|
All Together Now
The Coronavirus crisis has already killed 22 New Yorkers, sickened thousands more, torched jobs, imperiled nonprofits, disrupted schooling, shuttered vital services and frightened just about everyone. It has also cut us off from each other, in a sudden and profound way.
Hopefully, science will guide our response to the health threat. But epidemiology won't get people back to work or make up for the impact this will have on students who can't really be in school, elderly nursing-home residents who won't spend precious time with their families, small businesses built on a dream and lost in a matter of days, or people nearing retirement whose nest-eggs have been destroyed by the upheaval in financial markets.
There is too much uncertainty about how long and deep this crisis will go to permit sweeping predictions, but each of us can feel our lives changing in ways that might be irrevocable. Even that possibility is a little unnerving.
Yet, hope emerges from the way people have responded, which is by trying to create community as best they can, against steep odds. Mutual aid networks. Online birthday parties. Virtual concerts. Some of these efforts are low-wattage and, at best, modestly successful, but that doesn't matter. It's the instinct that is worth replicating.
In a crisis, one can either head to the hills or lock arms with your neighbors. It's clear what recovering from the COVID crisis will require, and not just as a cute slogan, and not just for a minute or two.
Collective action, shared sacrifice and concern for the neediest will save us from the virus itself: We keep our social distance to protect ourselves and others, we avoid ERs so the truly sick can get help there. Those principles will save us from the aftermath, too. Survival is also an S-word.
Stay well,
Jarrett Murphy, executive editor
|
