PPPPandemic

So, we're all living in a time of global pandemic caused by the betacoronavirus SARS-CoV-2, AKA the novel coronavirus, and often referred to as COVID-19 which stands for coronavirus disease 2019 and is actually the name of the respiratory disease caused by the virus and not the virus itself, but let's not get all Dr. Frankenstein vs. Frankenstein's monster here, even though the situation is monstrous. I have some professional, personal, and political responses to the current state of affairs.

Professionally, I am astonished at how quickly this ramped up. I do a weekly newsletter to faculty on Mondays, and on March 2 I made no mention of COVID-19. Now, just three weeks later, our campus is closed to the public, only core services are taking place on site and most employees have moved to working remotely from home, classes are either running online or have been truncated early, and I am in Zoom meetings seven hours a day staging our institutional reaction, with no time to write a newsletter.

We've had to pivot several times even in those short weeks, as our governor has ratcheted up the restrictions on activities and travel. We try to predict the future and make plans for Spring Quarter; most areas schools have announced "all-online" instruction for spring, which is more aspirational than actual, since there are some classes - labs, clinics, and shops - that cannot be brought online, easily or at all. As a technical college, this fact hits us harder than most schools - I would estimate that perhaps 20% of our instructional can be moved online. And I am not yet confident that the remaining instruction can be effectively delivered within the social distancing guidelines necessary for public health. Of course, if we go into full lockdown mode, the whole exercise may be rendered moot.

Online instruction brings its own problems, specifically with regard to the digital divide and concomitant equity concerns. Even for those courses that can be moved online, making sure all students have access - either to technology or connectivity - is going to be a major issue.

On a personal level, I am adjusting to working from home, and to staying home, except for walks on routes that keep us six feet away from any passersby. We've started have get-togethers with friends on zoom as well, drinking coffee in our separate homes but staying connected.

On our last trek through the village, I took these snaps:

I can't help but think how this is going to affect my local businesses, the mom-and-pop shops that we prefer. Some are still open, for now, since the current closures only affect certain kinds of businesses. But even for the stores that are open, business is way down, and it's likely that some of these shops and restaurants will go under so far that they'll never recover. Olive Garden will survive this but I am not sure my local pizza place will; it's sure to change the character of my neighborhood and my daily life.

And of course, all of this brings us to the political. Take those stores having to close for the public good: the store owners still need to pay rent, although they have no income; their employees still need to get paid, but the store has no revenue to pay them from.

Major corporations like McDonald's don't offer sick time to the majority of their workers, but they are supposed to stay home if they don't feel well.

We're the richest country on earth, yet our medical caregivers can't get the supplies and equipment we need; volunteers are sewing protective masks at home. We have incredible technological resources, yet we totally booted the testing process, putting us behind the response curve and promising an outcome more like Italy and less like South Korea.

Put aside the glaringly obvious inability of the current administration to provide the necessary leadership in this crisis and senators making bank selling stocks before a crash they knew was imminent and then throwing a pittance of recovery money at the people: this pandemic has shone a harsh light on the failure of our system itself to provide for the population, both those most vulnerable and the rest of us outside the 1%.  These shortcomings are baked into the capitalist system. Universal Basic Income and Universal Medical Care don't sound so radical now, do they?

I think we'll get through this, but I also think this is a watershed moment in history. This is a game-changer: too many genies have been let out of too many bottles and too many shortcomings have been made apparent for us ever to go back. It's okay to feel weird right now; this is a Big Event.

So, stay inside, stay six feet away, stay calm, and...