A SALUTE TO COVID FIGHTERS: SHOULDN’T WE DO MORE?

 

“I look at it; I view it as, in a sense, a wartime president. I mean, that's what we're fighting”.

Donald J. Trump, March 18^th, 2020

 

“This is a wartime undertaking”.

President Joe Biden, January 21^st, 2021

There have been few areas of agreement between Biden and Trump. But they both agree, fighting the Coronavirus is like war.

In every war there are combatants. Some are more essential and more vulnerable than others. This war is no different. Like other wars the risks have not been borne equally.  Those who earn their living primarily by moving

words and numbers around on paper can work from home. Office computers were moved home and Zoom became the thing for holding meetings, conferences, and even prosecuting legal proceedings.

 

We think that no combatants have been more essential or more vulnerable than

our essential health care workers. They have gone into battle daily since the outbreak of the Coronavirus to take care of our infected loved ones and

comfort them while they suffered and often died, because we could not be at their bedsides. They often worked for minimum wages.

According to a joint undertaking by Kaiser Health News (KHN) a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues, and “The Guardian”, in a report published December 23, 2020, more than 2,900 U.S. health care workers died during the COVID-19 pandemic between March 2020 and December of 2020.  People of color have

been disproportionately affected, accounting for about 65% of deaths. The deaths continue.  

Some of these workers worked in plants, in crowded conditions that didn’t permit social distancing. The food industry offered one prime example. Workers in meat processing plants, especially, suffered high rates of infection and death from the disease.

Bearing a Heavier Burden

Many home health providers care for multiple patients, who also bear the consequences of

their work conditions. “If you think about perfect vectors for transmission, unprotected individuals going from house to house have to rank at the top of the list,” said Nina Kohn, a professor specializing in civil rights law at Syracuse University, quoted in the KHN report.

Nonetheless, caregivers like Samira, in Richmond, Virginia, identified in the KHN report, have little choice but to work. Samira — who makes $8.25 an hour with one client and $9.44 an hour with another, and owes tens of thousands of dollars in hospital bills from previous work injuries — has no other option but to risk getting sick.

“I can’t afford not to work. And my clients, they don’t have anybody but me,” she said. “So I just pray every day I don’t get it.”

From Despair to Hope

When we came to understand the deadly nature of the Coronavirus, the nation

faced a calamity like few it had experienced in its 250-year history.  The country shut down and the health care workers on the front line faced the grim task of continuing to treat thousands of people for a disease, medical experts knew little about. We had no drugs proven effective against the virus. Since it was airborne, people

caught it easily from other people. In many cases, the consequences were deadly. Those health care workers found themselves hooking people up to ventilators, knowing their patients would often die anyway. They did so because it was their job.

Worse than the lack of effective treatments was the fact there was no vaccine that could keep people from getting the disease. The only tools for prevention were masks, hand washing,  and “social distancing.”

Vaccine and Hope

Federal agencies began approving vaccines

for use in the United States in late November/early December of 2020. Unfortunately, the federal government didn’t have a distribution plan and left most of the work to the states. Predictably, inoculations lagged in the early months of vaccine availability.  That changed with the beginning of the Biden administration.  The new president made vaccination a high national priority. He set a goal of 100 million shots administered by the end of his first 100 days in office. His team met that goal by day 58. The goal now is sufficient vaccine supply by May for every American who wants it. We can all now see hope.

The national experience with Covid-19 has

shown some encouraging traits in the American character. Yes, we have endured senseless selfishness born of partisan bickering, but when faced with adversity, Americans have risen to the challenge.

Who can forget those inspiring scenes in March, April, and May of 2020 of people

standing on their balconies saluting front line health care workers during shift changes? Such expressions of support now occupy a special place in American lore, joining the spontaneous expressions of patriotism that sprang up after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Now, with hope and optimism that maybe, just maybe normal appears in sight, we take a few moments and review where we’ve been and where we’re going, from the perspective of the people who’ve borne the brunt of fighting the  war on the pandemic

Coronavirus.  The vaccines now available provide real hope, especially for the people who’ve led the fight against the devastation this virus has wrought.

Many front-line workers are now dead, leaving behind husbands, wives, children,

grandchildren, siblings and loved ones from whom they were taken tragically and some often too soon, or have survived but suffer long term medical consequences.

Is simply expressing our heartfelt gratitude enough? Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.) referenced the KHN data citing the need for a pending bill that would provide compensation to the families of health care workers who died or sustained harm from COVID-19.

We believe these combatants deserve the same treatment veterans who bore the brunt of the burdens of wars received - special benefits for their sacrifice.

          

THE ROYAL FAMILY’S DIRTY LAUNDRY MOMENT: MEGHAN, HARRY, OPRAH, AND RACE

 

Ordinarily, we wouldn’t post about an Oprah Winfrey interview with British royals.  We concern

ourselves, though, with issues that reflect what’s happening in society and that people care about. Seventeen million viewers watched the recent CBS interview, American television’s second largest non-sporting event audience this year. Eleven million people in the United Kingdom saw the interview.  So, Winfrey’s interview

with Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, caught our attention. The interview left the royal family with tough questions that deserve answers. Buckingham Palace put out a statement a few days later saying the royal family would address the issues the interview raised “privately.”  The interview left many disappointed and feeling the western world lost another opportunity for putting racial animus behind us.

Markle, the mixed race American actress who married Harry in a storybook wedding in May 2018, told Winfrey life as an active royal made her

contemplate suicide. She said she reached out for help with her mental distress but was told she shouldn’t expect assistance. She said royal family members didn’t want her then unborn son holding a title or having the security arrangements royals typically receive. Unidentified family members expressed “concerns” about how dark his skin might be. Markle and her husband wouldn’t say who raised the “concerns,” though

Harry denied it was either of his grandparents, Queen Elizabeth II or her husband, the ailing Prince Philip. Rampant speculation about who it was consumed the British and American media.

The UK and the One Drop Rule

From the time Harry and Meghan began dating in

2016, British tabloids were fascinated (repulsed?) by the idea of an English royal involved in a romance with a person of color. Some weren’t nice about it. Meghan almost certainly carries more white than black ancestry. Her father, Thomas

Markle, is a white man. The world views her mother, Doria Ragland, as black, though her skin tone and other features suggest some European ancestry. Meghan, therefore, in the eyes of many, is black because of the “one drop rule.”

In order to prevent the offspring of enslaved women and white masters from claiming inheritance rights through their biological fathers, 

many American states enforced two provisions in probate and family law.  First, children carried the racial status of their mothers. Second, the presence of any black ancestry made a person legally black – the one drop rule.

England never had such laws, but the custom apparently followed Meghan into her relationship with Harry. Seemingly that view held sway with some members of the royal family who weren’t hesitant about expressing themselves.

Meghan’s distress has now caused all kinds ofproblems. The British Commonwealth includes nations with lots of people of color. Many embraced Meghan. For them, the royal family’s behavior has been a supreme disappointment and bolstered the push in some countries for ending ties with the monarchy.

 

Is This Really Happening?

“Concern” about the skin color of a royal family member’s child in the 21^st century indicates the world hasn’t changed as much as we might have hoped. It may mean Britain has racial problems not much different from those in the United States. The controversy suggests Meghan and Harry’s marriage now represents a lost opportunity.

Interracial marriage isn’t unusual anymore. The statistics tell a clear enough story. Rates of intermarriage among blacks in the

United States doubled between 1980 and 2010 and keep rising. Beyond the numbers, just watch television or shop in a bookstore. Interracial couples and their children appear in commercials for banks, food products, cars, skin disease treatments, furniture, even erectile dysfunction medications. Novels about interracial romances flood bookstore shelves.

Perhaps the idea of a British royal in an interracial marriage was too much, despite changing attitudes. As a friend of one of us says about the royal family and its notions of what’s acceptable and what’s not, the royals follow a rule that says, “That’s different!”

 

A Missed Opportunity

When Meghan and Harry wed, we took note of the

inclusivity and cultural diversity their marriage ceremony put on display. We titled our post, “Not Your Grandfather’s Royal Wedding.”  A black American cleric, Bishop Michael Curry, offered the homily. A mostly black singing group, the

                                       

Kingdom Choir, and a black cellist, Sheku Kanneh-

Mason, provided the featured music. We thought the inclusivity of the wedding portended a more tolerant era, one that could help England and the everyone else put racial animus further in the rear-view mirror.

The mistreatment Meghan received, behavior that led her and Harry to flee the United Kingdom for

California and life outside the royal  bubble, suggests the bright promise of a new world we saw was an illusion. Things haven’t changed as we thought. The British have their own version of the racial insensitivity and backward thinking we see so much of in the United States.

Perhaps there’s no reason for surprise. We wondered how that 2018 ceremony struck some members of the royal family. One of us got a text from a relative wondering if the wedding “stretched British stiff upper lips to their snapping point.”  Now it appears those fears may have been realized. Perhaps the way the wedding --- and the marriage itself – struck some royals was a version of the idea another of our friends expresses when he sees white people unhappy about some indicator of racial progress. He exclaims, “We can’t have that!”

THE PANDEMIC ISN’T OVER: KEEPING OUR EYES ON THE PRIZE

Despite much progress, a threat has appeared that could derail solving the pandemic problem. That threat compels us to join those sounding an alarm.

To some extent, the coronavirus pandemic has always been about numbers. We know many of the painful ones – 29.2 million infections

and 530,000 deaths by the first week in March; about 22 million jobs lost or diminished; 328.2 million (in other words, everybody) lives disrupted. And now, another set of numbers offers hope for an end to the madness – decreased cases, over 59 million people who’ve had at least one shot of vaccine, maybe 255 million people (every adult in the country) vaccinated by summer.

The problem lies in the fact states have started opening their economies by lifting restrictions on capacity in public venues, making social  distancing harder, and eliminating mask requirements. It’s a trickle

now, but it could soon become a flood. As one doctor warned, don’t spike the football after making a few first downs, wait until you’re in the end zone.

 

What’s Happening

Republican governors in Texas and Mississippi announced recently they’re ending statewide

mask mandates and limits on occupancy in eating places and other businesses, steps already taken by Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.  GOP chief executives in Iowa and Montana ended mask requirements in February. Republican governors in Arkansas and Alabama said they’d suspend mask orders in late March and early April, though that move in Arkansas depends on testing results and hospitalizations.

One Democratic governor, Connecticut’s Ned Lamont, kept the mask requirement in place, but eliminated indoor dining capacity limits. He also expanded how many people can attend sporting events.

Different motives likely lay behind these moves, some probably benign, some likely cynical, and some perhaps the result of citizen pressure. Benign explanations included increasing vaccination rates and a declining number of infections. Continuing politicization

of the  pandemic by former President Donald Trump and his allies made it likely some GOP governors simply sought political favor with Trump supporters who never liked masks, social distancing, and other anti-COVID 19 measures. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in particular, wants to position himself for a presidential run in 2024 and drew blowback from Texas Democrats who suspected a political motive in his roll back order. These actions place political interests above those of the citizenry. 

We admit public pressure could affect some governors. Americans, even those who support mask wearing and other anti-COVID 19 safety measures, are tired of how the virus has disrupted their lives. They want a return to normal, even despite evidence the fight isn’t over. We think such an attitude equates to taking a cast off a broken leg before the bone heals because the patient finds the cast inconvenient. In this instance, removing the cast could have deadly consequences.  

Neanderthal Thinking

Orders issued by Abbott and Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves didn’t go unchallenged. President Biden, who has garnered 70% public approval (44% of Republicans) for his handling of the pandemic, called the moves “Neanderthal thinking.” The president said of the crisis, “It’s not over yet.” He urged that Americans, “Stay vigilant.”

Rochelle Walenski, director of the Centers for Disease Control, expressed “deep concern”

about the trajectory of the pandemic, and added, “Now is not the time to relax critical safeguards.” Other public health experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci also warned against prematurely discarding masks and social distancing requirements. 

 

A Personal Story

One of us, Rob, suffered a severe case of COVID 19 last fall, spending five days in a hospital, three of them on oxygen, though not a respirator. After a harrowing day of hallucinations (“I thought I was walking on the ceiling,” he said), his condition dictated treatment with experimental drugs and steroids. Almost as bad as the hospital time was the recovery. Unlike the recovery from other illnesses in a life of almost seven decades, this recovery featured not a smooth road back to good health but resembled a discomforting trek along a jagged, uneven path littered with rocks and boulders. For every two steps forward, the route required at least one backwards. For the better part of a month after the hospital, nothing tasted good, not even water. The sense of smell vanished. Yes, some people suffered mild forms of the illness, but no one should underestimate the perils of even a moderate case. This isn’t the flu. Rob’s advice: Do everything possible to avoid getting this disease.

 

A War Metaphor

After a vigorous discussion, we found ourselves agreeing with Woodson’s label of

“irresponsible” for those who give in to impatience and prematurely discard measures that health experts know stop the spread of

COVID 19. He  has a point that this is a war, as 

the infection and death numbers show. An army can’t quit before winning the war, especially not with victory in sight, when a loss could decimate the entire army.

Through the efforts of scientists, we

have vaccines that work. Thanks to now having a president who takes the issue seriously, vaccine distribution works. The president says by the end of May every adult American, about 255 million people, who wants a vaccination can get one. That’s a real win. We can lose now only by giving the game away. No reason exists for doing that. We can make the numbers work now.  

                

   

WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH TEXAS?: THE DISASTER SHOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED

Many Americans couldn’t help noticing the incongruity between the recent landing of a powerful rover on Mars while millions of Texans  struggled with freezing homes, burst water pipes, and disruptions in supplies of food and other commodities. We note the Mars landing was a project of the federal government, while the disaster in Texas resulted from policies of the state government. 

                                           

The Texas catastrophe drew our interest because one of us lives there and we found the suffering of so many of our fellow citizens revolting.  More than 50 people died at last count. That’s unacceptable, given our understanding of why it happened. Like the toll from the pandemic, much suffering could have been avoided with a more compassionate, attentive government focused on human needs.

The Roots of the Disaster

We’ve alluded at various times to Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. The book shows how

Republicans capitalized on social and racial issues in getting lower and middle income whites to vote against their economic interests to the benefit of big business. That’s a lot of what caused the Texas disaster. For years, Texas Republicans, in the pockets of the fossil fuel industry and utility interests, neglected imposing regulations that could have prevented the equipment failures that caused the electrical system breakdowns. These politicians, preaching the gospel of deregulation, didn’t heed warnings from a decade ago that electrical generating facilities in Texas needed weatherization. The power producers preferred not spending the money  and politicians

didn’t make them do it. They insulated themselves by harping on culture-based issues that kept the majority of Texans voting Republican.

Texas operates its own electric grid which serves about 80 per cent of the state. The federal government doesn’t regulate that grid.  Texas, therefore, can’t access electricity from neighboring states in an emergency.

When the freeze occurred, Republican

heavyweights like former Governor Rick Perry, energy secretary in the Trump administration, advanced the suggestion Texans would trade a few more days without electricity so they could avoid federal regulation. Rob and other Texas residents said, “Speak for yourself, Mr. Secretary.”    

 

Rob’s Take from the Ground

I’m not a native Texan (like Henry and Woodson I was born and grew up in Arkansas), but I’ve lived here 40 years and consider it home. Though I’m proud of my University of Texas degrees and the fact three of my children were born here, I’m not proud of the brain-dead politics that created this disaster. Our state’s political leaders apparently care more about protecting corporate interests that fund their campaigns than about the welfare of ordinary citizens who found themselves burning their own furniture in sometimes futile attempts to stay warm.  

I should say that my partner and I got off easy. We didn’t lose power. Thanks to her decision a few years ago to switch to weather resistant pipes, our water supply remained intact. But I have reason for anger. The three of my children who live in Texas suffered through a good portion of the four-day emergency with little electricity or water. They got the full brunt of the misery and the blame lies squarely on state leadership.

 

The Green New Deal?  Give Us a

Break!

Texas Governor Greg Abbot, who

harbors 2024 presidential ambitions, went on Fox News during the tragedy and blamed the problems on the fact wind turbines and some solar facilities failed. He said that showed how America would fare with the Green New Deal.

Republican legislators called for more emphasis on fossil fuels. All that was disinformation.

Texas gets about ten per cent of its electricity from renewables like wind and solar. The shortfall went way beyond that. Grid operators admitted most of the problem resulted from disruptions in power generated by natural gas caused by frozen gas lines. Abbott eventually walked back the renewables statement. His dissembling didn’t help and didn’t encourage confidence in a state government under fire for a preventable human tragedy.

 

Any Hope of Change?

Public anger raised hopes for change in Texas. Abbot put several energy regulatory issues on his legislative agenda. Details aren’t clear yet, so it’s too soon to predict what might pass and what effect anything passed would have.

Many weren’t holding their breath.

Public attention in disasters, white hot for a time, notoriously fades. The 2022 election, when voters might throw out some of the culprits, seems ages away. Many other things will occupy the political space between now and then.

That brings us to two Texas politicians who took leave of the state while things

were bad. U.S.  Senator Ted Cruz, when caught heading for a vacation in Mexico, claimed he took the trip because his children besieged him to and he “wanted to be a good dad.” He flew back to Houston the day after he left, admitting he’d made a mistake. Attorney General Ken Paxton and his state senator wife found meetings in Utah they couldn’t miss.

People are mad at Cruz and Paxton, but their loyal followings remain.

By the time they face the voters again (Cruz 2024, Paxton 2022), both will likely have pivoted to the usual list of Republican boogeyman issues that have kept them and those like them in power all these years. We won’t bet against them. We wish we could.