“There are no words” is not a default available to those presuming to take a public platform. Today, though, I struggle to express my anger and dismay over an experience with the corona virus – one that both strikes close to home and exposes the multiple consequences of the cascading failures of our country’s office-holders.
It falls specifically on Florida governor Ron DeSantis – incited as he has been by the abject failings of the bunkered White House, whose occupant from the emergence of the pandemic has confirmed on a near-daily basis his apt if vulgar characterization in July 2017 by then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as a “f***ing moron.”
It’s about an elderly friend in Chicago – a woman both indomitable in her fortitude and among the world’s most caring, sensitive and empathetic – always accessible, wise and perceptive with friends, clients and all who know and love her.
While bravely bearing a lifetime of severely compromised immunity, this gentle soul undertook in early June to fly to Florida. She was generously motivated by the desire to give care and support to an even-older relative. Regrettably too, she was credulously enticed by the attitude and messaging of DeSantis.
By then the consequences had long been evident of the blinkered failure of the Trump administration to appreciate the intelligence widely available – the literally vital necessity to stock up, close down, and take seriously the certain aggression of a novel virus that cared not the slightest for the disrespect and denial shown by the comprehensively ignorant. It was unleashed and spreading, to be affected only by drastic measures with social and economic consequences unknown to modern societies.
Sadly, she bought the governor’s blind-eyed optimism. Despite compelling evidence in the data and the science, DeSantis – along with his minions and enablers in Florida and his cretinous coevals in other states -- had resolutely opposed and resisted calls to close churches, parks and beaches. His wildly premature phase 1 re-opening in late April covered indoor dining, and his June 5 phase 2 extended to bars, theaters, and most retail.
For all of which, as wryly put by the Los Angeles Times, where that state too “for a brief moment … returned to bars, beaches and botox,” the still-developing extent of DeSantis’s tragic recklessness has been thoroughly validated as ill informed and deadly in its consequences.
So it falls on DeSantis, that my friend in all her innocent misapprehension spent three weeks in Florida within the scope of his misbegotten policies – nurturing her relative, and in close social contact with his community of the aged including a now highly suspect birthday celebration.
From which, there is this horrific added complication: My friend was robust and asymptomatic as she left to return to Chicago – taking a flight last Saturday evening. The next day she was immediately overcome with classic indications of COVID-19. Promptly hospitalized and tested positive, she is as I write released and isolating at home with her quarantining spouse – feeble, depleted, and barely able to speak.
At this point -- like the many other states that were too late to close and far too hasty to open, and which as of July 6 will be subject to the emergency order announced by Chicago’s mayor Lori Lightfoot that imposes fourteen-day quarantine requirements on travelers to our city -- Florida is over-whelmed. Under the incompetence of the DeSantis administration, there is no chance of tracing the source of my friend’s infection, or calculating the extent of its spread among the groups of at-risk elderly with whom she shared contact – not to mention the likelihood that she herself could have been a virulently infectious spreader on her airplane and in the airports she traversed.
Up to this week I had already been managing proximity with three early-stage cases – a college student, a millennial of world-class athletic stature, and a previously robust, marathon-qualified Gen-Xer whose very survival was at risk and who likely confronts long-lasting adverse pulmonary effects. These suffice to confirm that the virus has no respect for age or politics, or for the wishful thinkers or the deniers who would cry “hoax” or wish that it should miraculously “disappear.” They are instead enough to raise my anger level that even these cases could have been mitigated by competent policy-makers prepared to respect the intelligence and pay attention accordingly.
With that, what additional reaction is possible now, to the multiple threats in my beloved friend’s situation, both to herself and to all those to whom she was exposed due to the compounding negligence of DeSantis and his fellows? Frustration and outrage are insufficient, that she and others are sacrifices to the ignorant political optics of elected officials and their devotees.
Last night I made a no-contact delivery of a get-well card and a bouquet of flowers. That -- along with my heartfelt wishes for her recovery and this telling of her story, which I invite you to share – is what I can do, for my friend and for us all.
Because nobody who has bought into the hoax and conspiracy theories will have stayed to read this far, I need not advocate for changes of views; if there is a message to the sympathetic from this pulpit it would be one of simple encouragement:
Pay attention – be cautious – keep distances – keep wearing your masks. Brave people are putting their lives on the line for us. Respecting them and each other is the least we can do.
This is a beautifully written piece. It is so heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. You are right to be angry. DeSantis and the other country’s leaders have mismanaged this virus from the beginning. Some chose to ignore it, with dire consequences for many. You have channeled your anger into relaying and highlighting this gross negligence that has ripped apart your dear friend’s life and those around her. Not to mention how many people could have been exposed as well. Hopefully, by writing this, many others might be given a chance to rethink their actions. You are a devoted friend who undoubtedly makes her life much brighter by your tender caring. We hope for a good outcome for her. Thank you for writing this.
Posted by: Mary Ellen Gogel | July 04, 2020 at 02:40 PM