COVID-19, War, and Us

For once, virtually all layers of the United States government and all political parties are speaking with one voice.  They tell us emphatically that we are at war with COVID-19, and that we must sacrifice to defeat this “invisible enemy.”  Like most people, I fully agree with recommendations from those authorities.  You have heard them a thousand times already.  A very abbreviated version of general COVID-19 prevention guidelines, posted on cdc.gov, for instance, advises:  Clean your hands often; Put distance between yourself and other people; Stay home if you’re sick; Cover coughs and sneezes; Wear a facemask if you are sick; Clean and disinfect.   At this point in the pandemic, those nationwide general guidelines have been superseded by more stringent state and local requirements.  According to the New York Times (Sarah Mervosh, Denise Lu and Vanessa Swales, March 31, 2019), “… at least 265 million people in at least 32 states, 80 counties, 17 cities, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are being urged to stay home.”

Predictably, the virus is exacting a significant toll on our mental health.  The deleterious effects are depicted below:

Mental Condition	some, little, or  none of the time
hopeful about the future	51%
nervous, anxious	43%
trouble sleeping	23%
depressed	24%
lonely	21%
physical reaction thinking about the pandemic	19%
United States Pew Research Center Survey	March 19-24, 2020

The Pew study is not surprising.  We have no firm sensed of when this threat will end.  Our incomes have been compromised.  Our freedoms have been restricted.  We cannot recreate or travel as we would like.  We can’t access all the material resources that have come to depend upon So, personal experience and available evidence rationalized our reference to being at war.  But maybe it is time for a little perspective that might provide at least some therapeutic benefit.

I could cite a thousand examples of more difficult situations to make my point.  Because its horrors and hardships are both too familiar and too temporally remote to most Americans, there is little value in mentioning World War II.  Instead, for a people under siege, think about the Kurds, an indigenous Mesopotamian population whose “quarantine” began at the end of World War I after the Allies reneged on their proposal to provide a homeland.  Since then the Kurds have been subjected to never ending battles and persecutions.  David Stavrou made the point in a November 26, 2019 Haaretz article entitled, “The Slaughter in Syria Still Goes On.”  To quote an interview with Bejan Rashid, an eyewitness to the catastrophe, “I saw many who were killed and many who were injured … Most of the injured were missing arms or legs or were hit by shrapnel. I tried to help the children and the elderly people first. The thing that’s hardest to forget was a girl, about 8 years old, who was sitting by her dead brother, trying to wake him up.”

Most Kurds, I bet, would be eager to switch places with me, right now.

There are Americans, too, who have experienced conditions worse than the ones I am now.  The late John McCain was one.  In 2008, he recounted some details of his five and one-half years as POW in North Viet Nam.  I need mention only a few to give you the idea. Consider his physical condition.  As a result of his plane being shot down, McCain suffered a broken right leg, broken right arm in three places, and a broken left arm.  From the time he was captured, he underwent frequent physical abuse and torture, including beatings with and without objects.  Most of his injuries never were treated medically, such that any bone that healed did so without being set properly.  For most of his five and one-half year imprisionment, McCain remained in a windowless, unbearably hot, tin-roofed room, only ventilated by two 6 inch by 4 inch holes.  He was fed a starvation-level diet.  His social condition was not the greatest, either.  McCain often was placed in solitary confinement, once for more than two consecutive years.  His only diversions were the games he played in his mind and the communist propaganda books given to him by his captors.  Just for the record, it was Senator John McCain who in the 1990s successfully lobbied the federal government to reestablish normal bilateral relations with Viet Nam.

Like most Americans, I feel hassled and frightened by COVID-19, and I complain often about how it has interfered with my lifestyle.  We must muster every resource and support every neighbor to counter this pandemic. Some of us also might choose to speak metaphorically about being at war, but we--especially those of us from wealthy countries--should not delude ourselves into believing for one minute that we truly are suffering anything remotely similar to the ravages of war.  When, as it will be, COVID-19 is behind us, our houses and towns will not be rubble.  We will not be starving. We will not be refugees.  To know real war, we would need to live through its longstanding horrors, such as ones endured by the Kurds or by John McCain.  All we need to do right now to control the virus is to follow commonsense mitigation recommendations.  That is tough, but not too tough.      

References

McCain, J. Prisoner of War: A First-Person Account Jan 28, 2008, at 11:00 A.M.

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/28/john-mccain-prisoner-of-war-a-first-person-account

Mervosh, S., et al.  See Which States and Cities Have Told Residents to Stay at HomeUpdated March 31, 2020  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-stay-at-home-order.html

Stavrou, D.  Nov 26, 2019 4:27 PM.  The Slaughter in Syria Still Goes On
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-the-slaughter-in-syria-still-goes-on-1.8187413