Humanity in the time of COVID-19
Earlier Monday, Michigan became one of several US states in the last few days to announce an executive order declaring that its residents should stay home, that non-essential travel should not go ahead, and one should only go out unless one absolutely has to.
The order, which takes effect at just after midnight local time, is in effect for at least the next 3 weeks.
“This is an unprecedented crisis that requires all of us working together to protect our families and our communities. The most effective way we can slow down the virus is to stay home. I know this will be hard, but it will be temporary. If we all come together, get serious, and do our part by staying home, we can stay safe and save lives.” — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, March 23, 2020 statement
As these orders become daily part of developments in the response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, its population is trying to adjust to life around the orders — all the while trying to balance personal and professional obligations.
Yet, there is a difference to where I’m seeing all of this play out. I’m typing this from a hotel room in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the college town where chants of Go Blue are usually the norm. Life here has come to a screeching halt, as the University of Michigan has canceled events through the middle of April, moved most of its classes online and postponed its commencement ceremonies — encouraging its students to go home to their permanent residences.
Hotels have scaled back their operations and services — some closing outright with others likely to follow.
I’m not here to study, nor do I have any job prospects here. I’m someone who is trying to assess his prospects in an evolving media landscape. I’m wondering what my role is going to be and if I can muster that freelance pitch. At the same time, I’m trying to care for a parent who still telecommutes to work in spite of an immune system that is compromised—who hasn’t left this room for weeks and whom we need to get back to Chicago, where her doctors are based.
In addition, like millions of Americans, I’m wondering out loud when life will return to normal — and the confines of my roughly 300 square foot hotel room, on top of a lack of belonging in a professional community, makes life feel even more isolating.
We are in unprecedented territory, and many of us are trying to make sense of how to work through these times, as the news of the COVID-19 outbreak continues to evolve at every second of every hour.
As the news cycle continues to go forward, one word that has become part of America’s conversation has been resilience. This quote from the author Ernest Hemingway perhaps is a credo of resilience in uncertainty.
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
Resilience is the goal that we set ourselves to achieve day in and day out, professionally or personally. This goal is a means for us to keep going and to keep things afloat. In life in the time of coronavirus, practicing resilience comes across as realistic. At the same time however, it is easier said than done.
It is easier said than done for those who are not sure how they are going to keep their heads above water financially or who wonder about the health of a loved one. It is easier said than done for those who are navigating unemployment and trying to make sense of their future. It is easier said than done for people who are scared at the prospects of what this outbreak will do to them, and who find difficulty in discerning what is ahead.
We are the soft-spoken ones who soldier on, who find it difficult to advocate for ourselves because we feel embarrassed, who feel most of the time that it is too much to bear, and who are isolated more so than usual and cannot express ourselves or our concerns.
In life in the time of coronavirus, we’ll quietly get on with things like other Americans do. We have to because we don’t have a choice.
We just have one thing to ask — don’t forget us, don’t leave us on the side of the road — because like you, we’re human beings, too.
