Delaware County is north of Columbus, twenty-seven miles downtown to downtown Delaware, the town that serves as the county seat. Parts of Columbus, Westerville and Dublin are in Delaware County, it being easier for cities to annex in Ohio than it is in West Virginia. I was set to go Wednesday to Friday, but woke up late after a grueling and annoying City Council meeting Tuesday. Then I checked the internet and read the paper.
Tuesday there were no reported cases of covid19 in West Virginia or Ohio, so I figured I could go. I would be alone in the car and in a motel, and not in crowds. By Wednesday morning, there were three cases in Cleveland (not close) but Ohio University in Columbus was closing for the duration. There were no cases in West Virginia, but very few people had been tested, less than ten at that point. Maybe this was more serious. So I didn't go.
Friday, the President seemed to take someone's advice and declare a national emergency. He has been exposed to the virus, but continues to shake hands with people. Democrats in Congress finally bullied the Centers For Disease Control to offer testing for free. In Morgantown, West Virginia University went on spring break Friday, extended it to two weeks instead of one, and students were told not to return to campus. An undergraduate friend spending the semester in Australia was ordered to come back, although no one can see what the point is of that. Public schools closed early Friday and are not coming back. The students have "snow-day" assignments they can do at home.
West Virginia University's basketball team won its first round of "March Madness," but now the rest of the games are canceled. Professional sports are off, the high school basketball tournaments won't happen. Major League Baseball canceled spring training and the season will be "delayed."
We've seen the potential failure of the whole American enterprise. I don't mean just the ups-and-downs of the stock market. Many, many students receive free breakfast and lunch, feminine hygiene supplies and even take-home food at school. People have no health insurance coverage or high deductibles. Coronavirus is not a big deal for young healthy people, but for older people it is life-threatening. Those with mild forms of the disease need to be isolated, with pay. We have no mechanism for that, no way to make sure people have medical care, infected people have a place to go, poor children have food to eat and someone to care for them when schools are closed. No one has said what will happen to college students with part-time jobs, paid-for meal plans or scholarships.
If anything, all of this proves that Bernie Sanders was right all along, and Elizabeth Warren, too. The United States has been coasting along with some thinking everything was great because the stock market was up and unemployment was down. On the ground, though, we knew that people didn't have health insurance or sick leave, couldn't afford to feed their families. We have been absolutely unprepared for a catastrophe, and yet things happen all the time all over the world.
Rabbi Joe (full disclosure: my husband) went ahead with services Friday night. As usual, most of the congregants were older. He spoke about the plagues that were God's wrath, like when Moses found the people worshipping the golden calf, and many people died. We don't believe that now, that God controls those things. Still, there are consequences for our actions. Electing someone incompetent and uncaring to be President, and for Republicans in Congress and the Senate, going along with whatever he wants, has left us all vulnerable.
The Friday when President Kennedy was killed was warm and sunny in Baltimore, where I was fourteen and a ninth grader. The next day, it rained heavily all day and by Monday it was bitter cold. We've had seventy-degree highs this week, about twenty degrees above average, but this afternoon, it turned cold and it's snowing. Sometimes I think the weather does somehow follow world events.
The City of Morgantown sent out an overloaded agenda for Tuesday's meeting: interviewing people for city boards, dinging a landlord for nuisance properties, passing a budget and a five-year capital improvement plan, then meeting after the regular meeting about potential lawsuits. I suggested yesterday by email that we table as much as we could and talk about the emergency in our city, which even if no one gets sick, will be devastating economically. I also sent a message to my doctor asking if I should even go this meeting, being high risk for this illness. I've been offline last night and today for the Jewish sabbath (I still wrote this on Saturday, but will post it after dark), so I only saw a post from one Councilor, who agreed with me.
I hope we can all get through this. I saw Readers Vent comments in The Charleston Gazette-Mail, where people said they think it's all a hoax because they don't know anyone with corona virus. I am reminded of 1982, when friends said that about AIDS. Many of those people died of the disease. We need to be vigilant and demand that our governments at all levels do what is needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment