When the Virus Comes Roaring Back
In the last few weeks, as New York’s curve flattened and the state moved to reopen, the sense of urgency that engulfed the state in March and April has largely dissipated. The warm summer weather has made way for sunny outlooks on the pandemic and lax attitudes. Some friends have said, “Life is back to normal.” On my Instagram feed, I’ve seen posts with friend groups convening as if times are normal. And at a celebratory parade for our graduating class two weeks ago, hundreds of people intermingled while not wearing masks.
This disconcerting leniency culminated a week and a half ago when a group of classmates attended our graduation and an unsanctioned after-party following a trip to Florida.
Last Wednesday, the unthinkable but seemingly inevitable transpired. Rumors spread that numerous classmates were infected. Fearing the worst but hoping for the best, our town flocked to local testing centers.
On Thursday, one of my closest friends tested positive. A slew of other positive tests followed.
Just two weeks ago, our town basked in the triumph of our low case numbers. But in the blink of an eye, we’re now reeling, quarantined in fear as we await test results and worry for the safety of our families and those we’ve come in contact with.
Suddenly, the pandemic isn’t about numbers and graphs. Rather, it’s about friends and peers — about the people who I toiled with over complex math problems, cheered with at sports games, and drove with late on weekend nights. Sickness and death are no longer abstract, intangible concepts — they are real, frightening possibilities.
I write this not as a grim tale, but as a warning. We thought we were safe. People took their foot off the gas. And then the virus resurged with vengeance.
While it’s natural — especially for us teenagers, given our inadequate executive function and inclination for socialization — to want to take more calculated risks, the pandemic is simply a game of probability. The number of potential hosts multiplied exponentially as people (mainly our youth) here gave up on mask-wearing and social distancing — the measures that allowed New York to successfully curb the virus. All it took was one slip-up for an outbreak to occur.
What I hope you’ll take away is that proactivity and collective behavior matter, even if these are what Americans struggle with most.
Our response to the pandemic has been no different from our response to mass shootings and police brutality: we fail to address problems until they boil over and erupt in our faces. In the context of this pandemic, that means unprecedented levels of death and strain on our healthcare systems due to increasingly nonchalant behavior. Therefore, just because the virus is out of sight does not mean it can be out of mind. As Paul Krugman describes, mitigating the pandemic requires willpower and a defiance of the widespread myopia.
It also requires distancing oneself from the pervasive individualism that America’s uber-capitalism has implanted within us all. Never in my lifetime has an issue had such direct communal consequences. Whereas many societal problems I have witnessed, such as drug usage or alcoholism, primarily affect individuals personally, the coronavirus’s effects are dependent on collective behavior. Irresponsibility by one individual does not just impact one person: it can cause tens, if not hundreds, to be acutely impacted like in my town. As the adage goes, “Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
If this isn’t enough to wake you up, then think of the human impacts. Think of the pandemic’s disproportionate toll on black and minority communities as you proclaim Black Lives Matter and denounce systemic racism. Or, think of physicians’ harrowing accounts. When I was getting tested, my physician, an older woman who said she had aged out of working in the emergency room, voiced her exasperation towards the public’s recklessness and need for instant gratification. She said that there are mornings before work where she breaks into tears because the magnitude of suffering is so extreme.
My parents, both doctors, have described similar feelings: death was so ubiquitous in New York hospitals that they and their colleagues, overcome with cynicism and despair, had to step away from social interaction.
For the sake of our frontline workers, black and minority communities, and the vulnerable members of your own community, wear a mask and social distance. Please. Because just when you think this virus has faded away, it comes roaring back.
