As I write this, we are officially in the second day of a crisis that we all knew could happen but somehow didn't believe it would.
The president of the United States has come down with the virus and is in the hospital...with very little being said on the situation. To add to the drama, any official information that is being given is contradictory, cryptic, and vague. As the twenty-four hour news channel screams its repetitive drone at me, here is what I know of the situation.
Around 1 AM on Friday morning, news came out that the president had the virus. He is 74 years old, very overweight, does not exercise, barely sleeps, and, according to certain sources, had a mild stroke sometime last year that was never officially announced. These risk factors place him in a very dangerous position as far as his mortality goes.
The news yesterday started with statements that he was fine. It then went to the announcement that he had a slight fever, was fatigues, and was given an experimental plasma therapy treatment. Hours later, it was told he would be taking the helicopter to the hospital. This was a move done to make the pictures look good and not have him seen weak. He walked to the helicopter, dressed in a suit, looking a bit fatigued. And that was pretty much then end of all the news about him for the day.
While this was spinning around in the late night, more and more people in the inner circle of the president were told they have the virus. Within minutes, people were connecting the dots and showing the web of people he was around and how it may have gotten passed to people. The people at the events were without masks, all standing in defiance of the science of masks and distance help stop the spread. These meetings, especially one in the Rose Garden of the White House for a Supreme Court prospect announcement and a very very expensive donation meeting for the president in New Jersey the night before the announcement, seem to suggest that this whole thing has become a super-spreader event. On simple terms without judgement, a core group of wealthy and powerful people who flaunted their position that the virus was a joke are now getting the news of having it.
The narrative of this plague has done a shift that I cannot articulate, except to say that there seems to be a collective hum of schadenfreude and caring about what the hell is going to happen. Everything feels different, like we are all finally on the same page in some way. The instability of reality within the collective consciousness is now resonating with the singular moment of the leader having the virus we have been fighting against. Just two days ago, it seemed we were just swimming within the murk of the pandemic reality. Now, we are all focused on a singular person with it.
I am not going to be nasty or opinionated about this situation. That is not how Camus wrote "The Plague" and I will follow his lead. But this crisis has placed us all within the story of watching a character who raged against the reality of this pandemic now in a hospital under absolute secrecy as to his condition. This character seemed to believe he could drive recklessly in traffic and not be hurt. At some point, chance and gravity shake hands and the crash happens. As I am typing this, I am hearing all the past news clips of him ranting about how it was all a joke, a lie, a crisis long gone. The crash happened and now we are all craning our necks to see what the hell the damage was.
I don't look at his getting the virus as an act of cosmic vengeance. I look at it the same way I do wing suit flyers, people who dive off anything very high up wearing a suit that, when splayed open, makes them look like a flying squirrel. It is dangerous, very dangerous. They know they are tempting fate by doing this, but do it anyway. Their deaths are usually gruesome, especially when they attempt to fly through formations at full speed. They are doing something dangerous and the odds of something bad happening are increased exponentially. This is what the people who have denied this virus do and carry themselves with similar hubris.
But there is at least one difference between the flying squirrel people and the virus deniers. If a diver dies in a crash, outside of family and friends mourning a deep loss, no one else is effected. That is to say, their actions will not kill anyone else, even if the thrill seekers survive. The virus can harm and kill others without knowing. You could be doing everything you can to stay safe and if someone has the virus and it somehow gets past you, well, things will change.
I have said over and over again that what we are dealing with is chemistry and physics, regardless of how one chooses to view the concept of the existence of a Supreme Being. There seems to be this belief that one can deny physics via faith. While I will not negate the possibility of miracles and the deep thoughts of C.S. Lewis, by definition, miracles are exceptions, not the rule. We bow before God, asking that the laws of nature be suspended.
But we should be humbled each day and bow before gravity because science shows we were not able to survive without it.
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