{"id":28977,"date":"2020-04-17T13:52:58","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T18:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=28977"},"modified":"2020-04-17T02:06:18","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T07:06:18","slug":"in-a-world-without-people-the-coronavirus-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/opinion\/2020\/04\/17\/in-a-world-without-people-the-coronavirus-lockdown\/","title":{"rendered":"In a World Without People: The Coronavirus Lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\"> \u201cThe loneliest moment in someone\u2019s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart and all they can do is stare blankly,\u201d wrote novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald in his seminal work, \u201cThe Great Gatsby,\u201d a book about the slow decay of the American Dream and the shallowness inherent in capital-based economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tThis sadly rings true as we gaze out into the open, vacant streets filled to the brim with emptiness; barren wastelands of shuttered restaurants and bars shelving the barren concrete painted for traffic but bare and unused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/nPw68fl62GI?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;start=335&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><figcaption>(Source: YouTube\/Entertain the Elk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/coronavirus-live-updates\/2020\/04\/09\/830216099\/6-6-million-more-file-for-unemployment-as-coronavirus-keeps-economy-shut\">Millions are signing up for unemployment<\/a> as workers are laid-off, furloughed or prohibited from working because their jobs have been shuttered, being deemed as unessential. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/business\/story\/2020-03-09\/stocks-coronavirus-small-investors\">The stock market continues in a seemingly horrific freefall<\/a>. Many have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/community\/index.html\">warned<\/a> in precautions laid out by local, state and federal governments. And yet, in a grocery store on any given day, despite the plastic gloves, the facemasks, and store shelves, some of which empty, life continues with some sort of frightening mundanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tThe world looks, almost, like the opening of some post-apocalyptic film, as if some Marvel villain had snapped the vast majority of the human population away somewhere else. In Venice, since the lockdown, dolphins and other wildlife seemed to reappear in the canals due to the lack of human traffic, albeit those reports were <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nationalgeographic.com\/animals\/2020\/03\/coronavirus-pandemic-fake-animal-viral-social-media-posts\/\">somewhat misleading<\/a>. In India, the Himalayas, once a crooked phantom line on the far-off horizon, <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/policy\/energy-environment\/491965-people-in-india-say-theyre-seeing-the-himalayas-for-first-time-in\">are now visible<\/a>. It seems, without humanity\u2019s day-in-day-out, consistent movement, a long-forgotten pre-industrialized world is replacing the overwhelming transitory nature of modernity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tAll has gone quiet, humanity has disappeared, in an attempt to, ironically enough, save itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3PttvhYlV2Q?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><figcaption>Eerily quiet cities on lockdown. (Source: YouTube\/Vice)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\tThough, some fearing financial disaster have suggested arguably grim and frightening suggestions to stem the tide of a possible recession or worse, depression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\t\u201cThose of us who are 70 plus, we\u2019ll take care of ourselves. But don\u2019t sacrifice the country,\u201d said <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/news\/us-news\/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-suggests-he-other-seniors-willing-n1167341\">Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick<\/a> on Tucker Carlson\u2019s show on Fox News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tPatrick would go on to suggest that the market was much more important than people\u2019s lives, saying, \u201cNo one reached out to me and said, &#8216;As a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that America loves for its children and grandchildren?&#8217; And if that is the exchange, I&#8217;m all in,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tThough Patrick\u2019s Fox News tirade may be one of the worst cases in which politicians prioritize the economy over lives, it\u2019s far from the most dangerous. The president, the man most in charge of this, urged an early open date for similar reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tHe would later go back on it, but President Trump originally suggested an open date of Easter, which landed on April 12. He suggested it was a \u201cspecial day\u201d and that he\u2019d like to see pews filled with people, an image that seems horrifying in the wake of everything that came before this proclamation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tThat being said, there are still <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2020\/04\/02\/coronavirus-churches-can-stay-open-in-states-with-especially-vulnerable-populations.html\">several states that have made churches exempt<\/a> from social distancing guidelines, including Ohio, who has seen churches like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.journal-news.com\/news\/local\/not-christian-thing-dewine-hints-action-about-large-church-gatherings-including-solid-rock\/e4rRDe3Bes8jk35hyTtHlO\/\">Solid Rock in Lebanon, Ohio<\/a> continue to congregate the masses, virus or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bE68xVXf8Kw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><figcaption>A bleak medical professional&#8217;s view in New York. (Source: YouTube\/The New York Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> More than 30,000 have thus far died from the coronavirus in the U.S., a number that grows exponentially by the day. And the U.S. alone has more cases than the next four countries combined, at nearly <a href=\"https:\/\/coronavirus.jhu.edu\/map.html\">700,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus coordinator for the White House, suggested that the number of fatalities could reach <a href=\"https:\/\/thehill.com\/homenews\/administration\/490138-birx-says-us-could-have-up-to-200000-coronavirus-deaths-if-we-do\">100-200,000 before all is said and done<\/a>, even if we continued strict social distancing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\t\u201cIs it going to be that much? I hope not. But being realistic, we need to prepare ourselves, that is a possibility,\u201d said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\t\u201cWhen you looked at the China data originally,\u201d said Birx, wherein 50,000 were infected in an area of China with a population of 80 million, \u201cyou start thinking of this more like SARS than you do a global pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tShe went on to add:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\t\u201cThe medical community interpreted the Chinese data as, this was serious, but smaller than anyone expected, because, probably\u2026we were missing a significant amount of the data, now that we see what happened to Italy and we see what happened to Spain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tTrump has recently laid out plans to reopen the country, leaving it up to governors to decide in an event that could prove catastrophic, as no vaccine currently exists and deaths are climbing by leaps and bounds with each passing day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tTo further exacerbate the heartache of all of this, while some politicians clamor for fear of an economic collapse, it seems that there is an inherent disparity in how this pandemic is affecting <a href=\"https:\/\/fivethirtyeight.com\/features\/the-young-americans-most-vulnerable-to-covid-19-are-people-of-color-and-the-working-class\/\">working-class people<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/04\/07\/us\/coronavirus-race.html?fbclid=IwAR06PWRHXhOjfZe92hrWmVswiCMpvhYET9JotWf8m5urbIkBuOBySMI-c5A\">African Americans<\/a>. Likewise, prisons throughout the country are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/04\/10\/politics\/exclusive-interview-bop-carjaval\/index.html\">experiencing outbreaks<\/a>, with prisoners and staff all feeling the brunt of the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/L7-RGz9mqiI?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><figcaption>Medical professionals describe what it&#8217;s like working during this. (Sorce: YouTube\/The New York Times)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\tAccording to an NPR article, dated April 16, more than 100 residents in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/coronavirus-live-updates\/2020\/04\/16\/836014004\/families-say-they-received-form-letters-from-n-j-nursing-home-as-loved-ones-died?fbclid=IwAR1Y4V7s0EPTDItSeDN-Yn0DZ_4f3S5_s4iTR7C3leA1yBwC7PhoSiYlMlc\">nursing home in New Jersey<\/a> were infected and 17 dead bodies were discovered after an anonymous tip. The event serves as a microcosm for what the virus is doing on a large scale to the weak, the sick, the disadvantaged throughout the country and the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> On top of that, according to a New York Times article written April 11, \u201cWisconsin and Ohio, farmers are dumping thousands of gallons of fresh milk into lagoons and manure pits. An Idaho farmer has dug huge ditches to bury 1 million pounds of onions. And in South Florida, a region that supplies much of the Eastern half of the United States with produce, tractors are crisscrossing bean and cabbage fields, plowing perfectly ripe vegetables back into the soil.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tWhile at the same time, millions of Americans are out of work and food banks are in need of help, with volunteer numbers down, according to that same article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tIt\u2019s hard to say what will happen in the upcoming days, weeks and months, but with pundits and politicians pushing for a re-opening of the country, despite no vaccine in sight, and the death toll in the U.S. passing that of Italy to rank number one in total deaths, things look particularly grim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1PLBmUVYYeg?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;start=610&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><figcaption>(Source: YouTube\/Crashcourse)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p> In all of this, I can offer only one small grain of hope in a story about the Black Death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 14th Century, Feudalism, a form of society that barely exists in our modern age, reigned across most of Europe. As the plague ravaged the continent, claiming a third of Europe&#8217;s population, society moved away from its former practices. Labor and laborers became a commodity, rather than an abundance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> Who knows if COVID-19 can change anything about the way in which we as a modern society conduct ourselves. Perhaps it could. Perhaps we could find a way to protect the at-risk and disadvantaged; perhaps there is a way to send the workforce home and keep the economy thriving; perhaps there is a way to get resources to the people who need them when they need them, and for us to not be as wasteful and kinder to our world, as we make up only a small part of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tPerhaps we can do these things. Only time will tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tFor now, we sit alone, most of us in our homes and rooms, occasionally venturing out like survivors in a Cormac McCarthy book. Some staying up later than we should, some waking up earlier than we ever would because it seems without a world beckoning us on to the next task, time has very little meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed-youtube wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2wKod86QYXw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span>\n<\/div><figcaption>(Source: YouTube\/Vice News)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\tThere\u2019s a photographer, Aristotle Roufanis, who took photographs of various cityscapes, each large and grand, some displayed in huge galleries that stretch on and on. And in them, we can see various cities, much like the stars, a few specks of light in a vast blackness. To understand what I\u2019m saying you just need to go look at <a href=\"https:\/\/aristotle.photography\/\">them<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tD\u2019you see what I mean? Big, gigantic cities&#8230;empty at night, with only a few lights on. At first, it seems amazing that we\u2019ve never noticed how quiet our cities can be, right? How have we never noticed how, in such a vast expanse, a few lights shine like tiny little specks in a blackened sea of darkness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\tExcept, it\u2019s important to note that those are not real photos. I mean, they are. They\u2019re absolutely real but the entire image is a digitalized creation of thousands and thousands of photos stitched together. In reality, our cities are bustling with lights and people and overwhelming activity and each of those people aren\u2019t alone.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each lighted window is a tiny lamp in the middle of the night\u2013a tiny speck in a sea of lights, just out of view, but not alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Richard Foltz<br><\/strong>Executive Editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThe loneliest moment in someone\u2019s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart and all they can do is stare blankly,\u201d wrote novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald in his seminal work, \u201cThe Great Gatsby,\u201d a book about the slow decay of the American Dream and the shallowness inherent in capital-based economy. This sadly [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":28978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3328,3401,2109,3327,3393,2150],"tags":[4025,1604,4163,4188,4189,4190,1556,3905],"class_list":["post-28977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-health","category-opinion","category-politics","category-u-s-news","category-world","tag-coronavirus","tag-donald-trump","tag-isolation","tag-loneliness","tag-lt-gov-dan-patrick","tag-solid-rock-church","tag-trump","tag-wuhan-coronavirus"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/downtown-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-7xn","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28977"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28981,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28977\/revisions\/28981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}