Why COVID-19 pandemic doesn't worry me as much as it should
Downtown Highland Park during the stay-at-home order
In about five weeks since COVID-19 pandemic started to have noticeable impact on our day-to day lives and four weeks since stay-at-home order took effect in Illinois, I've seen plenty of people, here in Illinois and elsewhere in United States (and other countries) seriously freak out about catching the disease. Seriously worry about dying. And I kept thinking that I'm not as worried about that as perhaps I should be.
It's not that I'm not worried. As people who follow me on Twitter and Facebook know, I've been freaking out about the potential long-term economic impact of the lockdown. I still hope to write a more detailed post about it someday soon, but suffice to say that while, a lot of times, I've been able to comfort myself with the knowledge that at least it's not the political and economic collapse of an entire country... I don't feel this way this time. Especially with every form of media except television in revenue freefall.
But, like I said, I have way more thoughts about that, which deserve their own post. What I'm trying to get at here is that I have been trying to figure out why I'm not as worried as so many others. Because, l don't get me wrong - it's not that I'm not worried at all. SARS-Cov-2 has shown itself to be more infectious than the original SARS, and the fact that there is growing evidence that most people who get it won't show symptoms and will unknowingly pass it on make it exceedingly dangerous. And from what I heard from noelct and others, getting the disease (or what may be the disease, because testing shortages and flaws), even if you do recover, actually going through the disease is chemo levels of terribleness. And there are scary, lingering questions about whether people who recover are really immune to it, whether they can spread the infection, whether some percentage of them might get reinfected, which would raise serious questions about the effectiveness of any vaccines that would make it through clinical trials...
But, when I go out, I'm still not all that worried.
Maybe it's because economic collapse is a more tangible fear to me, one that blots out others. It is, after all, a childhood-defining trauma, one that fundamentally affects my outlook on world and approach to life the way a pandemic never could.
Maybe it's because the danger seems more present in places like New York, or Seattle. I'm worried about Randi and Don, Grace and CC, the way I'm not about my family in the Midwest. As I commented elsewhere, to someone who grew up in St. Petersburg, the city with multiple mass graves filled with the bodies of almost a million who died during the Siege of Leningrad, mass burials strike a cord.
Maybe it's because I already had to live with the prospect of my own mortality hovering over me for six months. With Hodgekins Lymphoma, odds were in my favor, but navigating the world with a compromised immune system was no fun, and, Livejournal as my witness, I had some low points, and some pretty dark thoughts.
Maybe it's because I'm not exactly a stranger to compartmentalizing fears. I've been writing for Austin Weekly News since 2015, and I've covered some South Side neighborhoods for the Cook County Chronicle. The worst thing that ever happened to me was a kid trying to rob me with a toy gun, but my editor once wound up in the middle of a run-by shooting at a busy intersection, while doing a routine interview. He could have easily been wounded, or worse.
I've a family of a teen whose burnt body was found tossed in a garbage can. I've interviewed teens whose uncles, brothers and cousins were shot dead, sometimes for simply walking home and the bullet aimed for someone else hit them. I know that, just by being on the West Side, my chances of getting hurt increase. But I also know that if I think about it all the time, I wouldn't be able to do my job - so I don't. Except when I watch the news or read crime bulletins in major papers, it's not that unusual to hear a mention of a familiar intersection, a convenience store I passed by, a park where kids play basketball and older men fish.
Maybe it's because of some other reasons - or because of some combination of all of the above.
Now, that is not to say I'm careless. As I've often said, I strive to recognize foreshadowing in my life, and any protagonist that ignores health warnings is asking for trouble. I wash my hands regularly, try to keep a two-meter distance from people the best I can. In recent weeks, I've been using T-shirt pieces and bandanas to cover my mouth and nose, especially in stores and on public transit. I mean, mouth and nose coverings don't offer much protection from others' particulates, but there's always a chance I'm an asymptomatic carrier, so why risk it?
Besides, wearing a masks lets me do a little Grifter cosplay of sorts. WHile doing some photojournalism.
#covid19