Life in the times of COVID-19 brings out the best in many
It is the worst of times, yet it is still bringing out some amazing things in people in New York, one of the worst-hit COVID-19 regions in the world.
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Took a walk to the end of my street this morning before anyone was around and the cute kids in the little white house on the corner have laid out Easter eggs and some handpainted yard signs.
“We got this,” says one, another: “Stay strong.”
It’s hellish this new reality, but it is bringing out the absolute best in some.
About 40km south of us, the bravest people you can imagine are putting themselves on the front line of a war in fabled Manhattan that horror master Stephen King said earlier this week “has just been waiting to happen”.
A friend’s mother helped build the tent hospital in Central Park that evoked the end-of-days scenes from Gone with the Wind.
Now she’s so sick she can’t stop throwing up and her family worry from the other side of the world.
There are hourly reports of doctors, nurses and other hospital staff not having the personal protective equipment they need.
I woke up today to a widely shared social media post by a medico about the New York Yankees rain poncho she was handed at the start of her shift to protect herself.
At a protest on Thursday, nurses wearing masks tried to call attention to the challenges.
“Every day when I go to work I feel like a sheep going to slaughter,” said one.
“We are dying, we are getting sick,” said another.
“It doesn’t matter how many ventilators we get, if we are dead we cannot run the ventilators.”
None of this has been helped by those who have let the crisis reveal their worst selves, like the Brooklynite whose house was raided yesterday with almost a million pieces of medical supplies.
When police arrived to start clearing a hoard that included 200,000 N95 masks, the man kindly coughed on them and said he had the virus.
Authorities allege he was selling the masks, gloves and gowns to local doctors for a 700 per cent mark-up.
There have also been some deadly stupid decisions, like lockdown delays in several US states, such as Florida, where spring breakers continued partying last month and have now returned home to spread the sickness.
Or in Georgia, where Governor Brian Kemp held a press conference to announce a shelter-in-place order because he had just learned the virus could be transmitted by people who didn’t show any symptoms.
America’s Center for Diseases Control, which is based in the southern state, has been warning for more than a month that this was the case, so there were many questioning exactly where he has been for the past few weeks.
In a heartwarming close to this note, dozens of firefighters - so long regarded as the true heroes of this city - lined up outside a city hospital and broke into applause and cheers for first responders and medical staff on the frontline of this battle.
Heroes cheering heroes. Best of the best.
