medical professionals. Today, I have two reports to lead with.
The first came in from an American reader living in Spain:
In Spain, we watched as China and the rest of Asia suffered. We said another flu from Asia and went on our way. Then it reached Europe, in particular, Italy. As the number of cases in the northern part of Italy skyrocketed, we sat on our hands and did nothing. Then cases started trickling in one by one.
I was in Madrid the last week of February. I believe four cases were recorded officially during that time. Today there are roughly 6,000 cases in Madrid and nearly 400 deaths. In total, there are 14,000 cases in Spain and the uptick this week seems to be around 2,000-3000 new cases per day. This number should eventually lower given we are four days into home confinement. What does that mean? Everything is shut down from public beaches or parks in the city to schools, offices, bars, restaurants, etc. Everything. We may leave the house to do the following: (i) go to the hospital or doctor’s office, (ii) buy food from grocery store, (iii) buy medicine from pharmacy, (iv) assist the elderly, or (v) to work. That last one really refers to those working at said pharmacies, grocery stores etc. Majority of folks are working from home. While out, we must remain one meter minimum distance. Military and national guard are roaming the streets and setting up controls to enforce these measures which can result in fines and/or jail time depending on the gravity of the offense. It remains to be seen if this will work but we’ll likely be in this state of alert until after Holy Week. Initial period is for 15 days but we are told this will not be enough time. The next few weeks will be long ones.
I’ve watched the US gov react quicker than European counterparts, but in talking to friends and family back home, it appears US citizens aren’t taking the measures or the virus itself very seriously. Many of us made the same mistake. It will be interesting to see how this transpires. The USA is far more individualistic than Spain but in crisis (like 9/11), the country unites. I’ve been inspired by the unity and solidarity among the Spanish people (the politicians are another story, for another post). Spaniards are reporting those few who do not follow the measures. Every night at 10pm, folks from their windows and terraces applaud the health workers across the country who are exhausted, overworked and scared but continue saving lives despite lack of resources. It’s quite moving. I hope the same type of solidarity for over there. I’ve prepared my family back home but it will take everyone chipping in. My guess is, if these patterns continue, [my home state] will be under lockdown as well. Streets will be sprayed daily. Life will temporarily change.
This is Calle Larios in downtown Málaga. major shopping/bar/restaurant hub which at any time of year will is full of locals/tourists.
The second is from a reader in Paris:
Just to relay some info from someone now in lockdown in France. My wife, kids and I are well – we live in the outer suburbs of Paris and so have some space to breath as opposed to people cooped up in apartments in Paris and its banlieues. There is always the concern that maybe we have the virus, that it’s incubating in us, because we’ve all been out and about these past few weeks…We’re probably not alone in thinking this right now. The authorities expect a sharp increase in cases this weekend, five days after the lockdown went in to place this past Tuesday at noon.
The government has been announcing measures piecemeal: last Thursday came the announcement that all schools, from nursery school to university were to close starting this past Monday. Saturday evening, the prime minister says bars/restaurants/public gatherings were to close. Monday the President announces a stay-at-home policy avoiding the word “confinement” despite declaring we’re at war. We’re in lockdown, no going outside without a self-proscribed attestation slip (seriously) for the next 15 days. This will not be over within 15 days, of course.
The schools are indeed closed but elementary school teachers are requisitioned to receive the children of health care workers (doctors, nurses, etc.) who are being – what’s the term? mobilized? From what I understand it’s all hands on deck – doctors, nurses, med school interns to the hospitals; med school students and nursing students are brought in to handle the emergency phone lines. One of the main public (very big) hospitals in my part of the banlieues has set up tents, lots of tents, outside the main building in the parking lots. To receive the patients they’re expecting…
The government hasn’t been strict enough and hasn’t been serious enough from the get-go. They allowed the municipal elections to be held this past Saturday. That was a big mistake. The government knew how grave the situation is and went forward with this anyway. Moreover, due to lax enforcement, even the lockdown, ends up as a half-measure. The Italian scenario is playing out in the east of France, in Alsace-Lorraine and Franche-Comté, and has been for the past week or so. I have on good source (my wife’s cousin is a police officer in Strasbourg), that the hospitals in Strasbourg are so saturated with virus victims right now that they stopped treating virus victims over 70 years old. This is the triage done in Italian hospitals: they only focus on those who have a chance of survival. This will happen here in Paris, maybe it already is.
I, myself, am only focused on what are the essentials for me: my wife and children are safe and provided for so far, my wife & I will be doing the grocery shopping for my in-laws who are too old to leave their home, I now have been telling family members in the US what’s happening here, and I’ve been absorbed helping my company as we all switch to working from home. Family and work obligations are enough for me. The church bells ring everyday but there is no mass to go to. Debates and issues of importance of a mere two weeks ago seem like from a bygone era. I can hardly even process them, they seem so incongruous in light of today’s concerns.
Hope all is well for you and your family. Be safe and be sure to wash your hands!
Please, readers, share what it looks like where you are. What it looks like, and what it feels like. I’m at rod — at — amconmag — dot — com. Put PANDEMIC DIARIES in your subject line.
UPDATE: This from a Catholic priest in Ireland:
The government has been taking this crisis more seriously than the U.S., but the virus is already well established here . In the Republic we have 366 cases and 2 death so far, with 74 of those being newly diagnosed today. We also face the additional problem that the North of Ireland is governed by the UK, and basically there has been no response to the epidemic yet in the Northern part of the island, where everything is still open.
As of last Thursday all schools are closed. Pubs have also been closed. Meetings of more than 100 people have been banned. As of last Friday the Catholic Church has cancelled all Masses except for funerals (which must be small). So now we have had a Sunday and our national patron’s feast day without any public Mass.
Yesterday was St Patrick’s Day and the Prime Minister and the President addressed the nation in sort of State of the Union addresses.
Neither of them mentioned anything religious or spiritual. The President (who is a cuddly Communist) did mention the man Patrick and his “transformative spirit” and that he was an “apostle,” but didn’t speak of his primary role as a Christian missionary and bishop. The Prime Minister (our first openly gay leader) didn’t mention anything religious.
Obviously the government must give priority to the healthcare workers, keeping the supply chains open is important for us as an island nation. Once cannot but agree with them that our healthcare workers deserve support and that we need a community spirit. However Christianity and religion in general has been completely written out of the narrative. When the government reduces all services to the minimum necessary, religion is simply not necessary. As was seen in the two major referenda over the last few years that legalized gay “marriage” and abortion, most people, and even many thousands of Sunday Mass-goers, no longer accept the most basic of Christian beliefs. As a Church we have strayed from our belief in martyrdom. The applause that Scorsese’s recent movie Silence received in Catholic circles, despite the fact that it denies the value of martyrdom, is a symptom that shows the difficulty that even the leaders of the Catholic Church have in accepting the reality of the Last Things.
In Ireland the Church was uncritically accepting her gradual descent into absolute irrelevance. Few teach the Faith or say anything that could offend anyone. Church teachings are at best ignored, if not ridiculed. Now that a serious challenge is facing us, it is becoming obvious just how irrelevant we have allowed ourselves to become.
I don’t pretend to have the answers. I can see the argument for canceling public Masses, I see the value in priests celebrating behind closed doors, I appreciate that many will benefit from liturgies that are live-streamed. However I feel that we have rolled over too easily. A parish needs to do more than 30 minutes work a day in this time. Scripture tells us that “man does not live on bread alone,” yet the Sacraments are being denied to people.
Surely it would be possible to celebrate Mass in the church parking area where people need not even get out of their cars, even if Communion wasn’t distributed, it would be something. Surely it would be possible to visit people in their homes and bring Communion, even if it did mean a certain risk of life. Surely, if it is not possible to keep some of the church building open, we have many huge churches, it would be possible to set up a temporary altar on a trailer in a public place and allow people to participate in Eucharistic Adoration. Some sort of General Absolution or drive through Confession, should be possible. Other creative options should be tested. In Italy some hospitals have distributed iPads to patients so that they can talk to their families as they are sick and dying. I know that Sacramental Churches cannot administer Confession or the Sacrament of the Sick virtually. However nothing stops a priest (or indeed any other Christian) being available to talk to and listen to someone who is gravely sick in hospital over FaceTime or Skype.
Even if we simply base our reasoning on “unrighteous Mammon” we must face the financial reality that most parishes in Ireland have little by the way of endowments or savings and simply cannot survive financially if there is no Sunday collection for more than a month (I heard that 3 weeks without a collection would wipe out 60% of the parishes in Dublin). But even if the parishes go bankrupt, I think that reopening the locked doors sometime in the summer and ring the bells to summon the people, who will come?
I think that all of us need to pray that the Churches can face this epidemic with courage. Not everyone is called to martyrdom, and people need to use their intelligence, ministers need to be careful not to spread the virus, we also know a lot more about contagion than was the case in the Black Death or the Spanish Flu, however we do also need to have Christians who risk their lives, like St. Damien of Molokai, and find creative ways to minister in this time, The hour of our death witness an extremely serious battle between Christ and Satan, anybody can go either to heaven or hell, and people need to be helped in this hour. Not to mention all those who are frightened or feel abandoned. I know that nobody wants to die, but none of us is immortal. If this virus primarily kills old men, that means that many Irish priests will die anyway. Surely it is better to spend our last weeks tending to the flock of Christ than catching up on boxed sets on Netflix!
Rodney Stark, the famous sociologist of religion, points to the Christians bravery when facing the plague as being one of the factors that conquered Pagan Rome. However today we have a crisis of authenticity and suffer from what seems to be a willful blindness of the eschatological realm. We run a real risk of being “weighed in the balances and found wanting” (Dan 5:27).
My God, he’s right. There has to be something for the people. Maybe not masses crowded into churches, but something, anything.
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Stay Home, Boomer
As I spoke to my peers, I realized that I wasn’t alone. A lot of us have spent the past week pleading with our baby-boomer parents to cook at home, rip up the cruise tickets, and step away from the grandchildren. My in-laws, who live in Puerto Rico, needed all three of their adult children to persuade them over a group text not to go to Macy’s (or at least to skip communion at church). One friend writes, “My dad is a retired doctor. My mom is a retired nurse. They are both in their early seventies. When I called home to check in on them, no answer. Turns out my mom was ‘at the mall having coffee’ (?!) and my dad was golfing. I yelled at them to stop being rebellious children of the 1960s and to please grow up.” Another says, of his parents, “They just won’t f*cking listen to me. I’m going to kill them before covid does. I’m really upset. They are telling me I’m overreacting by telling them to stop eating out, and my mom keeps going to the office. I won’t let them come here to see the boys (who both have mild fevers and coughs right now, which could be nothing, but obviously a bad idea). They get mad at me when I call them to tell them to just stay the fuck home. My dad is a seventy-one-year-old diabetic.”
I told my mom about what seemed like a trend. “All my friends are saying the same thing,” she texted back, no doubt on her way to a farmers’ market, “that their kids are crazy and treating us like elderly people.”
More:
There have been plenty of reports of thirtysomethings going out to brunch or twentysomethings crowding in bars on their now indefinite spring breaks. But twentysomethings—who, let’s be clear, should also take this extremely seriously and stay home—are supposed to feel immortal. Seventysomethings, less so. It’s a normal part of the life cycle for adult children to start parenting their parents. This generational role reversal may be a prelude to the demographic shift to come, as baby boomers age out of late-late “middle age” and are forced to relinquish their invincibility, while their children take on the burdens of caring for elderly—yes, elderly—parents.
Schulman quotes a writer whose theory is that Boomers were raised to think that the Big Bad Thing was going to happen, but it never did. The Bomb didn’t fall, did it?
I think that might be part of it, but it is also the case that that generation believed that it should be able to do what it damn well pleases, consequences shmonsequences. Yes, I’m painting with a broad brush. But look, is it only that generation? Doesn’t this seem like it’s how Americans of all generations live now?
Maybe. As Schulman says, though, it’s just weird that we younger people ought to be in a position of having to convince our parents to quit being so reckless with their health. It’s not just Fox News geezers either (though as the son of a hardcore Fox watcher in her seventies, I want to thank the Murdochs for telling the network’s hosts to quit being virus denialists). I had to be a pest to a dear Boomer friend, aged 70, an old hippie who thinks Trump is the source of evil in the modern world, but who did not want to be told what she could do. She is now, much to my relief, cocooning at home.
How about you? Have you had trouble getting the beloved Boomers in your life to grow the hell up about coronavirus? Talk to me.
UPDATE: Zoomers, man:
“If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying”: Spring breakers are still flocking to Miami, despite coronavirus warnings. https://t.co/KoYKI8zNDH pic.twitter.com/rfPfea1LrC
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 18, 2020
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Coronavirus Confidential
I want to thank you readers who are doctors and medical personnel. I appreciate the e-mails you’re sending, and I also appreciate you trusting me not to reveal your identities. Some of you have asked for Wyoming Doc to give an update. I passed that request on to him. He said he would try to get to it, but that he’s so busy now he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to. What readers should understand is that many doctors, nurses, and others working in hospitals often cannot speak on the record, without risking their jobs. I only publish things from medical personnel whose identities I can verify, and whose testimonies I trust.
This e-mail just came in. I changed it slightly at the doctor’s request, to protect his identity:
I did not sleep a wink last night. I arrived in my office today at about 4:45AM .I had to check on some patients in the hospital this AM, and make sure all is well. I am so tired now it is hard to sleep.
I saw 39 patients yesterday, seven of them in the office, the rest on the computer. (That is a new thing — I think this crisis is going to be the birth of telemedicine.) Pre-crisis, I usually would see about fifteen or so people in a day; now it’s up to almost 40. Most of these are basically well, but who have sniffles, and are worried. I had to test ten of them for COVID yesterday, so that means another ten families are now in quarantine. We won’t have results for another five to seven days. All the pie-in-the-sky promises last week about testing are out the door. I simply no longer have any concept of the problem here. This is going to make a career-defining book for some enterprising journalist.
I have third-year medical students with me all the time doing their clinical work. As if I did not need something else to trouble my soul, I was reminded yesterday that my profession has now been completely taken over by the managerial class. The leadership of these students had a teleconference yesterday with all the remote instructors. This person in charge was clearly a member of the “woke” contingent. We instructors were informed that the medical students were being triggered by what they’re seeing unfold, and and are now scared to death. Therefore, they are pulling all the students off clinical rotations for the time being. They are very concerned about the students’ mental health, and processing the events that are going down.
Just, wow! My experience with AIDS when I was 25 was largely responsible for the doctor I am today. I just cannot believe these morons. These kids are ready, able and want this challenge. I find it insulting that their elders do not believe in them.
Of course, the real reason may be much more problematic. I learned that other universities are pulling their medical students because they simply do not have the PPE [personal protective equipment] for them. That is another concerning problem, but that is far more understandable and appropriate. PPE was never mentioned in our tele-meeting yesterday — not once! It was all about triggered medical students. I have personally spoken to several of these students over the past weeks. They are most definitely not triggered, and are tired of being treated like babies.
I am now learning a very important lesson in life. I am now the old guy. I am the one who has to marshal the troops. I am the one who has to put on a good face for the young peoplem and show resolve and strength. I never realized how hard this was, until now. To be totally terrified in your soul, but to have everyone looking up to you for leadership and strength. I saw my mentors doing this all those years ago during AIDS. I have now a completely newfound respect for them.
An even more drastic issue is a drug that we have been having increasing issues securing for patients: albuterol. This is a very common drug used for emphysema and asthma, but is also used to maintain ventilated patients in the hospital. It would be really problematic not to be able to use it in a crisis situation with multiple vented patients, and we certainly do not need a bunch of undertreated emphysema patients crowding the ER right now.
In the past week we have been having very troubling problems getting this filled here in our city. I called all the pharmacies in town. One pharmacy is reporting that they have a few inhalers left and a few bottles of the nebulizer solution left, but both are becoming very difficult to obtain from their wholesaler. Another pharmacist told me that patients have been especially demanding multiple inhalers at a time just since Saturday, and they are running very very low because of that. They are also being forced to wait for days for supplies to be replenished. One told me that he had very limited supplies and was already rationing, and making sure that his known emphysema and severe asthma patients were taken care of. Another pharmacist actually had me look at the computer while he tried to order both the solution and the inhalers. All five of his suppliers had either none or just one left — and usually, he says, this number is more like 50. I have spoken to the hospital pharmacist, who said they are fine for now, but don’t have a lot of cushion, and that it’s very difficult to resupply at this time.
I have no problem what the backorder problem is. I was told by two of these pharmacists that this is likely related to the China supply issue, but the true answer will lay with the pharmaceutical companies. They are run by the managerial class too, so good luck getting any information about this problem until it is way too late.
The snowflake med student story is appalling, but I appreciate that the doctor here does not blame the students, but the program administrator. The albuterol shortage is terrifying, though.
Again, I invite e-mails from people on the front lines of this crisis: rod — at — amconmag — dot — com. Let me know who you are and where you work. I will keep all of it confidential. The important thing is to let people know what’s going on. Remember, readers: these men and women are and will be what stands between life and death for tens of thousands of us in this crisis. Pray for them.
UPDATE: A reader who is a physician (I know his name) who teaches at a medical school writes:
Yesterday the AAMC, the major accrediting body of US medical schools, asked all students nationwide to be removed immediately from clinical rotations. This is primarily for patient and student safety: to plan better training for them, and to reduce demand for PPE (masks gowns etc). You can see the full release here, with the rationale:
Nowhere was it said that this done “for their mental health”. I have since sat in on two large faculty conference calls about our Michigan medical students, and not one person implied “they’re snowflakes, they can’t handle it mentally.” Keep in mind that we have a lot of liberal faculty. None of my student groups mentioned that as a rationale either. All are concerned about the safety of our patients and community, as are you.
If there was a reference to the “snowflakes” made (excerpt from your post), it was likely in isolation. Posts such as this, I fear, bring disrepute to the hard work of our students and faculty at this time. I think you owe your readers a clarification, or at least a statement of the other side of the story.
UPDATE: Doctor in Nashville:
First, I want to thank you for your outstanding and accurate reporting on this crisis. You are about 3-4 days ahead of the national news media on this story, and everything you’ve written about has turned out to be correct. I actually read your column first before turning to the national news.
I’ve been an ER doctor at my hospital for 25 years. I’ve been through the anthrax scare, the SARS and MERS crisis, and more recently the ebola outbreak, and I knew I would never see cases of those illnesses at my hospital (and I didn’t). But when you started reporting on the coronavirus I knew it would be coming my way, and now it has arrived.
My ER is unnaturally quiet right now. You know how the tide goes out before the tsunami strikes? That’s where we are this week. This is especially unusual for the week of Spring Break, when we typically get pummeled. Despite the fact we have very few patients in the ER, the hospital is already running low on the N-95 face masks. My facility has always shown a lack of imagination in dealing with high volume situations, and I fear we are going to be crushed by an influx of patients in the next two weeks.
Morale is high among the physicians and nurses right now. We are a close knit, dedicated group, but I feel like there’s a sword dangling over our heads. We are bracing for impact.
Thank you again for the excellent reporting you are doing, and for helping to keep me prepared.
UPDATE.2: From a doc in Pennsylvania:
I can confirm what the other ER doc reader said: volume in the ER has been very low for the last week. Partly this is due to the fact that we set up a COVID-19 testing tent in the ambulance bay, and this is diverting some traffic. But mostly I think it’s that people are now afraid of coming to the hospital and contracting novel coronavirus. This past Monday — typically the busiest day of the week in any ER — was the slowest Monday I’ve ever worked in any hospital in the past 8 years of doing this. I spoke with some ER doc friends in Philly and they said it was similar there.
I’m curious to see how this plays out. My main concern, along with everyone else, is that hospitals will get overwhelmed if cases spike all at once. Folks here have been pretty good about social distancing though, and life is quiet, so we’ll see if it flattens the curve.
I’ve read that the way to think about this virus and its spread is that it will explode in particular places, according to a particular timeline. So you’ll have some places that are quiet now, while others are taking off.
UPDATE.3: You people who are defending the “right” of the elderly and anybody else to choose whether or not they will risk getting the virus need to understand that if you or they get sick enough to go to the hospital, this is the burden you are putting on health care workers, and others who are sick. Forget about your rights; think of your duties!
Just received word from an ICU doctor at a small NY hospital: They are officially out of ventilators and are now double venting patients with COVID (using the same ventilator for 2 infected patients). Do everything possible to avoid infection. PLEASE ISOLATE as best you can.
— Peter Attia (@PeterAttiaMD) March 18, 2020
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Rev. Spell Asserts Rights, Shirks Duties
The pastor of a Louisiana church who says he believes the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is “politically motivated” defied government orders and welcomed hundreds of people into his church service Tuesday evening (March 17).
The gathering directly defied an order by Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards that bans groups larger than 50 from gathering at any one time, including in churches. President Donald Trump has recommended no groups larger than 10.
The pastor, Rev. Tony Spell, says police showed up at the church after the service telling him the National Guard would break up any future services with more than 50 people gathered. Spell says 305 people attended the service in the sanctuary Tuesday night.
More:
Tuesday’s service was held at Life Tabernacle Church in the City of Central, located in East Baton Rouge Parish. Rev. Spell says he does not believe his congregation is at risk of getting COVID-19.
“It’s not a concern,” Spell said of the virus. “The virus, we believe, is politically motivated. We hold our religious rights dear and we are going to assemble no matter what someone says.”
East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore says those violating the governor’s proclamation could face prosecution as a last resort. Reverend Spell is not concerned with that and boasted he had an even larger crowd this past weekend, days after the governor’s proclamation was issued.
“I had 1,170 in attendance Sunday,” Spell said. “We have 27 buses on Sundays picking up people in a five parish area,” he said.
The governor said at a press conference:
“I’m a person of faith,” the governor said. “I happen to believe very much in the awesome power of prayer. I also believe in science, and the scientists at the CDC say that the measures we are taking will minimize the spread.”
In the news story, the church hands out some kind of magical prayer handkerchief, which the pastor says will give congregants special spiritual protection against the virus.
It’s all so shameful and infuriating. I hope it doesn’t come to this, but if the police have to arrest this pastor, I’ll applaud it. This is not a matter of religious liberty, but of public safety in a true emergency. In Louisiana, we are a poor state to begin with. The price of oil, upon which our state economy largely depends, is collapsing. Tourism, also a main generator of revenue, is in freefall (talked to a friend this morning in the tourism biz; he’s shutting down his company, because there is no chance of it doing any business for the foreseeable future). We are not going to have the money to take care of all the people who get sick from this thing. But this pastor, who is convinced that the virus is a political hoax, and is determined to make himself out to be a religious liberty hero, is working to increase suffering and immensely burden the common good.
These Christians at that church aren’t putting themselves on the line to serve the sick in this crisis. They are behaving selfishly. God help us Christians if this kind of behavior becomes the public face of the faith amid crisis.
To be fair, churches all over the region — Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox — are doing the right thing for the sake of the common good. We are all still praying, but making this sacrifice so that the disease will not be as bad as it otherwise would. I wish those people in that congregation, jumping around with their holy cloths, would think for half a second about the price that everybody else in this impoverished state will pay so they can indulge their political and religious fantasies.
It is hard for me to write this, given that I feel strongly about religious liberty. But like any right, it cannot be open-ended. The pastor could host smaller services and still be within the law. Nobody is telling him that people cannot come to church; they’re just saying that the gatherings have to be smaller. It is a reasonable request in this unprecedented emergency. But the Rev. Spell cares more about his rights than his duties of charity to the community. For shame.
The day will come when Christians who meet for worship in defiance of the law will truly be saints. This is not that day. This is not heroic sanctity; this is just stupidity and arrogance. COVID19 is not Antichrist; it’s a deadly virus. When this thing passes, and the secular left resumes its attack on religious liberty, this is exactly the kind of thing it’s going to hold up as an example of what religious liberty means to conservatives. The damage Rev. Spell’s arrogance will do will go beyond questions of public health.
UPDATE: This is not just an Evangelical/charismatic thing. There are some of my fellow Orthodox who are angrily petitioning our bishops to re-open the churches. The thing is, if they get coronavirus at church, they are going to take up badly needed beds. If they bring coronavirus to church, they are going to spread it among others, who will take up badly needed beds. It’s one thing if you decide that it’s worth risking your own life to plague, for the sake of going to church. I would still ask where is your charity, given that the hospital system is going to be overwhelmed, but at least I would recognize that you are choosing to risk your own life. But that’s not how the virus works. You are not just taking a chance with your own life by gathering in a group (at church, at a bar, or anywhere). If you’re a carrier, you are risking the lives of everyone you come in contact with; if you’re not a carrier, but become one because you stood next to a carrier at church, then everybody you come in contact with after that is exposed.
How is this Christian charity? How? Seriously, I want to hear the argument.
UPDATE.2: A doctor friend has just told me that we are now facing a national shortage of albuterol, the drug that makes it possible for people with breathing problems to breathe. There is no substitute for it. People on ventilators use this drug. It’s a matter of life and death for a lot of people. We all need to be social-distancing ourselves, and doing everything possible to stay out of the hospital!
UPDATE.3: R.R. Reno at First Things would appear to side with the Rev. Spell. Excerpt:
In truth, I am demoralized by the Catholic Church’s response to what Ephraim Radner calls “the Time of the Virus.” Those of us who live in densely populated areas are aware of the intense anxiety and fear that has become pervasive. The massive shutdown of just about everything reflects the spirit of our age, which regards the prospect of death as the supreme evil to be avoided at all costs. St. Paul observed that Christ came to free us from our bondage to sin and death. This does not mean we will not sin or die. It means that we need not live in fear.
It is imperative that Christian leaders not succumb to the contagious panic, which is a weapon of the Enemy to enslave us to our fears. Many steps short of suspension and cancellation can be taken to ensure that prayer, worship, and the administration of the sacraments are done in responsible ways. In a time of pandemic—a time when Satan whips up in us all fears of isolation, abandonment, and death—churches must not join the stampede of fear.
I disagree. I would agree that Catholic parishes should be kept open so that people can pray in front of the Eucharist (and that the faithful should be strongly warned to keep social distance), but I believe Reno is wrong, in general. The virus is not a threat like terrorism. The things Christians do to go to church to strengthen themselves spiritually could end up making them very sick, and more seriously, making people who did not choose to go to church sick. As I write, the president has just dispatched a 1,000-bed naval hospital ship to New York harbor.Gov. Cuomo said:
“You are past the time of monetizing these decisions,” he said.
“You are at a point of deciding: how many people are going to live, how many people are going to die?”
This is like saying after the nuclear accident there that churches around Chernobyl should be kept open, because people need spiritual comfort in this time of crisis — this, even though they would be exposed to deadly doses of radiation, and take that radioactivity with them out of the zone.
UPDATE.4: This just in from a reader:
I’m a lawyer and I just read your “Rev. Spell Asserts Rights, Shirks Duties.” I’m a big religious liberty champion, but we need to understand the situation here. I can’t speak to the religious side of not meeting, but I can speak to the legal side of not meeting. All in all, there isn’t a “religious liberty” case against the orders.
Under current law, (Employment Division v. Smith), a neutral law of general applicability survives. The ban on church gatherings would be unconstitutional if it was ONLY a ban on church gatherings (that would not be general applicable). It would also be unconstitutional if the decision was actually motivated by an animus against religion, even though it appears to be general (that would not be neutral).
Therefore, under current law, the orders stand.
However, religious liberty guys like us have had problems with this reasoning, because it would allow a neutral law of general applicability like “never give alcohol to minors, period, no exceptions, and that’s a year in prison if you do.” This would prevent pastors or priests from giving the sacraments (wine) to children. Put in the wrong hands, that “neutral law of general applicability” would be a terrible detriment to Christianity (grape-juice Baptists excepted). We’ve seen other problems like this in the field of discrimination law.
Instead, we Religious Liberty Nuts want things to go back to the high-water mark of religious liberty: Sherbert v. Verner. This put a strict scrutiny test on any government action that burdens the free exercise of religion.
That test goes like this:
1. Is there a sincere belief? (Since we’ve been meeting together for church for 2,000 years, that will pass. Check)
2. Does the government action create a substantial burden? (If the government says you can’t meet in large groups, then yes. Check)
Then the government action only stands if the following test is met:
1. There is a compelling governmental interest? (Based on what we’ve seen in Italy and what we know about the virus spread: Check)
2. Is the governmental action “narrowly tailored” or pursued in the least restrictive means? (Let’s explore)
Here, despite how broad the quarantine orders are, this is actually as narrowly tailored as we can get. This is an invisible virus with a several week dormancy period. If this were something like Ebola, where you need ACTUAL contact with bodily fluids, this could be different. Here, it’s spread through the air quite quickly. This means that the ban on large gatherings should survive the Sherbert Test.
This is the same test that was adopted in Religious Freedom Restoration Act legislation and RLUIPA (Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act) cases by statute after the Employment Division v. Smith case.
This means we should keep in mind that EVEN WITH THE BEST RELIGIOUS LIBERTY PROTECTION THAT WE COULD EVER HOPE FOR IN THIS COUNTRY, the quarantine orders are valid and should stand.
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March 17, 2020
Tucker Carlson, Trump Truth-Teller
A couple of weekends ago, Tucker Carlson went to Mar-A-Lago to meet with President Trump, to try to convince him that the coronavirus threat was real, and that he ought to be treating it as a serious thing. I knew about this, and knew that he didn’t really want to go, but that his wife convinced him that it was his patriotic duty to do so. He wanted to keep it all quiet, but the news got out anyway. Now Tucker — the only Fox News personality to be serious about Covid-19 for weeks now — has given an interview about it to Vanity Fair. Excerpts:
So let’s move up to the moment where you decide that it’s incumbent upon you to go talk to Trump about the epidemic.
I felt I had a moral obligation to be useful in whatever small way I could, and, you know, I don’t have any actual authority. I’m just a talk show host. But I felt—and my wife strongly felt—that I had a moral obligation to try and be helpful to in whatever way possible. I’m not an adviser to the person or anyone else other than my children. And I mean that. And you can ask anybody in the White House or out how many times have I gone to the White House to give my opinion on things. Because I don’t do that. And in general I really disapprove of people straying too far outside their lanes and acting like just because they have solid ratings, they have a right to control public policy. I don’t believe that. I think it’s wrong.
I don’t want to be that guy, and I’m not that guy, but I felt under this circumstance that it was something small that I could do. And again, I felt a moral obligation to do it, and I kept it secret because I was embarrassed of it because I thought that it was on some level wrong. [Editor’s note: The story of Carlson warning the president about his slow response to the virus leaked to news outlets, including the New York Times.]
What made you think that the time had arrived for this moment?
I kept reading pieces about how easy it was to transmit the virus and I just became obsessed with reading about it, and there was actually a lot of publicly available information, a lot of it speculative, but it was informed speculation in my view. And it led me to think that this could be a massive problem in the United States. And the first thing I thought when I read this was, What about all the people with non-flu-related life-threatening crises who might be denied care because the hospitals are going to be flooded not simply with coronavirus patients, but with people who believe they have coronavirus?
Did anybody from the White House—you have friends that are advisers in the White House—did any of them express concern to you that maybe Trump wasn’t fully aware of the crisis?
It was very clear to me that after all the things that have been happening recently—the Russia investigation, impeachment, and then the Democratic primaries—that a lot of people on the Republican side in politics, including in the White House, had been thinking about the world in ideological terms and in political terms. I mean, why wouldn’t they? And because of that it was really hard for a lot of people to transition. We spent three and a half years arguing about whether the president was a Russian agent, and he got impeached, and they were in that way of thinking, and it’s just hard to transition there. And maybe that’s part of the cost of doing that shit, you know what I mean?
What you’re saying to me is that because of the political lens on at that moment, they were in denial. The president was in denial about what was happening around him.
I think that in general, the news media have given people no reason to trust that they know what they’re talking about—
C’mon. Don’t blame the media.
Oh, I’m definitely blaming the media and very much including Vanity Fair, and I hope you put that in there. And I also think, and obviously I think this or I wouldn’t have gone there in the first place, that it’s part of the role of leaders to look beyond the media and to look at the data that’s coming in from the intel agencies—who have also been discredited and justly so—but still, look at the numbers and look at the reports coming in and to make cool and rational judgments about what that means.
There’s a ton of noise right now. I understand why it’s the temptation to dismiss it, but you can’t dismiss it because, however distorted it may be, fundamentally this is real. It’s an illness. You’re not allowed to sort of fudge on epidemics. You have to be straightforward.
And moreover, if you want to convey strength, and in a time of crisis, you need to do that, you have to convey strength—honesty can be strength. I’m being blunt with you. Strong people have no problem admitting when they’ve screwed up. They have no problem being direct. If I’m totally blunt with you, you know it, you can tell. We know deception when we hear it. So if you want to reassure people, follow your own instincts, go with what you know is true, and if you’re wrong in some ways, people always forgive you being wrong.
What they won’t forgive is you being dishonest or weak. They won’t. And dishonesty, by the way, is always an indicator of weakness. That’s what it is.
One more:
Are you critical of is handling right now of this pandemic? Do you think he’s done a good job? Yesterday Trump was asked how he rated his own handling of the pandemic on a scale of 1 to 10, and he gave himself a 10.
I’ve been really critical of the administration’s response to this, repeatedly every night on my show. I think the mistake that people make, and I’ve felt this for three and a half years, is making everything about Trump. It’s all about Trump. And so really at a certain point, it’s like, no, it’s all about your emotional problems. I’ve lived in Washington since I was a child. My dad ran a federal agency [Richard Warner Carlson was an assistant director of the United States Information Agency under Ronald Reagan]. I know how the government works and there are many layers to this. It’s not all about one guy’s mercurial personality, and anyone who thinks it [is] is a child and should get out of the fucking news business, right? And I look around and it’s all children. It’s all people like Jim Acosta, Oh, Trump’s a racist—who cares? There’s a freaking pandemic, dude. Just stop whining about whether he calls it the Chinese coronavirus or not. Like, this is insane. Look, there are many roles that people play in American life and in the news media, but my role, I don’t want to make every show about Trump. Not because I’m covering for Trump, but because I don’t think it’s that interesting and I don’t think it’s actually the truth. And the truth is this: We have all kinds of systemic failures here, big time. And no one wants to say that because actually they’re covering for the people who created those problems in the first place. Do you know what I mean? So I would love to hear somebody on why does it fall to Bernie Sanders to make the obvious points about corporate America’s role in all this? Bernie Sanders is a completely mediocre guy who doesn’t even really mean it—but why is he the only one who’s saying some things that are true? That’s what the media should be doing, but they’re not. Because they’re so focused on Trump. Trump is tweeting too much. Well of course he’s tweeting too much! Okay, I got it, maybe don’t read his tweets. All right. But like, there’s a lot else going on, right? That’s my opinion.
Read it all. He’s not being falsely humble by saying he didn’t want to go, because he didn’t think it was his place to do things like that. He told me about it before he went. He’s being totally honest. When the history of this event is written, we are going to find that we owe a lot to Tucker Carlson. You may not like the guy, but you should be very glad that he is where he is at the moment. He’s one of the most important people in the country right now, and I’m not exaggerating.
I watched the president’s press conference today (Tuesday), and like Monday’s presser, he was a very different man than we’re used to seeing. I wish, though, that reporters would stop asking him baiting questions about his own performance. We know that he is incapable of being anything other than vain about that, and dishonest. Today he claimed that he was concerned all along about the pandemic — a bald-faced lie. But really, what is the point now of pushing Trump on these points? It is in the public interest to encourage him to be someone he doesn’t know how to be. Someone, can’t remember who, said to me today that Trump is an actor, and he now seems to understand the script. If true, it’s in the interest of all of us that he keeps on speaking the script that people like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx tell him to say.
Whether you’re a conservative or not, you really should be watching Tucker Carlson Tonight these days.
On the question of influential people who won’t speak the truth to Trump, here’s an interesting bit from a Kevin D. Williamson blog post today:
And if you happen to be a journalist or commentator who is holding your fire on one politician or another because you are afraid that you might tilt some voter the wrong way by saying what you actually think — by telling the truth as best you can — then you are in the wrong line of work.
You’re probably overestimating your influence, too. But that is not what this is really about: This is about pledging allegiance.
One of the tragedies of our current mob-populist model of politics is that elevating presidents and presidential candidates to the status of tribal totem makes it virtually impossible to take intelligent countermeasures against them. …
A few weeks ago, I spent some time with some Republicans of the sort upon whom Christianity “sits as a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.” They made the usual noises — “We don’t approve of the tweets, and the dishonesty, and the boorishness,” though they were awfully circumspect on the question of how such disapproval might be registered, and were, of course, a good deal less circumspect on the question of Mitt Romney, whose eternal damnation they gleefully anticipated. The ordinary, traditional questions of democratic politics — How do I get this politician to do what I want? — were of no interest to them at all, their only concern being fealty to the idol and casting out the infidels.
UPDATE: You know which Fox personality isn’t in this montage? Tucker Carlson — because he was telling the truth about the coronavirus from early February:
What a damning indictment of Fox News from the Post video team here. pic.twitter.com/r8Fz8vo5KV
— andrew kaczynski
The Coronavirus Winter
The New Atlantis has a good, short interview with Dr. Michael Osterholm, one of the world’s top infectious disease specialists. Excerpts:
The New Atlantis: How serious is this situation? Are we locking things down too early or too late?
Michael Osterholm: This is a very serious situation. We will overwhelm the American health care system. It won’t be equally distributed around the country — some places will get hit much harder than others. We will run out of critical personal protective equipment for health care workers, which will ultimately result in infections that they will acquire on the job.
We will continue to see, I’m afraid, certain political responses which will lead people to challenge public health recommendations on ideological as opposed to scientific grounds.
And we don’t have a sense of how this is going to play out relative to time. I tell people we’re responding to this just like we’re responding to a Minneapolis blizzard, where we’re going to lock down for a couple of days and everything will go back to normal — as opposed to the fact that this is going to be a coronavirus winter and we’re just in the first week or two of a long season. This could last for months.
Osterholm says we shouldn’t take comfort from the relatively low number of cases now. Those data are fairly useless because they reflect only what we are able to test for — and we’re not testing many (here in Baton Rouge, our drive-thru testing facility ran out of tests today within the first hour). He goes on:
TNA: So given that the testing in the United States is still so inadequate, what do we actually look at then, what are the indicators of the progress of the disease?
MO: I think that we will begin to catch up with hospitalizations and intensive care. I think that is really the tip of the iceberg that is exposing what is underneath it. So as goes intensive care bed needs, so goes the epidemic in that area. And deaths also, but deaths are more difficult because it’s almost three weeks of illness before the average patient dies. So you’re going to expect to see the number of fatal cases delayed relative to the actual number of new cases by onset.
Read it all. You should bookmark The New Atlantis; it’s always got great material about science and culture.
Osterholm tells TNA that he’s worried about “mitigation fatigue” — that people are going to get tired of the stringent things they’re having to do to flatten the curve, and give up.
It is necessary now to close schools and businesses, and tell people to drastically reduce social contacts in a way that is economically devastating to many businesses and workers. But there is a trade-off: The better we get at interventions to identify and isolate specific people with the virus, the less we should need to rely on interventions that isolate the entire population. That’s a reason the ramp-up of widely available testing remains such an important goal for the U.S.: More testing should, in time, allow for more normal living.
We are seeing this already in other countries: South Korea and Singapore been successfully addressing their coronavirus epidemics with less extensive social-distancing measures than are currently seen in Italy, France, and parts of the U.S., in part because of their effective testing and surveillance regimes. The Financial Times reports today on the town of Vò, Italy, which successfully stopped its local outbreak though a strategy that involved widespread testing of the population and isolation of those who tested positive, even as the rest of Northern Italy did not fare so well.
We have to hope and pray for that. Meanwhile, take social isolation seriously. Here’s a thread from David Lats, who is a youngish, healthy man suffering from COVID-19. Excerpt:
Me, I’m not leaving the house for anything. Today I ended up in bed almost all day long. I’m pretty sure my latent Epstein-Barr Virus has flared up again. I feel like a dishrag, and sleep deep and long during the day. It’s stress-related; probably hasn’t been such a great idea to be so immersed in thinking and writing about the plague, though to be honest, I’m a lot less troubled now that more people, including the US Government, are taking it with sufficient seriousness. Still, I have to finish rewrites on my forthcoming book in the next two weeks, and maintaining focus through the EBV brain fog is not easy.
By the way, young readers, don’t for one second think you are immune. From a Dutch newspaper (Google translated):
The idea that only vulnerable seniors are at risk from the coronavirus is incorrect. Of the 96 corona patients who are in intensive care in the Netherlands on Monday evening, about half are younger than 50, says Diederik Gommers, chairman of the Dutch Association for Intensive Care.
More:
How are the people who end up in intensive care? Gommers: “Those people come to the ER with respiratory problems. Often they can breathe themselves the first day, then they deteriorate hard. They have to work very hard to get air in them. They exhaust themselves, as it were, and at that point we are going to intubate. We insert a tube and take up breathing with a device. It is called ‘mechanical ventilation’. “
Without that device they have no chance. “They are exhausted, cannot breathe themselves anymore.” A patient does not notice the ventilation: it is put to sleep, just like during an operation.
They end up on the ventilator for up to a month. This is happening to young people too. Take this seriously!
UPDATE: From Pete Wehner’s interview with NIH director Francis Collins:
Collins also spoke about civic responsibility and the importance of selflessness in the midst of a pandemic. “I think we as a nation have to get into a place of not just thinking about ourselves, but thinking about everybody else around us, and particularly the most vulnerable people—those who are older and those people with chronic diseases. Young people may have a relatively low risk of serious illness, kids seem to have a very low risk, but if you want to avoid what could be the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, then it is incumbent on all of us to severely limit our social interactions. We need to ask the question about every interaction we have, and whether it is necessary or not. I’m going to speak very strongly about that. Obviously, people do have to get food in the house and do other absolutely essential things, but beyond that, we should be volunteering to engage in the most stringent kind of isolation.”
He added, “that means we all need to take responsibility even if we are thinking of ourselves as relatively impervious to this illness. It would be easy for a young person to look at the data and go, ‘Well, you know, what if I get it? I’m probably going to be fine.’ But you have to think of yourself also as a vessel for other vulnerable people. Even if you don’t think you need to do this kind of isolation for your own good, you’re doing it for the rest of the country—and particularly for your grandparents and other people who are in a vulnerable state.”
And Collins also offered a big picture-perspective for Americans. “I think people need to be prepared that we are going to be in this space for more time than they will like,” he said. “In many ways, the best sign that we’re making progress will be that the duration of the epidemic goes on a little longer. That’s what flattening the curve means. It means that the most serious cases do get stretched out over time and don’t all happen right at the beginning. So anybody’s who’s imagining that this will all be over and done within a month, needs to get their mind around the fact that we’re in this, I think, for quite a long stretch of time. I can’t imagine that schools that have decided to give students off two weeks will be back in session then, and probably not for this whole academic year. I think we’re facing the fact that at least until June, we all need to be in the space of taking this with the greatest seriousness—and that means every American taking responsibility about this and not coming up with reasons why it’s not necessary.”
The post The Coronavirus Winter appeared first on The American Conservative.
Frederica’s Prophetic Dream
I’m going to offer this up for your consideration.
Almost a year ago — May 2019 — my dear friend Frederica Mathewes-Green, the Orthodox Christian writer, e-mailed to say that she had had a disturbing dream the night before. She said that she’s not in the habit of telling people her dreams, but this one felt prophetic in some way. I can tell you that I’ve been close friends with Frederica since 1994, and know her to have great spiritual sensitivity. But she is not in the habit of telling me her dreams.
She has now made the contents of that dream public. I assure you that this is exactly what she wrote to me in 2019. Her account starts like this:
One aspect of getting older, for me, is that I don’t remember my dreams as well as I used to—there are just little scraps of dreams that fly away when I wake up. But last spring I had a dream that, even while I was having it, I knew it was important to remember it. Even as the dream was ending, I was already counting up the points I needed to recall.
In my dream, we all knew we were going to die. Everyone in the world was going to die. A cloud of air bearing very fine, sharp particles was slowly encircling the earth; when people inhaled, it infiltrated the lungs, piercing the cells and destroying them. There was no way to stop the advance of this fog, and its effects were incurable. Wherever this fog had gone, it had killed the entire population. This cloud was gradually encircling the entire world, and eventually it would reach America.
Everyone in our local community knew this was coming. But somehow my husband and I knew that it was coming much faster than others expected. In fact, it was now very near.
I remember four scenes from this dream:
+ One, there was a naturally-occurring oil that could alleviate the pain, though it couldn’t prevent death—maybe delay it a little. A neighbor was happily telling me he had discovered a source for this oil on his property. He showed me in the palm of his hand the clear, slippery liquid. He explained that he was going to bottle it and ship it all over the world, charging high prices and making a lot of money. All for free, because he found it right there in his back yard.
I pitied him, because it seemed obvious to me that, once when word got out that it had been found here, people would descend from all directions and just take it for themselves. I said to my friend, “But don’t you think they will all just move here?”
There’s more to the dream, but you’ll need to click here to read it. The part at the end about faith is especially important.
Last week, when Matt Colvin, who lives near Chattanooga, was in The New York Times for having bought 17,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, which he hoped to sell at a big profit, I e-mailed the story to Frederica and pointed out that this guy lives just down the road from her, in eastern Tennessee, and had cleaned out all the rural stores of their hand sanitizer, which he intended to sell.
Obviously the virus hasn’t “killed the entire population” of any place. Yet, anyway; scientists believe it’s likely to be with us for a while, mutating. So we’ll see. Also, about the “very fine, sharp particles” piercing the lungs: I e-mailed Frederica when I saw that scientists were using the term “ground glass opacity” to describe conditions in the lungs of badly hit Covid-19 victims.
Anyway, it’s just a dream. Make of it what you will. I just want to verify that Frederica really did send this to me almost a year ago.
Here’s a link to Frederica.com, her website.
The post Frederica’s Prophetic Dream appeared first on The American Conservative.
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