coronavirus – Life and Lims

On the power of fear

Fear is a powerful and primal emotion. It’s useful immediately but does more damage than good if allowed to continue for more than a short time. I’ve noted it’s done a lot of damage in individuals and our society in this time of pandemic.

We were right to be afraid, in certain amounts, of the novel coronavirus. When it first emerged on the scene, we only knew it was killing and infecting many in China (and since it was China, which isn’t exactly known for free speech and dissemination of accurate information, that rightly made it a possibility that the few facts we supposedly knew could be completely wrong either direction), and it was spreading. Scientists knew very little about how it acted, how it spread, how severe it was, what the death and infection rates were. Our governments decided to take the drastic step of ordering individuals to shelter in place and closing down much of normal life. At the time, that seemed a safe bet — for two or four weeks, as we took a little time to get hospitals better prepared and figure out how to make better policy decisions after that short full shutdown.

After a few months of shutdown and some devastating consequences in countless areas of individual and communal life, fear is still running rampant. However, now our scientists know more. There are more data and facts available. Studies are underway; some have already concluded and yielded useful information that can guide policy and sound reasoning as we await even more important data and conclusions. At this point, fear levels in people are all over the map. Some are so afraid that they won’t leave their homes even after 10 weeks or more of shutdowns. In some areas of the country, this fear is more understandable than in others. Some people don’t believe the virus is at all serious and have no fear at all of going about normal life. And then there are plenty of levels of fear in between, leading to various reactions and decisions about how to live life, how to interact in society in any way.

I can say this: Those who still experience the highest levels of fear tie it to virtue, and that leads to judgment of all those who don’t share the same levels of fear. I witnessed a woman in a level of authority in our school system talk at a meeting (on Zoom/YouTube) share how she has seen great fear in the eyes of some constituents. And I could see in her face that because of that deep fear she saw that their opinions (naturally and without doubt; it should be accepted as FACT) should carry the most weight (compared to any other constituents who had varying opinions along a spectrum) as others in authority discussed how to make decisions pertaining to thousands of students (and their families).

Some people’s fear (it really is debatable whether it’s rational or irrational or anywhere in between) shut down the reasoned opinions and concerns of a whole other group of people. And that itself makes me a bit afraid. Because if we automatically give the most credence to those who have the most fear, fear will rule. Emotion will win out every single time. Emotions should be validated, considered, weighed. But reason, with emotions kept in check and tamed to some degree, should be considered and weighed more. If we let fear rule, it becomes the highest virtue, a moral imperative, and that is an outcome of this pandemic that will be far more dangerous than the illness itself.

Humans gonna be humans

I’ve thought a lot recently about human nature. How it relates to our behaviors in this pandemic/shutdown and how it relates to other important worldwide issues, like trying to clean up the planet. This is just me, but I really think that our leaders don’t NEARLY often enough take into consideration how humans tend to behave and react. And that can vary culture to culture on some issues, and be the same relating to others.

Take litter or the use of plastic bags and straws: California has legislated the use of bags and straws, but I don’t think it’s had any real effect on how much plastic is in the environment. There are a certain percentage of people who are going to litter and not bother to take an item to a trash can that may be only 5 feet away. (I see this ALL THE TIME. I’ve witnessed people just setting down a half-full 7-Eleven cup in a parking spot as they back out and leave rather than walk it 5 feet to a garbage can.) They certainly won’t be bothered to recycle. They’re going to be the ones to keep buying (for one use) the thicker “reusable” plastic bags, which must be reused quite a few times to make them worth using that much more plastic for one bag, thus generating more plastic into our environment. Then there are others of us who always separate our trash from recycling items, always throw away our litter in trash cans, always walk our grocery carts to the designated spots. (And even people who try to do what they can environment-wise too often just forget to carry around reusable bags, whether they’re cloth or plastic.)

Then there’s this pandemic. There are people who don’t think it’s serious at all and maybe even are deniers, and there are people who absolutely will not go out for fear of getting sick and/or spreading it to someone who’s high-risk, and there are all kinds of reactions/behaviors in between those two ends of the spectrum. For my part, I know COVID-19 is serious. It has infected many and has killed many. Here at its “beginning” across the world these past 6 months or so, it likely has killed more than the flu (I don’t know if we’re really going to know precise, entirely accurate numbers for another year, really, so I’m just spitballing this). Since it’s new, scientists and world leaders alike have been just trying to establish the facts about it, which takes time, and data — data that comes from more infections and deaths, unfortunately. They’ve had to make changes periodically about approaches to fighting it, treating it, locking down towns and states, countries, etc. We’ve been told different information over the course of the past few months, and while some of this information comes from some questionable sources (most of which I’ll personally label misinformation), enough comes from respected specialists. And enough of these differing conclusions (conclusions by experts drawn from facts, or data that’s the best they have at certain points in time) are reported on in reputable news media that we can’t just say people in the general public who may question or have differing opinions about necessary actions from what our leaders are telling us are on the fringe in some way.

Take me: I’m well-educated and very well-read, and I keep up (lately, almost too much for my own mental health) with the news from reputable local and national media. I’d say I’m a moderate/conservative on the political/social spectrum. And I have concluded after 9 weeks (in California) of sheltering in place that the results of this extreme action (which may have been warranted for 4 weeks, let’s say) have become far more damaging than the pandemic itself. And while opening up may lead to more deaths than we might have if we stayed sheltered in place with the same closures (which in certain respects we really can’t be sure will be the result, because of various factors at this stage of the pandemic), I think it needs to happen. And I’ve observed that our government leaders simply aren’t taking into account that many human beings are being affected. Very, very seriously. And probably most of these human beings (let’s just say aside from those in the NYC area) don’t personally know very many people who have even had the virus, let alone been seriously ill from it or died (I live in a decent-size city and have friends still in a number of locations around the U.S. and only know a few people who have had COVID). That may come across sounding like they (or I) lack empathy, but it’s simply what’s going to happen. If this were wartime — many have compared today’s situation to World War II (a false and unhelpful comparison anyway, which begs a different post) — or we were seeing hundreds of people we know in our communities die from this, we would be really motivated to stay home and do every big and small thing possible to keep the virus from spreading. But that’s not happening.

These human beings are also making comparisons about all kinds of issues that may be necessary on a legal level (and let’s face it, our society has been changed thoroughly and irrevocably by lawsuits, far too many of which have been frivolous) but that don’t seem to just “make sense” to most people who aren’t lawyers or politicians. It’s hard not to ask a lot of questions about policies or common situations being logical or rational when you’ve lost a job or know a lot of people who are in perilous economic straits, or whose senior kids are missing out on important milestones and are really disappointed, or whose kids are all at home and truly aren’t getting a “distance” education (for lots of reasons). Or who are not able to visit beloved family members in the hospital, or who need medical care for “non-emergent” concerns but can’t get it, or who are suicidal or at least dealing with far more difficult mental health conditions than when life was going about “normally.” When large retailers are open, rightly so, so people can get the necessities, but small businesses that could supply some of those same things can’t be open, especially after 9 weeks of shutdown, it doesn’t make sense logically anymore (it’s rationally a lot safer in a small business, where the foot traffic is a lot less and staff can easily clean in between customers, for example). Human beings are going to question. We’re going to ask “Why?” a whole lot. And when we don’t get reasonable answers, we’re going to agitate. We’re going to get mighty annoyed about being stuck at home (let alone rightfully scared about loss of income and inability to pay bills or getting that medical care, etc.) when it logically doesn’t seem compelling enough to do so anymore.

Politicians throwing breadcrumbs of tiny changes aren’t going to fix that. School systems not acknowledging people’s fair and reasonable concerns and questions are going to find themselves the subjects of a backlash.

“We the People” are going to ask questions and get mighty upset when we don’t get real-people, human-being answers to those questions. When our leaders speak and act in legalese or politician-ese, rather than acting like fellow human beings and replying, “Look, we get what you’re saying. If I didn’t have this experience or viewpoint or training or this legal constraint of X, Y, Z, I’d feel the same way. I kind of do. But A and B have to be done for these reasons. However, your observations are reasonable, and we can do C and D.”

We the People want our leaders to remember they are People too. We want them to speak to us as such and to involve us “regular folks” in decision-making in certain things — and there are probably more of those things that we can be involved in than they may think. Because as things are going, if this impossible state of non-living continues for much longer (it’s already unsustainable), it’s going to get ugly. For the sake of our civilization, it’s time to acknowledge that there is a lot more going on for most of the population that’s extremely serious and merits help and change.

As we “open back up”, and until there’s a viable vaccine that can help get our country and world back to a semblance of normal life (I really don’t think there’s going to be a “cure”), humans are still going to be humans. There are going to be people who don’t make any adjustments, who may come across as jerks, having learned nothing after this lengthy period of quarantine. That’s human beings for ya. But there are going to be plenty of people who will do what they can to be respectful and cautious, to do better about hand-washing or other hygiene, who will keep their distance, who may wear a mask, who will use particular caution about not being in contact with individuals who are at the most risk. It’s time we allow that to happen.

News media, social media and facts in the time of coronavirus

I’m going to share my take on information/misinformation/freedom of speech and press as a journalist. This is just my take, with my opinions uniquely my own, created by my whole set of personal circumstances but heavily informed by my training and long years of editing/writing experience in the news field (this includes me having to teach and train and work with younger and less experienced writers who were still learning to really appropriately acquire information through research and interviews and then correctly interpret and analyze it and then synthesize it for readers in a way that is clear, informative/understandable to most readers, and accurate).

First, I am generally unlikely to watch a YouTube video that is popular and going around Facebook but that has already been marked as problematic by what I consider to be trusted sources. Almost all the time, the people who created/are the “specialists” in the videos are just one person. They are not drawing on the expertise of multiple experts (the more experts who have studied a particular issue that can weigh in on the topic with generally similar advice or information, the better; that’s science. Science is coming up with hypotheses, testing those through rigorous experiments/studies, and then publishing results and having those peer-reviewed. These videos with a single so-called “expert” do not have that weight of science to back them up.

Another problem that comes up with these videos is that the “experts” have already been shown to be extremists with no evidence to back up their claims or their past claims have been debunked time and time again by scholars in the field who do have the weight of science behind them. No, I’m not going to watch a video made by an extreme anti-vaxxer. I do not agree with those who are anti-vaccination in general and who think that children should not be vaccinated for standard diseases that have in the past wiped out millions and millions. The science does not support anti-vaxxers, and I will not waste time watching a video made by one of them.

Last little point: If I already can see I’m very unlikely to be interested in the videos, I’m not going to click and thereby contribute to these people’s paydays (yes, this is just one reason it’s not “going to hurt anything” if you check some things out that you may initially already be a bit skeptical about).

To those who are saying their freedom of speech is being taken away/violated when these videos are removed from certain platforms, I say: Freedom of speech means the government cannot infringe on what you say. Even that, however, has some limitations: not all speech is protected, such as threats, child pornography, plagiarism and defamation. Private individuals and entities may, however, choose to limit your speech. Facebook and YouTube can do what they please in limiting what we share or post. That doesn’t mean that either won’t face consequences for limiting too much, such as if enough of us customers raise a ruckus about it and it makes a difference to their bottom line; it also doesn’t mean the government won’t look into some of these entities’ practices and establish some laws/rules about how these entities must move forward.

But for the moment, if FB or YouTube is removing a video time after time, those entities have reasons for doing so, and those are outlined under their terms and conditions. Facebook, for example, after being investigated by the government (various times about various concerns), has supposedly set out to do better by its users in terms of what information it allows to be disseminated quickly on its platform. It’s set up fact checks to pop up in response to certain popular videos or articles that keep getting shared that have been debunked thoroughly by reputable sources. It’s also reserved the right to remove some. It’s theoretically trying to at least provide some real news so that FB users who hop on quickly to look at their feeds don’t see something shared and hop off FB without at least having a chance to see the “other side” or the facts. I welcome seeing this kind of give-and-take, so at least some of the information that’s been vetted by professionals is quickly available. I also do try to do due diligence myself when I see something that just seems a bit fishy by searching Google for some related information, ideally multiple news articles from trusted media.

News media are an important part of our democratic republic and are protected right after free speech, and they do perform a vital role in our country. We need to be able to trust that someone is looking into the facts. (That’s another note for another day, but let’s just say for now the “mainstream media” are still the best source we have to look to for the “truthiest” facts. 😉 )

Social media is pretty dangerous when it comes to “facts” because everyone is on the same level. Anyone can say anything on social media. It’s not backed by science, it’s not the opinion of more than one person, it’s not vetted by anyone trained in anything (let’s just say the “average user” here). And any comment, anything you say, will be out there in seconds. Social media, in this case, are the opposite of news media: any news story takes time. It takes time for a trained journalist to track down the facts, to research, to interview experts. It takes time to put the story together. It takes training to know how to sift through that information gained through research and find what’s at the heart of it, the facts/truth as well as they can be found at that time. It takes a good eye and ear and experience that becomes almost a sixth sense (an earned one) of knowing what’s truth and what’s hooey or even just half-truth.

That being said, you have every right to watch any video you want, wherever it is on the scale of facts or expert insight or science. You have every right to demand that a platform not take down what you want it to keep up. You have a right to gather information any way you see fit. This is such a fascinating beauty of our democracy: you can do what you want most of the time, whether it’s great for you and others or is ill-advised, and anywhere on a spectrum of truth/falsehood. You are very welcome to research any topic you want more information about, whether it starts on Facebook with someone linking to an article or YouTube video, or you go to pretty much anywhere on the internet. You are free to do so in our free country! Go USA!

I may at times watch some videos or read some articles or links to blogs because I think they bring up some important points that maybe we haven’t considered or that haven’t been explored enough in the media yet, and I know a lot of my friends have been watching various videos now for that very reason; I support you as you have mentioned this. There may be some considerations we need to think about that just haven’t been discussed enough in “mainstream media.” And I will draw my own conclusions from what I read/watch according to my own life experience and journalism training. My opinions will be similar to others’ and be something plenty of others disagree with. I’m pretty much moderate-to-conservative politically and socially, and a lot of what I conclude will likely align with my views on that kind of scale. Sometimes not.

The novel coronavirus is sometimes exacerbating our political and social views and exposing how many people just don’t trust the media anymore, which I consider pretty sad, in part because I know that most journalists are still doing the best they can to deliver news in the way it’s supposed to be delivered, and in part because television cable channels have distorted what “the media” look like (the endless hours of very wide spans of opinions and heated arguments on cable news have, in my opinion, sullied the important profession of news delivery, making many people in general just have a sour taste in their mouths when they think “news”). And the most important reason I’m sad about that lack of trust is precisely because our great free country needs a functioning media more than it ever has, and ironically, those who are most vocal about the Bill of Rights and other amendments tend to forget that the press is in that set of amendments for vital reasons.

I do get it, though. Our political parties and leaders have become divided by a huge chasm, and we the people are getting sick of it. Most of us want to see our politicians do what we voted them in to do, to work together, to hammer out solutions to problems, to enact laws, that will benefit all of us in some way because they have been crafted by consensus, collaboration, compromise, and even (gasp!) selflessness. And our media have to report on what’s happening. That’s what’s happening, folks. And in a time that’s uncertain and even the experts tend to be sharing information that comes from a lot of different angles, with plenty of differing conclusions and even statistics, we’re going to turn to information that just makes the most sense to us.

Days and weeks matter in this time of COVID-19. A lot can change in understanding of the virus, in reactions and actions, in policies, in the science, because it’s so new, and in science, more time and more data equals better and more accurate conclusions (and consensus with peer review). The media is reporting on all that, too.

In short, we’re confused, we’re exhausted, we’re strung out, we’re frustrated. We sometimes don’t know exactly whom to trust. Eventually, things will change in this time of novel coronavirus. But I hope that our leaders, the media, and we the people will learn from this experience, because all of us can do better, in either a small degree or larger degree (yes, I’m looking at you especially, politicians). We can be a little smarter about what we share and what we say when we share it. Some healthy skepticism is good, and even some healthy trust is good.