Pandemic: dark days, silver linings & tender mercies

Bill Knight column for 3-26, 27 or 28, 2020 

News about the novel coronavirus COVID-19 can be overwhelming, leaving people not just helpless, but hopeless. However, in addition to persistent negatives, both physiological and political, there are positives of a sort, including a resurgence of real Mercies to opportunities in states of near-isolation.

The bad news ranges from consequences of failing to prepare for such an eventuality to difficult inconveniences: Supplies of masks and other protective gear are inadequate, and tests are scarce, so as dire as the case numbers seem, they’re probably worse – because tests aren’t available to say; government claims that a new stimulus provides paid sick leave are wildly exaggerated; the public is confused, or duped, by such misinformation, or scams or skeptics such as ex-Milwaukee sheriff David Clarke, who advised his 900,000 Twitter followers to ignore social-distancing recommendations and “go into the streets. If government doesn’t stop this foolishness, stay in the streets.”

Also, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s “shelter-in-place” order is a self-quarantine a bit reminiscent of the 14^th century bubonic plague edict that ships stay offshore for 40 days before disembarking (“quarantine” comes from the Venetian word “quarantena,” meaning 40 days.)

HOWEVER…

There are “essential services,” government says. (And grocery and restaurant workers. clerks and child-care workers, gas-station cashiers and truckers, warehouse stockers and other jobs exempt from shutdowns should no longer be dismissed as “unskilled workers.” It’s official: They’re “essential.”) No, “shelter in place” is not martial law. San Francisco’s police chief said there’d be a “compassionate, common-sense approach” to compliance; elsewhere, some successes are reported in China and South Korea, and an inspiring blend of resilience and optimism was exhibited in hard-hit Italy and Spain, where isolated residents sang together from balconies and from their windows applauded health-care workers; hardy restauranteurs and employees are offering take-out foods, with some giving free meals to students whose schools are closed; philanthropists ranging from Cub players Jason Heyward and Anthony Rizzo to former Democratic presidential candidates Andrew Yang and Mike Bloomberg are donating to relief efforts and health-care workers; and entertainers including Neil Diamond and Neil Young, Norah Jones and Kim Urban, Brian Wilson .and Waxahatchee, Code Orange and John Legend, Diplo and Coldplay’s Chris Martin all are performing online.

Meanwhile, other meaningful moments arise, and Mercies become more apparent and more common. In Abrahamic faiths, we’re taught that Mercies are comforting the sick, feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, welcoming the homeless, clothing the poor, freeing the prisoners and burying the dead (in Christianity); “feeding the hungry, visiting the sick, and freeing prisoners” (according to Islam’s Prophet Mohammad); and the great mitzvah Tzedakah notes that donors benefit as much or more from helping others as the recipients of charity (in Judaism’s Torah).

That was noticeable when Iran freed more than 80,000 political prisoners and President Trump said he was considering releasing all nonviolent federal inmates, and when Pritzker explained that employees at schools closed to limit the virus’ spread will be paid because the situation is an “Act of God.”

Avoiding exposure by removing yourself from crowds is reminiscent of the bubonic plague in the 1600s, when William Shakespeare wrote “Antony & Cleopatra,” “King Lear” and “Macbeth” in the year when he couldn’t work at London’s shuttered Globe Theater, and when Isaac Newton retreated to the secluded countryside where his observations would include the concept and effects of gravity.

If life is a journey, the road can be rough and dangerous, mystifying and gratifying. Maybe, human responses along the way help determine our destination as they ease others’ burdens, whether pestilence, poverty or prison.