Years ago, I was hired to revamp pandemic protocols for the fourth-largest health department in the United States. My work focused on one of many pieces of the city’s preparedness infrastructure: alternate care systems to bolster hospitals’ capacity when regular systems are overwhelmed. We drew up blueprints for triage situations that would enable health care workers to dedicate scarce resources to the most desperate cases while maintaining care for everyone else. Our work was supposed to address a medical surge similar to the one we’ve been hearing so much about in connection to COVID-19.
One of the maddening parts of successful emergency preparation is that the only real sign you’ve done a good job is that things end up less bad than expected. If you’ve done a really good job, nothing happens. That’s the goal for those of us planning for the worst. Unfortunately, that’s an unlikely outcome this time.
This novel coronavirus is magnitudes more contagious than anything we referenced when planning for pandemic influenza. On average, those suffering from flu infect 1.3 others — by the time that has happened 10 times, patient zero has been responsible for infecting 14 people. In contrast, every person infected with COVID-19 passes it to three others. By the time you get 10 contacts in, patient zero has been responsible for passing the disease to 59,000 people.
That eye-popping number translates into hundreds of sick or dead parents, grandparents, husbands, wives, children, doctors and nurses. That is what each of us is capable of right now — tipping off exponential human suffering.
If you’ve been conducting business as usual, you may have already infected others. It doesn’t matter how healthy you feel today or how “careful” you’ve been — symptoms don’t pop up until days after exposure and the disease lingers in a space long after you’ve left. I’ve been home for the last 14 days — only leaving my apartment for the infrequent walk, to drop off some bags of food at a food bank, and once for a trip to the post office. I have been meticulous — some might say neurotic — in my hygiene habits and adoption of social distancing practices. But yesterday, I woke up unable to fill my lungs. There was an undeniable tightness in my chest, followed by a sore throat and fatigue. For the last two days I’ve spent my time consciously monitoring the effort it now takes to breathe, something I hardly noticed before.
I’m grateful my interactions with the outside world have been so limited, and frightened that I still got sick. Whether or not we think we’re at risk of contracting a severe case ourselves, knowledge of our capacity to witlessly harm others should be enough to keep us home.
On March 12, Latter-day Saint Church leaders publicly acknowledged the need to fundamentally reevaluate the way we engage with each other during this crisis. An end to all weekly services in our chapels was followed by news that general conference would be totally virtual. Missionaries are being sent home and temples shuttered. These are all prudent actions, in line with our faith’s emphasis on personal preparedness and accountability.
Yet, many individual Latter-day Saints are not translating the gravity of this situation into their daily lives. While we can no longer attend the temple, somehow many will justify hikes with friends, hair appointments, hugs and high school dances. Church is canceled but, as I type this, group texts from church friends beckon me to movie nights and group “quarantine” walks to see cherry blossoms. My social media feeds have been plastered with images of giant welcome home parties for the same missionaries whose spirit-saving service was cut short by the pandemic they may now be spreading among friends and family. The irony is palpable and illustrates a harsh disconnect between the institutional response to this very real global nightmare and that of individual members.
In the greatest act of solidarity any of us have ever witnessed, nations and municipalities across the globe have determined human life is worth an undefinable amount of resources. Major cities, cross-border travel, and even the Olympic Games have gone on hiatus. Rightly so — we can scarcely imagine the carnage this virus will inflict if its course remains steady. But in this time of profound uncertainty, we have never needed to heed the explicit guidance from our faith’s leaders to follow the advice of public health professionals. Stay home and keep your distance from others. If you fail to do so, you are placing your entire community at immense risk and ignoring your responsibility to be your brothers’ and sisters’ keeper.
Please heed this clarion call to armchairs. Without consistent, collective action (or inaction, in this peculiar case) this virus will continue unchecked. Members of the church have a storied history of mobilizing in crises for the benefit of the greater good; we lace up our boots, throw on our yellow vests and get to work. Against that backdrop, this moment may feel anticlimactic, but your individual actions have never been more consequential.
Mercina Tillemann-Dick lives in Washington, D.C.