Fear, Hope, and Community Bind Us

Fear, Hope, and Community Bind Us

By Lisa Rutherford

During my 72 years, I’ve survived many challenging times. Born just after the end of WWII my early life felt the effects of that experience. Deprivation, but a feeling of community during the war years left their marks on my folks, both of whom were very community-oriented and careful with money and goods. This has taught me; fear, hope, and community bind us.

Our current situation is different from many challenging times I’ve faced: 1950’s polio epidemic, 1950’s atomic bomb scare, 1960’s Cuban missile crisis, 1970’s energy crisis, 1980’s savings and loan crisis, Dot.com bubble and crash of the early 2000s, the housing crisis leading to the Great Recession of the mid-2000s, and, of course, the 9/11 attack. Each time I was concerned about the outcome of these crises with the exception of the polio crisis since, given my tender age at that time, I was unable to fully appreciate the severity of the situation. That said the polio crisis is perhaps the one most similar to what we face now.

I do remember when neighbors came down with polio there was no vaccine to help them until 1955 when I was eight. Iron lungs were the only things available before then to help. One iron lung cost the same as a house at that time. Talk about a challenge for our nation and our population. Polio history goes as far back as the 1700s but it wasn’t until the early 20th Century epidemic that its presence became prevalent and is still battled in some areas. The polio epidemic came on more slowly probably due to a smaller worldwide population and fewer travel opportunities. Even now, it takes only one traveler with polio to bring the disease into the United States. 58 thousand cases in 1952 resulted in around three thousand deaths in a U.S. population of 158 million.

Before polio was understood there was great fear. At one point, people associated water with the disease and public pools were even closed before it was found that chlorine was a chemical that actually helped inactivate the virus. Ultimately, it was formaldehyde that was used in the vaccine created by Jonas Salk, but this goes to show that at this point we do not know what will be the silver bullet for dealing with the coronavirus.

I provide this history of polio to reveal that we can make it through these bad times. Now polio is virtually eradicated. However, it’s even more important now with our larger population to take extra care with the coronavirus. Now we are faced with a new situation creating much fear making many feel that they must horde goods at the expense of other citizens who also need similar essential goods. We are living in a community that purports to be a community willing to help each other, but in many ways, we are not seeing that during this crisis when we go to stores. Store shelves are empty. Customers are trying to take more than the allowed amounts of toilet paper and more. What we see is people loading up on toilet paper, bottled water and more at the expense of others being able to get what they need, too. Is our water system at risk?! That’s news to me. Costco gets sixty pallets of bottled water daily and yet cannot keep up with the rush by customers to get bottled water. Yes, water intake during this time is important but tap water is sufficient. It doesn’t burden this planet with the plastic proliferation that we are already seeing and which doesn’t need to get worse. We don’t need to use one bad situation to make another bad situation even worse! Scary times make us little humans do strange things.

In spite of all these challenges, our nation has made it through many difficult times during my life and I always had hope, during past trying times. I have hope now that we will also get through this. But we can’t do it by running over each other to get as many rolls of toilet paper and as many bottles of water as we can in an effort to protect ourselves and our loved ones. Yes, our lives and theirs are important, but if we are all just thinking about ourselves and our own loved ones, this will be a more difficult time than it already is.

I hope that those who are not in the at-risk groups will remember that they can be carriers and not even know it. When I was ill last fall, the doctor told me that we are more contagious before we show symptoms. Some could be carrying the virus to your loved ones and not know it. It’s imperative that we all be careful no matter what our age or health and follow CDC guidelines.

I also hope that during this crisis the awareness of the value of our public health workers will be driven home, particularly those at the low-end of the pay scale. Home health workers are notoriously underpaid and yet have some of the most demanding and often thankless jobs. Now, they’ve had COVID-19 exposure added to their risks and yet they are not compensated for that additional risk.

Senator Romney’s idea about giving $1,000 to every person might help some at the low-end of our economy but certainly, people such as me and many others do not need an additional $1,000 when our country’s finances and many important businesses are in dire straits right now. We need to assure that our airlines make it through this situation so they are able to be available when the dust settles on this situation. We need to assure that money flows to health facilities to provide the necessary equipment and satisfy other needs. If, as is being advised at this time, individuals are not willing or able to go out and spend money in restaurants and stores, giving them an additional $1,000 is not going to calm their virus fears such that they will rush out. The decision to support individuals in need must be made carefully and with specificity.

And finally, as we are warned to wash our hands frequently to help ward off COVID-19 including under nails what about those long fingernails? Turns out those nails can be some of the dirtiest things around. CDC recommends short nails to maintain proper hygiene. Long nails may be glamorous, ladies, but they are not healthy!

Yes, at 72 I’ve seen much and made it through many tough times. Being in the at-risk group makes this even more challenging. However, I still have hope that we can pull through this also and get back to enjoying our lives and rebuilding our economy. There is much for which to be grateful.

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