World Wide Anxiety Update

The other day I mentioned a certain event that was so powerful that it was making the entire world simultaneously anxious. That's an interesting idea.

Consider how many cultures there are in the world who generally remain unaware of current goings on outside of their little area, people who live in the margins of the earthly life. Some live out in the woods, like the Amazon, or Papua New Guinea, and some live in countries that don't get a lot of press, and don't generate a lot of economic activity, and concern themselves almost entirely with their own way of life. Well, even the people out in margins are getting sick now, so they're on board. They're anxious too.

Come to think of it, I knew a Euro-hippie woman back in the 1970s who was so completely disinterested in the world at large that when I mentioned that Patty Hurst had been convicted of that bank robbery, she looked genuinely confused and said, “who is Patty Hurst?” Wherever that woman is now, I wish her well. She was fourteen ounces of life in a twelve ounce bottle. My guess is that she is aware of this new plague. And she's anxious about it. She had a son, and she's probably a grandmother by now. So yeah, she's anxious about it.

What about the entire countries that usually don't give a shit? Like Lao, for instance.* Lao is a fairly large country with a population of about seven million. It is located north and east of Thailand; north of Cambodia; and west of Vietnam. It's mostly mountainous, and it's almost completely undeveloped. There are places so remote that if you could get there by helicopter, you might find herds of wild elephants, this is up in the mountains. That's also where most of those gray Asian leopards live. People live up there too, hill tribes mostly. Almost no one ever goes to Lao, maybe some NGO types, and foreign construction engineers working on dams or hydroelectric plants. A couple of tourists, but not a lot, mostly in Luang Prabang, which is pretty, but wildly overpriced. Well Lao just got their tenth confirmed case yesterday. They do a lot of across the river business with Thailand, so you can bet that they've all heard about it by now. And you can bet that the disease is spreading, and that they're anxious.

You can't hardly get away from this thing already, and the numbers are still small. Iceland, check. Tajikistan, check. It's everywhere. And it's a sneaky fucker too, half of the people with the virus never show symptoms. They have no fever, no cough. They're just out there breathing on us. It's mysterious! I'm sure that the virologists are fascinated by the entire thing. I wish them Godspeed coming up with a vaccine. None of us will be letting out breaths out until that happens. Even then, this sneaky little fucker might mutate! What form might that take? Well, this virus is “novel,” so no one can even imagine! What fun.

Top marks to Taiwan, they really leapt into action at the first sign of trouble. Plus, they have one of the best and most modern health care systems in the world, and a government that is set up to get things done expeditiously. They got great results. Singapore did a fine job too, and Germany seems to be working it hard. Iceland did okay. Lots of places are doing better than average.

Lots of places are doing below average, and many places are just plain fucking it up. Some are engaged in magical thinking that allows them to believe that if they mimic some of the things that other countries are having luck with, they'll be able to beat the virus down to a dull roar in the same way. They're concentrating on the optics. Brother, I wish it were that simple. Some countries are still scratching their heads, looking for a way to make money off of the virus or achieve political supremacy. There are a couple of them in Europe; I can't speak for the entire world. People who are terrified are easily manipulated. Let's see, who's going to die, anyway? Who would they have voted for? My own miserable country displays its unfortunate tendency to monetize everything, to use any distraction that presents itself as an excuse to enhance their group's political power, to use any excuse for a Federal bailout that will go mostly to filling certain people's pockets, to make self-serving comments to the press to assist them in making the stock market their own personal ATM machine, and to invent cute but inappropriate nicknames for the virus to turn the whole matter into a racist mess.

That's our choice now. The lucky ones only have to worry about the virus, but they are sure that their country is doing all that it can to keep the number of deaths down, and they live in countries where getting top-notch medical care is a right, not an expensive privilege. They'll get their jobs back as well. That's the lucky few. Then there are the people who are worried about the virus, living in countries where this is stretching the medical establishment to the breaking point, but at least they know that they'll come out of this with their democratic freedoms intact, without having incurred major debts in the attempt to keep their families alive. Many people are stuck in countries where the medical and political responses have been inadequate, and the virus is already being used as an excuse to eliminate or weaken their democracies. This group includes America and Israel. Several democracies have already crossed the river of no return, so the survivors in those countries will live out their lives under a strong-man of some kind, with any rights that they might have had having evaporated in the viral mist. None of these choices is in any way attractive, and the entire enterprise is unsettling and anxiety producing. That's for every single person in the world over the age of about seven.

The entire thing is amazing, that now overused and misused word, used here in it's correct context. If it plays out in the way that appears most likely, it will be a “before/ after” moment in history. Dare we even hope for a quick pharmacological fix? Something to get us through the development period for a true vaccine? That would be a wonderful surprise. We dare not hope, I'm afraid. You can't hope for a wonderful “surprise.” There ain't no Santy Claus.

In the meantime, be careful crossing the street! Don't slip in the shower! Death has proven to us many times that it can keep up with its work load, no matter what kind of additional demand is placed upon its time. And no matter how anxious you become, don't take any foolish action to make things worse. We're all human, so we'll all be dead before too long anyway, in the natural way of things. Just wait for it.

*Lao. Take my word for it, they don't appreciate it when anyone calls the place, “Laos.” They don't want you to call them, “Laotians.” They are the Lao; their country is Brataet Lao; they speak Lao and use the Lao alphabet. The French came up with that Laos/ Laotian thing, and the Lao are good and sick of it. They have mostly dirt roads, and a few grass airfields, they shop in outdoor markets, and they cook their own food, and that's the way they like it. Now the outside world is getting them sick, and that will probably make their tendency to “self isolate” themselves from the world even more intense. They are really very nice people, and very happy in their isolation. They're poor, but they don't know it. They have their families, their friends, and their culture, and they are happy. They're so far off of the beaten path that they just might do okay in this thing.