One Small Voice: Tales of Covid horror from Arizona

by Lynn Mandaville

It’s very difficult to write when your emotions get the better of you.  You start to say dumb things and cast blame onto the wrong sources.

Such it has been for me as I try to write about what life is like in Arizona as it floats to the top of the five (or is it four now?) most infected states in the union with SARS-CoV-2, better known as COVID-19 or the coronavirus.

There are several aspects from which to evaluate how we are doing here.

• There is our governor and his handling of the pandemic for his constituents.

• There are the medical professionals who have to cope with the casualties of the public’s exposure to the virus.

• There are the businesse enduring a rollercoaster ride of open-closed-open-closed, partially open with extreme conditions.  And there are their employees who have to work when the business is open, whether they want to or not.

• There are the school kids who miss school, but whose parents are afraid to send them, but who also feel ill-equipped to teach them at home.

• There is the economic impact that this virus is having on the state and local governments.

• There are the people in at-risk groups.

And there are the virus deniers.

It’s a pretty diverse cross-section of the population, therefore, it is very hard to make everyone satisfied that their needs and wants are being met.

I want to begin with our governor, Doug Ducey, Republican, first elected in 2014, and re-elected in 2018.  His qualifications include and are limited to being trained in management at Arizona State University and being partner and CEO of Stone Cold Creamery.  Having watched him during this crisis, he seems to be a man who serves two masters, those being the residents of Arizona and the Trump Republican Party.

As Ducey began to deal with COVID-19, he preferred to remain hands-off, letting Washington D.C. and the pandemic gurus set the rules.  When Trump announced that he was going to let the states handle their own situations, Ducey seemed not to know whether to sh*t or go blind.  (See!  Here I go saying dumb things.)

Ducey announced, finally, that he would declare a shut-down of businesses in the state unless they were deemed essential, such as grocery stores.  At a 3 p.m. news conference he made the announcement, saying that beauty and nail salons could remain open, along with tattoo parlors and massage therapists.  The pubic went bananas, flooding the governor’s office with objections to these enterprises being deemed essential when they were among the most prone to infection, exposure and spread due to the close proximity of client and provider.  By 9 o’clock the next morning those businesses were declared closed for the foreseeable future.

Thus, Ducey had tamed the voters while still toeing the line for his president.

He has continued to waffle throughout the past several months, providing no leadership whatsoever, so that we have a public that overwhelmingly provides its own leadership by following best practices of social distancing and masking up, while assisting those for whom going out is a prohibitive risk.

Ducey was quick to reopen the state to please his president, at a time when the state was just beginning to blossom with COVID-19, and when the state hadn’t met even one of the milestones established by the Task Force. As a result, there was no lock-down over the Memorial Day holiday.  Now we are experiencing an enormous surge in new cases and hospitalizations, mostly young adults, which takes us to the medical professionals who are affected by this surge.

My daughter-in-law is an RN in the pediatric oncology department of one of the area’s biggest hospitals.  Before the virus surged, she was in little danger of exposure because of how well protected the oncology unit is.

But Laura’s dad was very ill at home.  He was diagnosed with ALS in February, and his form of that disease was progressing terrifyingly fast.  Since Laura was quickly becoming her dad’s main medical advocate and one of the constant caregivers, she took a hiatus from her job, for fear she would bring the infection home to him.

Jim died in mid-June, and Laura returned to work.  She posted these words on Facebook her first day back:

Now I am back to work.  What I see inside the hospital is air thick with stress and exhaustion, worried looks under masks and hurried steps.  Staffing is short.  Rooms are full.  Crisis measures in place to decide if your patient scores high enough for a ventilator.  Crisis mode.

 Laura faces this every day she goes to work.

ICU beds are now more than 92% occupied with COVID-19 patients.  Contrary to the President’s propaganda, PPE is still inadequate.  Staff is being asked to reuse their equipment and make do with what’s there.  Arizona records more than 3,000 new cases per day.  (And here’s a little tidbit of trivia.  The population of AZ is just over 7 million.   The entire European Union is 442 million.  AZ records the same number of new cases per day as the EU.)

As of today, more than 25% of people tested for the virus are testing positive!  Highest rate in the country.  Almost 2,000 Arizonans have died from it!  Our number of first responders is being diminished because of required isolation after positive tests for coronavirus!  People are understandably anxious.

The governor has capitulated somewhat, as has the President.  Ducey now encourages people to wear masks where social distancing is difficult.  But being the weak leader he is, he has passed off responsibility to the local municipalities to decide whether to mandate masks.  Most cities, including Chandler, have done so, and Maricopa County followed suit by mandating masks in public.

But this brings us to the COVID-19 deniers, the people who haven’t had an epiphany about the virus.  These are the folks who confront mask-wearers with greeting like “Hey, you libtard wuss!”

Here is the incident report my son, Nick, filed with his supervisor on July 7, at the high-end furniture consignment shop where he works:

A “gentleman” entered the store without a mask.

Me (Nick):  Excuse me, sir?  Do you have a mask?  We require a mask.

Him:  F*ck you, *ssh*le!

Me:  Excuse me?

Him:  Go f*ck yourself!  My body – My choice, *ssh*le!

Me: I don’t appreciate the language, sir. There’s no need to swear at me.  I don’t deserve that.

Him:  F*ck you!  What are you going to do about it, *ssh*le?

Me:  I could call the police and have you removed?

Him:  Freedom of speech!  They can’t do nuthin’.  Not on your property.  (He steps off the curb into the parking lot.)  Go f*ck yourself!  (Steps back on the sidewalk towards me.)

Me:  Why don’t I call them and we can find out?

Him:  My choice.  (mutters something that sounds like he called me a pussy)

 And this scenario repeats itself daily, sometime more than once a day, at his place of business.  Now picture this happening all over retail stores in Maricopa County.

I’ve only covered three of the seven aspects I listed at the outset of this piece, and I can feel my blood pressure rising.

Arizona is not a good place to be right now.  But, then, where is it a good place to be when our so-called leaders are downplaying the seriousness of COVID-19?

“It’s just like the flu.  Why get all riled up?” the deniers say.

I’ll tell you why.

Survivors of COVID-19 are showing evidence of lasting damage to kidneys, lungs, hearts.  They are showing a tendency toward stroke and blood clots.  Young people, ages 18 to 35, assuming they aren’t susceptible because of mixed messages from the White House, are becoming infected at an alarming rate.  Young children are (rarely) coming down with a COVID-19 related syndrome called MIS-C (multisystem inflammatory syndrome) which is similar to Kawasaki disease.

This is not the benign disease our President would like us to believe it is.

My husband and I, being in a high risk group (the elderly) are isolating ourselves.  We wear masks everywhere we go, but we don’t go much of anywhere.

That is the decisions we make daily.

Some decisions in life involve sacrifice.  And that sacrifice begets strength of character and strength of resolve.  It generates the stories we will tell long after this pandemic has taken its toll.

With care, and a share of luck, we will survive this worldwide event.

We will get to see our son, Randy, his wife Laura, their boys Jack and James, and Laura’s mom, Nancy, again.  Jack has lost four teeth during our self-exile.  I bet the boys have grown an inch or more, and have made emotional growth beyond measure having gone through the death of their “Papa.”

This time apart cannot be recaptured, but we don’t whine about it.

We know the risks and the rewards of taking COVID-19 seriously.

What I DO whine about is the dearth of leadership in Phoenix (our state capitol) and in the White House.

I’m sick to death of the mixed messages, the self-serving attitudes of Congress and the President and the President’s men.

I’m sick at heart that the only thing that matters is re-election, not the health of the nation.

I’m so tired of hearing that we must sacrifice health and safety for the almighty dollar.

I’m saddened by listening to essential workers who are compelled to work despite the risks.  And I’m heartsick for the people who have to work because they haven’t been able to earn a living wage and save a little for this rainy (read monsoon) day.

I read the words of Michiganders who think their governor, Gretchen Whitmer, is a tyrant as she guides the state through the pandemic.

I would give my teeth to have a governor with a backbone, a governor who listens to scientists, epidemiologists, and health experts and then takes a firm stand on a strategy to deal with this crisis.

But we don’t elect people with spines.  We don’t elect people with credentials to lead.  We don’t elect people with strength of character or minds of their own.

At least, we didn’t in Arizona.

I could go on, but to what end?

Most of you know the drill from your own experiences.

In the Before Time, I would have said “could be worse.”

Now I’m not so sure.