4/13/2020 — Emotional Whiplash
I have not been outside for 5 days. My roommate is insistent that I go on a walk with him tonight as the sun is setting, and I am going to take him up on it.
I need to get out, but also, it frightens me. Periodically I look out on Divisadero St. from my window, and I see groups of people without masks, joggers breathing hard running and sweating in the middle of the sidewalk. Friends hugging at a chance meeting on the street. Children being walked in groups without masks…
I might feel less strongly in my aversion to the crowds if it was not for the walk I took two weeks ago. One of my last.
A close friend wanted to spend some time with me. I am not comfortable having anyone but the roomies in my flat at the moment, but I wanted to see him, especially as he was talking about leaving town sometime soon. We elected to take one of my favorite walks in San Francisco, up from the Panhandle to Buena Vista Park. From the glorious crest there, you can watch the beauty of the city splay out around you from the Bay to the coast and take in a sunset with reds to match the Golden Gate itself. The park is an emerald jewel in the heart of the city, and a place I frequent in my day to day life.
D. was wearing a mask, at least. At the time, he still had a cavalier attitude, and I’m almost positive he had donned it knowing the depth of my own OCD tendencies, which was appreciated. We walked to the panhandle, discussing the situation. He was planning to leave for up north until things blew over. I have housing and business concerns in the city. I could not go on a dime, and moreover, I asserted that in the rare case of this natural disaster, I would like to be as close to as many full-fledged ICU hospitals as possible.
As we walked uphill, around the East side of the park, we were repeatedly forced into the street by crowds of people or joggers without PPE. We did our best to weave. At one point, we cut up some stairs to intersect a path when we heard a cough. A deep, rasping, awful cough.
The coughing did not stop.
We could not locate the source immediately. I checked the seals on my mask and tried to find who was making the sound. As we crested and turned on the path, we got an eye on the source.
A small grey Nissan was wedged into one of the park adjacent spots. A young man, several years my junior, sat in the driver seat wearing typical Northern California attire — Hoody, nondescript t-shirt. Clean, kempt, and quite a bit more fit than me, he looked like he hit the gym several times a week. His face was a sickly grey.
“Hey man, you smoking weed down there?” we ask, hoping to have stumbled upon an SF resident in a routine activity. No reply. More coughing. Rasping, wheezing, rattling. His hands gripped the steering wheel as he looked at us. I realized with a dawning fear that he could not speak. It seemed doubtful that he could do much breathing. I have never heard a noise quite like it, and I hope to never hear it again.
“You really, really should go to the ER. This thing is serious… Do you need help?” We stood for a moment. Unsure. Of what to do or how to feel. “Listen, I hope you’re ok, please go in man..” he continued to stare. There was nothing else to do. We were upwind and 20 ft away and outside, and luckily in PPE gear. We continued to walk, glancing back. We resolved to check on him on the way back. The experience put a damper on the rest of the walk, which we spent sticking to the middle of the road, venturing to the sidewalk only when a car began to wind slowly up Buena Vista East. We walked back by on our way home after cresting the ironically named Corona Heights.
The spot where the man’s car had been was vacant.
Since that time, I have been venturing out only for truly crucial trips. To secure food, to pay the rent, to attend to banking. Nothing else is worth the risk of hearing that same noise coming out of my own throat, and my heart weeps for everyone in essential positions that has to take this risk for a two-week paycheck that barely covers necessities.
I have missed some days of entries, I apologize. I have missed some days of life during this period. I am experiencing what I can only describe as emotional whiplash, repeatedly — and it keeps me in a very up and down cycle. I can contain it well, but sometimes it feels like I am a balloon of anxiety, filling just to the edge of explosion — then the pressure releases and the dangerous edge of overwhelming chaos eases. It’s all I can feel.
For many adults in America today, there are so many immediate and pressing problems that cause a direct negative feedback loop if left unattended, it is near impossible to incorporate how to honestly deal with this threat in their day to day life. Immediate problems vs. a danger that seems to always be around the corner, until you are right in the middle of it leaves little room for navigation. It feels like the public lapses every three or four days into looser habits. I myself begin skipping containment steps, I am tired of the time, tired of the energy.
I’m sure we all have our own trigger points, our own private seesaw of emotional whiplash. For me, the crux of it rests on science and information. I am a passionate believer in the scientific method and in its ability to guide in times of confusion and crisis, through empirical means. To use these methods, you require data. As of today, USCF plans to be able to test some 5–7000 people in a week. We need extensive population testing data to formulate our response. It’s an improvement, but at this rate, it will take us 2.42 years to test JUST the population of San Francisco.
So why do I turn on the television and hear about the tests, the glorious tests — so available you might trip over one! One day Dr. Fauci will state with gravity that data will guide our hand in opening the economy. The next, it’s “Fill the pews” or now “We will open on May 1.” Any thinking person that can make a casual analysis of the raw numbers can ascertain that a runaway infection would be catastrophic. It’s no longer a matter of debate as over 10,000 of our friends and family are dead already. It’s not a matter of if it will be bad, it’s a matter of how bad it will get.
When the federal government bends over backward to make the states respond to this crisis on their own, then turns around and says they get to decide when to open unilaterally. When I go to bed at night with dreams of data-driven response to a clear and present danger, and awake to a fevered fantasy of stock market cheerleading, and rumors of Dr. Fauci being let go, I cannot help but slip into despondency.
This back and forth has cost us time. It has cost us lives. It has cost me mental health.
It is clear what we need to do — listen to public health experts and ramp up testing so quality data can inform our next moves, and we can get back online as quickly as possible. Anything less will be folly, tragically borne by those least able to withstand another blow.
I am worried for this country. For my friends and family in counties with only a country hospital to serve them. For the people that think this will not affect them, for all the folks in the middle. Of my friends in Oklahoma, 80% of them are uninsured. They have all seen the news stories about the costs of COVID hospitalization. They care deeply for their families, for themselves.
In most cases, they earn less than 2,000 a month. I have yet to see a declaration that medical costs will be waived. Without such amnesty they will have a decision if they start to cough the dry and wheezy cough: Go in for what at the least is a months wage ER visit, with a possible month of intensive care and six-figure bill OR get a bottle of whiskey, a hot water bottle and try and ride it out. For many of them, the decision is already made. I pray that we have the strength, as a nation, to do what needs to be done to defend these ill-equipped communities, friends and family I care deeply for.
At the outset of COVID County, I said I hoped I had no reason to fill these pages, but a sick feeling that would not be the case. It’s the same feeling I have to this day. My predictions about the course of this illness have been eerily prescient, although not at all to my satisfaction. Like the tortured protagonist of a Philip K. Dick authored Cassandra myth. I keep looking at the past, to what has gone before us to make inference about what lies ahead. I fear that if we do not take these lessons to heart, that path looks grim indeed.
Today my roommate woke me up with a knock on the door.
“What’s up?” I asked sleepily. “I just want to thank you,” he replied. “For what?” I sat up, still dreamy from the night before, and gave him my attention. “CDC just upped the safety distance to 13 feet, masks are required, and they are recommending you clean your shoes entering the house. You’ve been having us do all this stuff for a month, thank you for keeping us safe.” I thanked him and got a little tearful as I laid back down to rest. It’s no consolation from the anxieties I feel on a macro level, but at least a small reminder that I am fortunate for the people I have around me. Sometimes you have to take the small victories to make it through the next day.
