The Isolation Annals…..

Wow. Just wow. We are now entering our third month in this government-mandated but self-imposed isolation experiment. We have learned new terms. Instead of “chilling and Netflix” we are social distancing and sheltering at home. I call it an experiment because nothing like this has been tried before in the history of the modern world. We are keeping our distance, and changing not only the way we live, but the very way we exist, in order to keep each other from getting sick from a virus that may or may not kill us.

We’ve all heard the crazy conspiracy theories, but I think the truth is so much simpler and so much scarier. There is a pathogen out there that we have no treatment for and no prevention for. It is easily spread and it attacks the most vulnerable among us, with one notable exception: it doesn’t appear to attack the very young at nearly the same rate or severity as those of us who are elderly or have co-morbidities. Oh wait! After nearly three months of being told that the young are relatively safe, we are finding the virus does indeed attack children, and with completely different symptoms that we are seeing in adults! What IS this virus and what does it want? Where did it come from? When will it go away? Some are saying it will never go away, that this is our new normal. Which is a really ironic statement, since what we are currently experiencing is so far from normal as to be in another galaxy.

The last time there was something this scary going on in the world was the mid to late 1980’s. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was causing AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) in gay men, and killing them in droves. But HIV required that you do something in order to get it–have sex with an infected partner, share a contaminated needle, be given an infusion of contaminated blood. Something. Covid-19 requires nothing other than you go about your normal life and simply breathe in infected droplets or touch a contaminated surface, oftentimes from someone who has no symptoms and therefore has no clue they are infected. Granted, HIV was much more deadly, killing at a much higher rate per infected person, but those of us who did not engage in unprotected sex, or share needles to inject drugs had little to fear from it. The coronavirus does not discriminate. You could be the healthiest person on your block, eat all the right foods, get the requisite rest every night, exercise as directed by the NIH, and you STILL could contract a dangerously scary case of Covid-19 and end up in the hospital, on a ventilator. And the ventilators?? They are now finding out why so many of those who reached the stage where it appeared a ventilator was necessary got sicker and died. It turns out a ventilator only made the symptoms it was trying to help worse. A lot worse, in about 80% of the cases, according to New York officials.

In order to stop the spread of the virus so our hospitals would not be overwhelmed, we were told to stay home, except for essential errands, such as getting food and medicine. Restaurants, hotels, bars, salons, and all types of service industry businesses were closed, many never to reopen. Schools and colleges closed, and parents are gamely attempting to homeschool their children, as well as work from home if they are fortunate enough to have a job that can be done remotely. People stopped traveling and gas reached its lowest price in decades, but we couldn’t enjoy it because we had no place to go. What is this new world we find ourselves in? And how will it change us? Because change us it will. Make no mistake about that. Just as 9/11 changed the way we fly, the coronavirus will change the way we live, in so many fundamental ways.

Some things will change that I will truly miss–spontaneous hugs upon seeing someone I hadn’t seen in a while. Or maybe I had just seen them–no matter, I am a hugger. Now, I have to settle for an especially warm smile and hope they don’t confuse it with my resting bitch face. I fear people will be wearing masks for a very long time whenever they are out in public and cannot control their proximity to other people. I find that incredibly sad, because we all become strangers when half our face is hidden. Instead of a potential new friend, strangers stay strangers because even if they are smiling at us, we can’t see it! It is hard enough to make new friends in the most open of times, but now? I fear it will be next to impossible. We are going to become reticent and standoffish, even if our natural inclination is towards friendliness and openness. We will all become more closed off, which will lead to even more isolation. I fear there will be a domino effect of people keeping more to themselves than ever before. An epidemic of loneliness for our society may ensue, because we cannot gather in the groups we used to gather in, at concerts, at movies, at sporting events. We may not know these people at such events, but we shared an experience with them, and so were kindred spirits on some level. Now, that won’t happen, at least for a very long time and maybe never. Celebrations that were scheduled for months or even years in advance had to be cancelled, or held in empty churches, synagogues, and stadiums and viewed remotely via Zoom or Facetime. These are the things that bring people together, the things that make memories to sustain us when we are far apart. What will sustain us now that all our time is spent apart?

Some states and counties are tentatively reopening parts of their economy. People are anxious to go back to work, to earn a paycheck, to reclaim their life in whatever new iteration it must take now. Next week’s blog post will talk about our baby steps to get back to what was, at least as closely as we dare. How has this lockdown changed you or your family? What is your biggest challenge during this challenging time?

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us