5/3/2020 Thoughts on reopening
I hope this finds you healthy and well. As always, I write from the perspective of my own privilege of being healthy and employed; I try to expand beyond my potential blind spots, but I know I do not always succeed.
If you are here in Washington state, you are experiencing another month of staying at home. Our state leadership has released a set of conditions for phases of reopening. My county, at this moment, might qualify for an exception from the stay-at-home rules based on our population size and relatively low and stable number of cases. We don't know, yet, if this indicates we can breathe a sigh of relief or should brace ourselves for more infections. Nationally, we are still seeing desperately sad numbers describing the loss of health, loss of life, and loss of livelihoods.
Under such stress, it's perhaps not surprising that the divisions of thought are ratcheting up. I am not an expert on public health or economics. It seems to me, as I review the information available, that the answers to preserving our physical and economic health are the same:
Massive expansion of testing and contact tracing, so that quarantine and isolation can be focused where needed;
Support for front-line health care, including treatment equipment such as ventilators and dialysis machines and protective equipment for health care workers;
Intensive investment in research and testing to produce a vaccine and treatments;
Guaranteed sick leave for all and coverage of all treatment-related expenses;
Economic relief payments sent directly to people, guaranteed for the next several months;
Suspension of evictions and utility cutoffs nationwide;
Grants paid directly to small businesses, based on need, without private banks in the middle;
Any and all federal money supporting large corporations must tied to accountability for keeping people employed.
In other words, supporting everyone's health and economic well-being is our way forward. Presenting these goals as mutually exclusive (we either protect health or protect the economy, one or the other needs to be sacrificed) is playing into the agenda of those who would divide and conquer. Be sure to watch who benefits from us turning on one another: it is not the majority, that's for sure.
The consequences of this pandemic will be with us for years. Our commitment to the health and well-being of all will be tested often. Our ingenuity and creativity will be challenged to find ways to support our communities, and the most marginal among us. The temptation to blame "them" - whomever we perceive as being on the "other side" - will be strong.
Let's fill ourselves up with energy and action to help one another, so that there is no room for the wedges of the powerful to turn us against one another. Let's reopen our hearts and set our shoulders to the work of caring for our communities, in whatever ways we can.
Sent with love and gratitude,
Liz