From my clutter: navigating the pandemic ethically

I had hoped to make this a "no coronavirus" zone this Saturday -- but so much of my brain and what I find to share is COVID-19 related that I'm breaking my resolve.

As readers here know, we spent last fall on Martha's Vineyard island off Massachusetts. It had occurred to me that this isolated spot was probably not a bad place to be in context of a pandemic. Apparently many have had the same thought and seasonal visitors are arriving months early. According to the Martha's Vineyard Times, there's a "rush of traffic." The newspaper interviewed a medical ethicist:

In a phone conversation with The Times, Ruth Faden, founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, spoke about the ethics behind people deciding to come to the Vineyard to leave areas where there’s been an outbreak or a growing number of confirmed cases.

Fader is a specialist in ethical issues in medicine, biomedical science, and public health. “In some respects I think it’s better if everybody stays put,” she said. Faden, a part-time Island resident, has been wondering herself whether to return to the Island. “The less movement the better and that’s because it’s just unclear what is happening.”

As for non full-time residents coming to the Island from areas with outbreaks or growing numbers of cases, Fader said it depends on what they know about their chances or likelihood of bringing COVID-19 to the Island. “How are you supposed to proceed in the absence of testing? Fader said. “Did these people do something ethically wrong? It’s something that is maybe not ethically ideal, but it’s hard to fault people. This is their home too and they love it.”

As to whether people have a moral obligation to try not to facilitate the transmission, Fader was blunt. “The answer is yes. We should be really careful.”

Heart warmingly, the notice I received today from the library I use on the island about closing assured me:

Our WiFi is operational and accessible from the parking lot and porch. You are welcome to use it.

I wonder whether the shuttered San Francisco Public Library is offering the same service. Guess I'll wander across the street and check.

Yes, the Mission branch of the SFPL does offer WiFi by the locked front door.

If you've got the mental energy for a long, thoughtful article about the psychological ramifications of living in the coronavirus zone, this from Peter M. Sandman and Jody Lanard, risk experts, is interesting. Maybe even insightful.

We relatively normal people are caught in a battle between our gut and our brain.

Our gut “knows” that we’re almost certainly facing a pandemic severe enough to disrupt our normal lives.

If we were 100% rational, our brain would know it too. “Star Trek’s” Mr. Spock would find the evidence persuasive that the COVID-19 threat is bad and rapidly getting worse. Mr. Spock would instantly understand COVID-19’s short doubling time – why one week nothing much was happening in northern Italy and a week later it was as if a Category 5 hurricane had hit them. Sure, the pandemic might fizzle; the virus might mutate into a milder strain; a miracle cure or vaccine might get invented overnight; the world could get lucky. But those are long shots. The vast majority of experts now expect at least a few very bad months, and maybe a couple of very bad years.

... Our guts are right. Our brains are behind the curve. Caught in our fear, self-doubt, and embarrassment, we do half-hearted pandemic preparedness. The same is true of our officials. They too are torn between the intuition that they’re not doing enough and the embarrassed fear that they might be doing too much. We suspect this accounts for their halfway or grossly belated containment and mitigation measures.

If only officials could tell us that they are feeling what we are feeling. They are. We’re sure they are. If they could say so, we might be able to help each other overcome our ambivalence and focus on facing the COVID-19 pandemic head-on, together. But saying so is a challenge.

Our terrified President is hopeless, but other officials could adopt this.

As I yelled across appropriate distance to a friend yesterday, this isn't making us behave better. There are reports:

Already we’re beginning to see suspicion and paranoia play out in public spaces. People struggling with allergies report that every cough elicits glares. In Sydney, Australia, reports say that a man died after he collapsed outside a Chinese restaurant and onlookers refused to perform CPR. Asian-Americans have reported racist comments and harassment, based on the wrongheaded belief that they’re more likely to be carrying the coronavirus.

Yes, Trump's administration is encouraging us to default to our racist and xenophobic impulses. So what else is new?

New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie is wondering

whether, in the aftermath of the coronavirus, Americans will lose even more faith in the ability of institutions to do anything. And if that happens, what does it mean for those of us who want to build a more humane society?

This is from Bouie's newsletter which I highly recommend. He's thinks both historically and with a vision toward possible futures. And shares both photos and recipes.