Episode 48: open for business // Thursday, May 14

When we began sheltering in place on March 17, it seemed like finally our world had found something to agree on. COVID-19 was our common enemy. We could band together in a bipartisan way that would benefit all of us.

Nearly eight weeks later, so much has changed. While some of our cities and states are open for business, doing their best to boost the global economy, other places are seeing lockdowns more extreme than ever before. A few weeks ago, there was a certain comfort in knowing that we were in it together. All experiencing some version of the same thing. Now, in some places, wearing a mask has become a political statement. Even in the White House the message isn’t uniform. While our nation’s top health officials warn us that the pandemic is far from contained, our president says “we have met the moment and we have prevailed.” 

Here in the Bay Area, even though California has slowly begun lifting restrictions in some places, trying to keep up with the daily news will give you whiplash. Scanning through the San Francisco Chronicle’s live updates yesterday, there was Elon Musk opening his Tesla factory in Fremont, a spike in COVID-19 deaths in California over the past twenty-four hours, Chinese hackers targeting COVID-19 research. While some countries that had previously opened up are now reimposing lockdowns after a resurgence in COVID-19 deaths, cell phone data shows that millions of Americans are on the move again. 

It’s hard to know what to think. As I’ve tried to navigate the swirl of conflicting news this week, I reached out to someone who isn’t just on the front lines, but who has a better understanding of this disease than most of us.

My sister-in-law Joyce Sanchez  is an infectious disease doctor at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She’s been a champion of this podcast from the beginning. She says that listening is the way she decompresses after a long day in the hospital. Which is pretty much what I hope for every time I sit down to write an episode. That each day, my words would be a gift to you, something to help you decompress or just get through another day. 

Still, I’ve tried not to bug Joyce too much during this time, because she’s got a lot on her plate. Not just seeing COVID-19 patients, but helping to educate others about the virus. But this week, I reached out, because I wanted to know what Joyce thought about our current situation. She said,

“Most leaders recognize that there are two important things to keep in mind when opening the economy.  The first is that this is not an all or nothing decision. Rather than a “on/off” switch, it is more like a dial that should be adjusted. The second is that this is not a one and done decision, but rather a process that includes regular re-evaluation so that the dial can be turned up or down in response to how the pandemic unfolds with time.”

Joyce went on to say that the people who are making decisions about this are taking into account both the state of the pandemic in their communities, and the economic effects of sheltering in place.  Considerations are also being made based on whether or not hospitals have adequate PPE, as well as their ability to effectively test for the virus, isolate, and contact trace when there are cases. 

She said,

“From a population health standpoint, trends such as number of new cases and deaths are generally tracked. This includes the health of those who are vulnerable (such as the elderly), and communities with significant health disparities (including people of color).”  

The very idea of reopening can create anxiety for those personally affected by COVID-19 through sickness and death, or for those who are vulnerable to the disease.  For others, whose lives have been devastated by the economic impact of shutting down business, reopening is greatly anticipated.  

And yet others live in a state of tension between these two emotions.  When discussing these issues, I try (and many times fail) to remember to listen before I speak, put myself in others’ shoes, and respond with kindness.  For better or worse, how our generation handles this crisis is being broadcasted to the world now and will be recorded for generations to see in the future. To paraphrase Dr. Michael Osterholm, I hope we are empowered to come together in this, not apart.”

As someone who is living in that tension that Joyce mentioned, I take a lot of comfort in her words. Our family has lost our source of income because of COVID-19. The past two months have brought upheaval we never could have imagined or anticipated. But we’re also feeling nervous about rushing back to business as usual. We began this time of sheltering in place worrying that both Joyce and some close friends here in Oakland had the virus, which I shared about in episodes 3 and 4. There is no price or paycheck worth it to me to lose the people I love in this world. Our world has already lost so many.

I’ve been thinking lately about the phrase, “my right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins.” Variations of that phrase have been attributed to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., John Stuart Mill, and Abraham Lincoln. It turns out that we don’t know the phrase’s true origins. The closest I got was an 1857 excerpt from the Salem Register, where Leon Chautard, a Frenchman who had escaped from being imprisoned by Louis Napoleon for his political opinions, said; 

“My home is my castle,” says a free citizen.—According to the laws of men, this may be right. According to the laws of nature, this is often wrong. If you are about to kill somebody in your home or set it on fire, and I break open your door or your window, I enter your castle, I prevent you from killing or setting fire, every one will confess that I am a good citizen; I have saved a person from death or a town from incendiarism. No law can punish me for that.”

“Consequently your liberty ends where the liberty of others commences. Consequently every one has a right,—more than a right, a duty,—to prevent what may hurt others’ interests, persons or property.”

This particular excerpt was talking about slavery, but it feels eerily appropriate to the times we’re living in now. My home is my castle, though, in my case, it’s a rather small one. And my liberty to move about and risk my own health ends where it bumps into the liberties of the people around me. 

It occurred to me this week that maybe the reason I’m not rushing to get back to pre-COVID-19 living is that I know in a bone-deep way that my actions do affect others.

Living in the Bay Area, where our small houses are close together and our yards--if we have them--are often smaller, we’ve been trained for social distancing. On any given day right now, I can sit in my back yard and hear one neighbor on a Zoom call for work, while another tends his garden. I can hear the chatter from dog walkers saying hello to each other from across the street. Last night at three a.m. I woke up to the sound of another neighbor’s baby crying. For years we’ve had to impose curfews on when our kids are allowed to step outside the house, because their tantrums or even talking will disturb our neighbors if it’s too early or too late. On the days when my next door neighbor’s yard guys come, I often have to wait until evening to record, because the sound of leaf blowers and lawn mowers is constant.

I know to some of my friends and family, who prefer being out in the country, this description of my life sounds a little claustrophobic. Sometimes it is. But it’s also deeply comforting to live in this kind of community. Those times of my kids tantruming on the back porch have opened up opportunities for sharing parenting struggles with the people who live around me. It’s meant that over time, my neighbors aren’t just neighbors, but friends. We’re a neighborhood that bumps into each other sometimes, but we take care of each other, too. That has never been more true than right now, during this time of sheltering in place.

I wonder if I would feel very differently about this pandemic if I lived on acres of land, or even in a place with a yard big enough to not worry what my neighbors might see or hear. If I could swing my arms and not worry about hitting someone else’s nose, maybe all of these efforts to flatten the curve would feel a little excessive. But for those of us who have long been used to keeping our arms close to our sides, doing our best to smooth over the times when we accidentally bump the noses of others--which, we inevitably do--the need to take prevention measures still feels very urgent and present.

When I walk around my neighborhood right now, I see a lot of masks. People are still nervous. But they’re not unkind. Even with masks, you can see people smiling. There’s a sense of camaraderie. Of supporting each other in a new way, until we’re sure we don’t need to anymore.

I’m guessing it’ll be a long time before that changes, maybe months or even years. As I try to make decisions for my own family I’m trying, like Joyce, to listen before I speak. To put myself in others’ shoes and respond with kindness. To see if even now, whether we’re turning the dial up or down, we can come together in this, not apart.