The virus may be new, but the response feels familiar for anyone who was alive 35 or 40 years ago. Then the panic was around a mysterious cluster of diseases. Rare conditions suddenly appeared—a severe pneumonia, bizarre cancers—and usually treatable conditions became dire. No cures were available; death often swiftly followed diagnosis.
This is ugly: A heavily affected group then was also considered by some to be a throw-away, not the old folks (as in “ok Boomer”), but gay men and IV drug users. The larger community didn’t start worrying until some of them became infected.
There was so much unknown then about the nature of the disease and how it was contracted. Both then and now, because testing was problematic, it was impossible in the early days to know who was and who wasn’t infected, who could and could not transmit the illness. The key, the only weapon, was education. In the earlier case, education about the use of condoms; now, education about physical distancing. The magic bullet was information.
And this is the really ugly part: In both cases the occupant of the White House was far from proactive in offering the information.
The first official government mention of deaths from what would eventually be known as HIV or AIDS came in June, 1981. By 1985, When Ronald Reagan first mentioned it, more than 12,000 Americans had died.
And now we are on the verge of having this President announce an end to the physical distancing so many of us are practicing in an attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19. Most of us who are staying at home are healthy. We are doing this for the communal good to stop spreading the virus. But the President is impatient, it’s said, unhappy with the effect on the economy. He wants this shutdown to be over. When distancing is our only weapon against the virus, he is contemplating taking that away. Instead of urging patience and reminding us how important this sacrifice is, he undermines it and questions in every public word and action, even as the medical experts try to contradict him. (It was Anthony Fauci, of course, who led the effort that ultimately made progress against that disease, too.)
Just saying…