My Thoughts on COVID-19

My Thoughts on COVID-19 By April C. Pyles, 4-15-20 I used to read mention of flu epidemic victims from 1918 in books having to do with that period, and I thought how risky it would have been to have lived then, without the benefit of modern medicine and research. Well, now, here we are in 2020, and we find ourselves in a pandemic even more deadly than the various types of influenza that has struck the world up until now. Modern medicine doesn’t seem to be doing us much good with the recent advent of the coronavirus known as COVID-19. It is a novel coronavirus; therefore, not much is known about how it spreads or how to make a vaccine to protect us against future outbreaks. Daily NEWS updates keep us informed of the total number of people who have been tested, declared to have it, and those who have died from it. Updates cover not only our state, but the states that touch ours, all of the United States and all around the world. It is disquieting to watch the numbers rise every day, knowing that one touch or one breath can enable this unseen terror to find its way to any one of us. And if it does, we are told there might not be enough tests, or hospital beds, or ventilators, or even enough doctors and nurses to treat us as they, too, are becoming sick and taken from the scene. Since the governors of West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky (our immediate tri-state area) made executive orders to close down all non-essential businesses and for people to take precautions when they go for groceries and gas, our lives and daily routines have greatly changed. Schools are closed, so children are spending all their time at home, getting their education via computers or packets from school. Some of them even qualify for packed school lunches, some of which are delivered by school bus drivers or picked up by parents at the schools. If they are young and their parents hold essential jobs, their daycare centers are closed to them, so other arrangements must be made. Our son and his wife have taken to working half-days, with one or the other of them always at home with the children. Another son is working from home. Our daughter has two young teens who are missing many school activities that most of us enjoyed at their age. Most of my friends are retired and receive retirement benefits and Social Security, so we are the least changed by the lack of employment, but the most at risk for dying from the virus if it finds us. So, we are careful to maintain social-distancing, even from our own children and grandchildren. This has been the most difficult change in our routine…not being with family. Still, we have social media and the telephone to keep us connected, and a quick drop-off of this or that when warranted. We celebrated Easter like that…with everyone fixing something different and sharing it with each other in a “drive-by, drop-off” method of distribution. Social-distancing has become the truth to that old expression, “I wouldn’t touch that with a 10-foot-pole.” I haven’t been able to buy a bottle of hand sanitizer or a can of wipes since we were given the order to stay home and only shop for essentials. Haven’t even seen them on the shelves at any of the stores that I’ve shopped at during the last month. I secretly wonder if they’re not being siphoned off “upriver” before they ever get a chance to be delivered to the stores. By “upriver,” I mean the top of the “food chain.” Where do they go once they’ve left Proctor & Gamble or other manufacturers? FEMA, hospitals, our military bases around the world, the black market? But, I’m not into conspiracy theories, so I’ll let that thought slide for now. I miss attending church, the Writers’ Guild, the Book Club, and Bible Study, and I was greatly disappointed that the Community Easter Cantata had to be canceled because I loved the music. Other changes include being called upon to trim my husband’s and his mother’s hair and letting my own go gray. I’ve read that hair color and hair-cutting paraphernalia have disappeared from the shelves of grocery stores and pharmacies, but I wouldn’t trust myself to color my own hair, anyway. That’s something that will just have to wait for another and better day. “People who know” say that the worst is not over and it’s too early to open the country back up for business, so we continue to live with this thing hanging over us. No one is immune to it. I’ve always heard that everything has a purpose, but I suspect only God knows what COVID-19’s purpose is. How it came to be in a bat, I do not know. “They” say that animals can’t get it, but they must…or some must…since last I heard, a bat is one. The person who cut it open and ate it…whatever happened to that guy? Did we not get the truth of the virus soon enough from China? Did our nation’s leaders not adequately prepare us for it? According to Kathleen Parker’s newspaper column today, the virus took only 100 days to go around the world. That’s pretty fast for a little thing a person can’t even see with the naked eye. I will close with this thought. God sees what we cannot see. Not only microscopic organisms, but the future. Nothing happens that He doesn’t know about first, and nothing happens without His permission. Whether this pandemic is simply an act of Mother Nature, or a warning or judgment from our Creator, I cannot say, but He certainly has my attention. We must love others and cherish them. We need to spend time with them when this period of isolation has ended. If someone has injured us, we must forgive them in order to be forgiven. Otherwise, we close a spiritual gate to God’s forgiveness. We must teach our children what is important and what is not, because when we’re gone, they will have to learn for themselves. It seems a shame that each generation must learn the same tough lessons as the one before, but sometimes our example speaks louder than words, so let us be the best example they can have. May God keep us safe and well, and may He inspire pandemic specialists to come up with a vaccination real soon. Until then, and even then, we are in His Hands.