"May you live in interesting times." An English expression purportedly (and probably incorrectly) attributed to a Chinese source.
A month ago, my Plus One and I were on the beach in San Juan. We were awaiting the arrival of the Norwegian Epic, a cruise ship upon which we would spend a week, with port calls in Aruba, Curacao, St. Lucia and St. Kitts. The weather was astonishingly beautiful, the water a variety of turquoise, dark blue and sea green, and the people mingling without a care in the world.
We visited Alambique, which styled itself a beach lounge, and discovered the Puerto Rican comfort food "mofongo," which defies description even as the ingredients are basic and readily available. We walked miles on the beach two blocks from our Airbnb, stopped for drinks and finger foods at the small bars dotting it. Several days later, it took us all of 13 minutes to get out of our Uber, walk into the terminal and be in our shipboard stateroom. The medical screening was perfunctory - had we been to China, had we felt sick lately?
That was then, before Wuhan was even in my vocabulary.
Our doctor has recommended staying home, being careful. We are both in high-risk demographics - I thought it would take longer to become this old - and getting the virus might mean we'd "be outta there" to quote an Air Force pilot friend. So, here we are.
Access to social media has meant:
1. We are not lonely.
2. We are bombarded with the insightful, the inane and everything in between.
So, let me offer my take as a retired first responder, a leader and a scholar -
My doctorate is in law, not medicine and particularly not in epidemiology. I can tell you what the legal landscape looks like, and what will probably be the issues in the lawsuits to follow. I have no idea about medicine. The only way for me to judge the wisdom of steps being taken to address the global pandemic is in hindsight. But, it is roughly analogous to the following story.
A young pregnant woman (our youngest daughter), in the throes of HELLP syndrome and the fog of the magnesium drip used to treat life-threatening high blood pressure, was witness to an extraordinary argument. Her OBYwan and her child's pediatrician, standing nose to nose, were arguing about which patient was going to be walked to the doorstep of death so that both had the best chance of surviving. One, or both, might not make it. Neither doc was sure, but it was what years of study, and decades of practice, told them was the right thing to do.
Medical experts - including our family doc who has guarded our health for twenty-five years - say that this is the big one. This could kill upwards of 400,000 Americans left to run its course, without intervention. Economists warn that draconian (possibly illegal, and unnecessary) social measures could push the country into depression, with millions suddenly unemployed.
I'm an educated person, but I don't know who is right. I know what the governments of the US, and Colorado, have suggested, or imposed. I think very smart people who have a lot more information than me are doing what they think is the right thing.
I wish Pat and I were back on that beach in San Juan. I wish the virus was not now stalking our world.
Serious people are making real-world decisions in good faith. As Dan Bongino has repeatedly said - report cards will come later. Right now? We do what we've been asked to do, support each other as best we can and remember what Churchill said:
“We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.”
Just so you know--
Graham's 9...and a ham, just like his little sister.
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