Your friend Jim George thinks you'd be a great addition to Ricochet, so we'd like to offer you a special deal: You can become a member for no initial charge for one month!
Ricochet is a community of like-minded people who enjoy writing about and discussing politics (usually of the center-right nature), culture, sports, history, and just about every other topic under the sun in a fully moderated environment. We’re so sure you’ll like Ricochet, we’ll let you join and get your first month for free. Kick the tires: read the always eclectic member feed, write some posts, join discussions, participate in a live chat or two, and listen to a few of our over 50 (free) podcasts on every conceivable topic, hosted by some of the biggest names on the right, for 30 days on us. We’re confident you’re gonna love it.
This is very interesting and a good look into your experience there, thanks. Here in Tennessee, most of us don’t know a single person that has it let alone been hospitalized or died. It is really hard to convince people that they are in a dire emergency when in fact virtually no one is sick. Such a different perspective from what you have experienced there.
My daughter and her husband are living in Manhattan. It’s been an extremely stressful three months.
Your post is a story well told. I don’t think people around the rest of the country have been told what’s happening in New York City as well as you have described it here. Thank you.
I’m sorry you lost your friends.
When considering whether or not hospitals have been overloaded, it’s easy to forget that they had to shift resources away from regular needs. Is a hospital overloaded if it can’t handle normal emergencies, cancer screenings, etc and COVID or only if it can’t handle COVID by itself?
It has been controversial closing the Mass while our Texas suburb experienced few cases of the virus. I expect it will hit us more either in the next month or in the fall.
When public Mass resumed, albeit under heavy restrictions (masks, sanitizer in place of holy water, 200 people max per Mass in a parish of 3,000+ families, several feet apart in every third pew), we have yet to have a Mass with max attendance.
Many of our parishioners are old or in contact with elders. Many more trust the media scares. Others still think it’s essentially a bad flu season. But I suspect some are struggling with faith in the Eucharist after the bishops treated Christ’s body as less essential than groceries.
Exactly. Thanks.
Great post, Manny. Thank you.
Glad to hear your son is doing well with school, and learning about your work. Nearly everyone talks about the new normal that’s coming. I tend think that little will change, except perhaps in education. Parents who see their kids doing better outside a traditional classroom, will not be in a hurry to return. I worry about the others, though.
Manny, thank you for such an open and poignant post. G-d continue to watch over you and yours.
It’s been jarring to overhear my parents (both in their late 70s) attend a couple of recent Zoom-conducted (Jewish) funeral services for contemporaries of theirs taken by the Angel of Death roaming the Boston area here the past umpteen weeks. One was a nursing home fatality; the other a lady who had been released from a downtown Boston hospital after stomach ulcer surgery to a post-op rehabilitation facility — only to contract the virus.
So at the anecdotal level this reinforces your observations about the risks of enclosed spaces. I’m endlessly grateful that my parents and I have abundant elbow room indoors and out where we live.
And I thoroughly agree with all your other observations about sheltering in place having proven essential for our specific neck of the woods, compared with other US regions’ experiences, needs, and perceptions.
I don’t begrudge these other parts of the country those differing experiences, needs, and perceptions — far from it. And in the same vein, it’s decidedly not our (Massachusetts’) place to dictate to the other states. Just so long as denizens of other states refrain from traipsing up here en masse for the time being…
There is no chance of that….seems as though the reverse is true.
Thank you, Manny, and blessings to you and your family!
A beautiful piece, Manny. I’m so sorry for all your losses. I think you’ve written about sweet Luigi before, no? When people write about such loving and generous people, it’s easy to remember them. Take care of yourself.
I don’t remember writing about Luigi before but it’s possible. My memory isn’t the greatest. (Maybe I recently mentioned he was in the hospital before he passed away. That seems to be in the back of my mind. )
The inability to attend liturgies, particularly during Lent, Pascha, and now through Pentecost, has been disorienting. It’s like Lent has never really ended.
I’m very sorry for the loss of your friends. The nearest near-misses for me were the nephews of one of my wife’s friends – both nearly died, but these kids are at several removes from us. The only confirmed COVID case I know personally thought it was just a persistent sinus infection.
Glad the working from home worked out for you – it would have driven me nuts.
Yes, that’s exactly the feeling.
One thing – 40 out of 3500 is more like 1% than 10%.
Oh yeah, you’re right. Where was my mind. Sorry about that. I’ll correct that.
EDIT: I can’t edit it. It’s on Main Feed. I’ll just have to let it go for now.
This is a very important point. Experiences are very different all over the country, and we should keep that in mind when debating mask usage, “lockdown” regulations, etc. Where I live, we are not nearly as affected as NY/NJ but much more than most of the country. About 1% of our county has it/had it, and about 1.7% in my zip code specifically. As you might expect given those numbers, we know several neighbors and acquaintances who have it and one or two who have died. In addition, my wife’s mother, who was in a nursing home in Westchester County, NY, got it and ultimately passed away (tough to judge whether she should be counted as a COVID death, as she was quite infirm to begin with, but I think it’s fair to say it pushed her over the edge). In my area, and in areas like NY/NJ, I think folks should wear masks for now when in public, indoor spaces. Outside would be more of a judgement call depending on density.
That said, I completely understand folks in other parts of the country that are less affected (and less likely to be as affected because of factors like lower population density), chafing under one-size-fits-all rules and getting angry at the mandarins who seem to be enjoying the extra power this emergency gives them. And while I think some protesters have gone too far, I love that I live in a country where substantial portions of the population still viscerally react to the exercise of state power and question every move taken by the authorities, even in an emergency. That reaction, even overreaction, helps keep us free.
If some of us weren’t overreacting, then as a group we would almost certainly be underreacting. Of course, that applies to how we respond to the virus as well as how we respond to our governments’ responses, and both need to be adjusted for local conditions (three cheers for federalism!). Given all that complexity, I’m trying to be patient and tolerant of the frustrations of folks who are experiencing this differently all over the country.
They would be counted among recoveries alongside people who just had a sore throat and the sniffles. There are attempts to track hospitalization rates.
Thank you, Manny, for a beautiful and evocative essay. I’m very sorry for your losses; they sound like delightful people.
You’re welcome to all. And thank you for all your kind words.