Faith Works 3-28-20
Jeff Gill
Social dislocation vs. social distancing
___
Greetings from sunny, hot, and very windy Texas. Most of you know why I'm down here, missing out on floods and such in Ohio.
As I pack my parents' residence here in the Rio Grande Valley, in the retirement community where they lived half the year the last fifteen, I've had many sincere and lovely expressions from their long-time friends and neighbors down here about their love for my folks, and sorrow over Dad's death.
But as my sister and I have tried to observe the most basic precautions, since we did arrive here recently from out of state, we've been regularly handshaken and hugged whether we wanted to or not, and then told how silly all this worry about some flu bug is. Usually in some version of "we have the flu go through every year, and yes, a few older people are taken by it, but it doesn't warrant all this hooey."
Ahem. What I haven't been saying, mainly because a) I'm trying to be polite, and b) I really need to get back to packing and loading, is to point out that if we just see an infection rate in the US of 40%, and a mortality rate of 1% (I join Dr. Fauci in hoping it will be closer to .5%, but he warns it's as likely to be above 1% than down closer to the .1% of seasonal influenza), with those parameters the number who would die from coronavirus would be equal to the number we "know" statistically will die from heart disease & cancer . . . combined. We expect about 1,250,000 persons to die from heart disease (which took my father a week and a half ago, unexpectedly) and cancer. But a 40% infection rate, which is conservative, and a projected mortality rate of 1% would give you that many more deaths in 2020, the overwhelming majority being deaths that otherwise would not happen this year.
For everyone telling me that these "silly" restrictions are media hysteria and damaging to the economy: I don't know that you are taking seriously the economic impact and social dislocation (vs. social distancing) of a death. When someone unexpectedly dies, many more lives are put on hold, yanked out of shape, and turned inside out. Normal patterns end, and basic survival instincts kick in (not always productively). People take time off work, and are largely dysfunctional anyhow if you had them working. I'm still having to think steps for leaving the house or completing a task through twice and three times, and I make errors everyday of a basic sort.
Social distancing is a major pain in the kiester. I get it. I didn't have a funeral for my father. I'm still wrecked over that. But here's the thing: death is permanent. We can get through this, but I know many workers and businesses and yes, churches will be deeply scarred, even disabled functionally for some time to come. But death is permanent. Let's not lose sight of the fact that we're talking about a new source of bereavement and sorrow and loss rippling into our society which we have a chance to freeze and still and slow, and save many, many lives.
I can get over not having a funeral shortly after my dad's passing. But I could not get over knowing that an event, to do what I deeply wanted to have done, might be the indirect but very real source of even three or four avoidable deaths. Because death is permanent. And as a pastor, I know that while there is life there are options, choices, possibility, hope.
For a Christian, in death there is indeed hope. For this Christian, it's still a truth I'd share that in death there is an ending to many earthly options. Full stop. So I'm not in a hurry to die. I don't fear it, and I have hope for my dad and many others who have gone on before. But there are plenty of people waiting for me on the other side. I don't want to add to the greeting party by my actions.
The pool here in this retirement community is jam packed, and behind these walls and gates people forget that the troubles of the outside world come in and out with the caregivers and maintenance workers and yes, family packing up trailers to move surviving spouses home.
I just hope anyone reading this who thinks it's all hurting our country, and the recommendations just more foolishness from political manipulators, understands the difference between 40,000 deaths a year nationwide from seasonal influenza/flu and even a low mortality from coronavirus of 650,000 from 40% infection across the country and a .5% mortality. That's 650,000 families dropping everything to reach out and try to put their hearts and heads back in order, and that's an economic and social and spiritual impact that I fear is the least we can expect. And it's what many of us are bracing to handle in the year ahead.
Because there's already more than enough death to go around.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's handwashing and sanitizing as best he can. Tell him about your experiences with illness and contagion at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
