Contagion
Eileen Manion
“Contagion and false news
cannot be stayed by order of the excise.”
Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light
Contagion is both literal and metaphoric.
We live in a time of newly minted clichés: social distancing, flattening the curve. Who ever heard such words six months ago? Now they come out of everyone’s mouth nonstop, for these terms give us an illusion of control in the face of profound fears: of the virus, of the uncertainty — how is it spread? When will this end? — of mortality.
I cringe every time I hear or read the war metaphors constantly invoked: doctors and nurses are “on the front lines”; the United States is facing a “Pearl Harbor moment”: Trump asserts he’s a “wartime president.”
If we’re at war, heads of state convince us they are entitled to grab more power and compel compliance from citizens. We see this happening all over the world, from Hungary to the Philippines, to the U.S. Street protests are out of the question when we’re all in some sort of quarantine. Except for those protesting the quarantine itself.
Now it has been more than a month since we have been isolating ourselves. Days without seeing friends or acquaintances seem both too long and too short. So easy to procrastinate = few chores seem worth doing since they can all be put off until tomorrow. Or the next day. Time passes too slowly and too quickly — like childhood summers that stretched out forever and then suddenly ended.
Taking long walks is one thing that helps me maintain a modicum of sanity. I try to avoid streets I imagine will have more pedestrians and stick to the unglamorous ones that few others would choose. Nonetheless, I inevitably encounter the occasional dog walker, runner, shopper and we acknowledge one another by edging aside, moving as far away as possible, sometimes even venturing off the sidewalk into the street, depending on traffic. We don’t make eye contact.
If the other person happens to be black or Asian or wearing a hijab, I feel especially awkward. Will they imagine I’m a racist? Or just see them as another disease vector? All equal as far as the virus is concerned? The same way they see me?
And those masks. If I see someone masked, does that mean they’re sick? Or just trying to stay well?
Will these new social practices change us city dwellers after the Covid-19 crisis has ended? At this point, it is impossible to say how the crisis will end. Or even if it will end. Will those who recovered develop immunity? Will a vaccine be invented? Will the disease become endemic and be “managed” in the same way as seasonal flu viruses? Will mask wearing become a new fashion statement and hand shaking a thing of the past? Will we ever again be able to hug people we don’t live with?
Anyone old enough to remember what the world was like before the HIV crisis of the 1980s knows that there were definite and enduring changes that affected everyone — not just those perceived as “high risk.” Dentists and dental hygienists wouldn’t touch you without latex gloves. You could get free condoms at street festivals or at college events. Everyone started talking about “safe sex” and blood test results. AIDS — once and still a killer — was regarded as something to be “managed” — like diabetes. Or a heart condition. We’ve gotten used to it and accommodated ourselves to the changes.
Can we learn anything from past pandemics?
In the 16th century, they had plague and small pox to contend with. When Henry VIII traveled with his court, someone checked all the towns en route to make sure they were free of plague. No help for the people stuck there.
In the 19th century, cholera and tuberculosis became endemic. Cholera was “a disease of society in the most profound sense” according to Gordon Craig (NYRB, 1988) since it was spread by contaminated water primarily in poor neighborhoods. Tuberculosis also disproportionally affected the poor who lived in crowded conditions.
Small pox was deliberately turned into a weapon once European colonists realized indigenous peoples had no immunity to it. But today it has been eradicated due to a vaccine disseminated in the 18th century. We were one of the last generations who needed to be vaccinated against it.
Both cholera and the 1918–19 flu pandemic were spread by troops moving from one country to another.
Plague still exists but can be managed with antibiotics since it is caused by bacteria.
Cholera should have been eradicated by the 20th century, but returns in places where access to clean water is unavailable: Haiti after the earth quake, Yemen during the recent war.
Tuberculosis had been successfully treated with antibiotics, until resistant strains began to appear.
Covid — 19 only seems like an equal opportunity virus. Like cholera and other contagious diseases, it disproportionally affects vulnerable groups: immigrants, the poor, the institutionalized.
Although we may believe we are more advanced than our ancestors who did not have the technology to see viruses and understand their genetic sequence, in some ways our responses to our fears have scarcely changed at all.
If scientific advances seem to have given us an edge, false news and the perversions of power have not been ameliorated since the 16th century; if anything, they have become worse. With the internet, rumors and misinformation spread more quickly than ever and they can kill. African Americans were rumored to be immune from covid-19, but we now see them dying in large numbers. Texas students believed that only old people were vulnerable to the virus, so many returned sick after spring break. Some in Russia believe that if they consume enough alcohol, they’ll avoid infection.
Conspiracy theories also abound: the virus was engineered as a weapon in China. Or in the U.S. Or it escaped from a lab in Wuhan. Or it was caused by 5G network towers. In England, 5G towers have been burned or vandalized and workers attacked.
One of the major sources of transmission of the disease has been religious groups, that, despite warnings, insist on holding services and pilgrimages: Muslims in Iran and India; Orthodox Jews in New York and Israel; fundamentalist Christians in Florida, Kansas, and Texas. And when fundamentalists offer help (as in NYC) they behave opportunistically, seeking to spread their Islamophobic and anti-LGBT message. Daniel Defoe’s narrator in Journal of the Plague Year may have believed that God protected him, but he also protected himself from contagion by staying away from others.
For many, the pandemic is an opportunity for fraud and profiteering. From the small-time scammer who sets up a fake covid-19 testing tent in a Kentucky parking lot, to big pharmaceutical companies like Gilead who are trying to corner the market on new drugs.
The pandemic is also an opportunity for neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups who believe the chaos resulting from the disease will allow them to gain power. Since the virus began in China, we also see an increasing number of hate crimes against Asians.
Scapegoating — a classic response to fear of the unknown — is just as prevalent today as it was in earlier centuries when pogroms followed outbreaks of the plague. We look for someone to blame.
Like a traveller stuck in an airport, I’ve become acclimatized to this unusual situation. And also not. I find myself in a constant state of irritability and low level depression, worn down by deprivations — both serious — I can’t visit family members — and petty — the ice cream I ordered from the grocery store wasn’t delivered.
Then I lecture myself: “You have it easy,” I scold. “Think of the homeless. The incarcerated. What about refugees or immigrants in crowded detention centers? Don’t complain.”
Unfortunately, we fear not only the virus, but also one another. A survivalist mentality has taken hold with so many hoarding meat or toilet paper and buying guns.
Counterexamples exist, of course: people making and donating masks and hand sanitizer, shopping for elderly or disabled neighbors, adopting dogs and cats from animal shelters.
In addition to spreading rumors, social media and associated technology allow us to communicate in ways undreamed of in earlier eras; we Skype with friends or Zoom with choirs, classes, and book groups — at least hear others’ voices and see them two-dimensionally.
But these kinds of meetings are barely a partial compensation for what is missing, and leave me with a sense of sadness and loss.
In addition, our preoccupation with the pandemic has overshadowed other problems our crowded planet must address, such as climate change and war. Oil companies take advantage of our preoccupation with the virus to push ahead with the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring Alberta tar sands oil to ports on the Gulf of Mexico.
And how is it possible that with so many dying of disease, soldiers are still killing one another in the Middle East and Africa? Not to mention spreading disease by travelling to areas in conflict and home — as happened with both cholera and the 1918 flu.
Why is it that in the United States, arms manufacturers are declared essential services while hospitals can’t buy the ventilators and protective equipment they need?
According to Joshua Lederberg, a Nobel prize winning biologist, viruses are “the single biggest threat” to human life on Earth, but our nations’ leaders still act as if other countries are the menace.
Clearly, the pandemic has exposed and highlighted many factors that have led to its virulence, from the loss of habitat and mistreatment of animals to the neoliberal focus on privatizing and shrinking public institutions like hospitals. The horror stories emerging from nursing homes remind us of the sordid way society maintains the elderly and the disabled.
At this point we can only wonder whether a creative rethinking of our approach to the environment and one another will emerge from the crisis.
I remain hopeful but not optimistic.
