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Fear and Panic in Florida
My husband and I must be the only two seniors who embrace sanity over panic. We live in a 55+ community, where many people have pre-existing conditions or simply don’t take care of themselves. To deal with their anxiety regarding the COVID-19, they feel they have to do something. They’ve decided to shop. When we went to do our weekly shopping, you would have thought that a five-force hurricane was offshore bearing down on us. Shelves were cleared of bottled water, milk, and toilet paper. I’m not sure why they’ve gotten toilet paper, but I guess for those of us who are spoiled Westerners, toilet paper is a necessity.
We walked through the store, shaking our heads. I hope those people are feeling more at ease. I doubt it.
The fact is, the mystery and uncertainty of the COVID-19 virus are terrifying to people. They go to their worst-case scenario: we’re all going to die. Dead people will be lying in the streets, and those of us remaining will trip over their corpses. Those frightened people won’t tell you how they feel, but at a subconscious level I’m pretty sure that the fear and panic reaches those extreme levels.
So how are my husband and I experiencing the threat? Well, my husband was diagnosed with a bronchial-lung condition, bronchiectasis, 25 years ago. That means the cilia in his bronchial tubes, those little hairs that keep junk out of his lungs, have disappeared over time. His lungs are damaged and continue to get worse, as he coughs on a regular basis. Yes, he’s one of those seniors with an underlying medical condition. He’s been told that there’s no treatment, no cure, but he won’t die from it. He’ll die from something else. Right.
But we figure we’re homebodies and don’t go out much. Except we do go out to eat occasionally. We were going to a diner that we go to infrequently, then realized people might be worried by his coughing. So, okay, we went to the restaurant in our housing development, where many people will recognize him and know his condition. And then, too, nursing homes are becoming more and more restricted, so I may be barred from seeing my hospice patient soon. And I have two small groups who are scheduled to meet in my home in the next two weeks; I wonder if participants will be willing to come to at least one of them. The other group has only three of us; one said we can sit three feet apart; the other has a challenged immune system.
And then there is the flight planned to Baltimore; I’m going on my own, but I could unintentionally bring home whatever “guest” might hook up with me. We can wait several months to go on a mini-vacation to the Tampa Zoo and the Dali Museum, although we’d hoped to go in April. And the 12-day cruise beginning at the end of May, starting in Israel—who knows what will happen?
The world will not come to an end if all these plans fall through. There are people who are sick with the virus, and some have even died. My concerns are minor compared to theirs.
But we have a lot of uncertainty. Rather than denying those feelings, we are acknowledging them, facing them directly and trying to maintain an attitude of “not knowing,” of curiosity. We may coast through this time, illness-free. We may at some point decide to stay home and enjoy the many interests that we have here. We may feel sad about lost opportunities or pray for those who do become ill. We know that we will die one day; we just hope it is later rather than sooner. We will appreciate life, one day at a time, as best we can.
We’re just not the fear and panic type.
P.S. We received an email last night stating that nearly all the facilities in our development including the gyms will be closed indefinitely. They asked residents not to steal the hand sanitizer equipment and sanitary wipes.
Published in Culture
LOL! “Trilogy” looses its meaning once you publish that fourth novel in the series . . .
Thanks, Susan. It’s very sad, and losses like this are happening billions of times over every day, some greater, some milder.
Your experience is a good reminder of the true answer to the question that many are asking, and getting nothing but nonsensical answers to:
They cannot be practically measured in money because the economic goods lost–the human needs and wants left unsatisfied because the opportunity to obtain them by purposeful action has been take away–are not priced by markets.
If you stop and think about it, the real economic impact isn’t measured by changes in the production structure, like “lost jobs”, as we are constantly told by the progressive media and the power-hungry politicians and their teams of economics quacks.
That’s because people don’t visit loved ones in order to create jobs. Exactly the opposite. They work in order to be able to visit loved ones, and satisfy other real human needs and wants.
As Adam Smith taught, the purpose of production is consumption. Not the other way around.
Beautifully said, @markcamp. When I visit my friend, I’m not sure she even recognizes me, at least at first. But then we settle in, she at least senses she must know me. She will look at my volunteer badge and say my name, as if she’s seeing it for the first time. But the main thing is that we share a dry sense of humor and a certain intimacy in spite of the mental distance. People like her are losing out, since most of her connection with people is the staff, who are very attentive. But it’s not the same.
I understand, I’m pretty sure.
I suppose that soulful commonality–the dry humor–is a powerful connecting-force, one that is able to largely overcome the more superficial losses you describe–recognition by monikers, or by the visual sense or narratives of recent history. She truly knows you, whatever your name and whatever past events link you, and you her, and you truly communicate with each other.
I have a very close friend in France, her husband died several years ago. We’ve been friends since we were 15 and 16 years old. About the Corona Virus, she sent this e-mail from France today:
(I hope the corona virus crisis will be over soon, but am doubtful. I think that we are having an “over-crowding” phenomenon, When world population (or an animal population in a small area ) gets too large for the food supply, or the “living-space” for each individual is too small, they “kill each other off” by fighting or an epidemic disease seems to develop. I learned that( in college ( I think) and it makes perfect sense. Certainly the world is too full now for comfortable living -except for the very rich– so it makes sense.)
She really believes this nonsense. I wrote her back to dispel this idea but she won’t get it until tonight.
I’ve had such thoughts, too, but then I remember that the world was already too full and overcrowded when the Black Death came around. We came up with ways to deal with the problem of people living too close together.