PLAGUE JOURNAL May 2020: Gloves, Masks, Public Safety Performance Part 1
First it was gloves and Purell, then masks. The important thing was to demonstrate what kind of person you were.
[Note: All Plague Journal entries were written as events unfolded. I have edited the drafts for clarity, but the tone and content are original, reflecting what we could see at the time.]
Fear of the Thing on Things
Although the early tracing studies of spreader events didn’t directly address the issue of transmission from surfaces, they didn’t find anything to indicate that people were catching the virus from surfaces. Although many people were infected from sitting in the lazy downstream current of an infected carrier in a Korean call center, thousands of others who lived and worked in the high-rise—all of whom constantly touched door handles, elevator buttons, countertops, desktops, telephones, and other surfaces—eluded the virus. The only people who caught it were downstream of the carrier for long periods at a time. The six-foot safety bubble was meaningless, as people twenty feet away could become infected if exposed long enough, and someone just a few feet away would be unaffected if not in the airstream.
I know someone who reads independent online writers and found one who provided solid evidence that surface transmission wasn’t happening, yet neither of us could find it when we searched a week or so later. It seemed that Google didn’t want the information out there. Although we could see thousands of (still-healthy) people at groceries, gas stations, hardware stores, and liquor stores, and although we received packages and food deliveries and we touched mailboxes, credit cards, credit-card readers, pens, groceries, grocery bags, and receipts, the story held: we were to scrub surfaces constantly, and we were to avoid touching anything.
We wore gloves before we wore masks. When I test-drove a car in April—mostly for diversion, as I didn’t need a car and there was nowhere to drive anyway (and people were suspicious of an unfamiliar car in their neighborhood)—the dealer required gloves but not masks. Masks were unpopular until the New York Times realized how visible they were and decided we all needed to wear them. I know people who wore gloves everywhere and removed them before entering their homes, along with other pieces of clothing, leaving the deadly things in a garage or hallway. Yet, after a couple of weeks in early April, without discussion or instruction so far as I know, everyone ditched the gloves. Except for people at a few businesses that require them, none of us wear gloves. The pair I got from the car dealer are in a bag on my motorcycle, where I put them after shopping at a Whole Foods in April. I’ve never used them since.
Yet workers at restaurants and groceries continue to theatrically scrub their windows and display cases in the areas most visible to the public. Swimming pools remain closed because their operators cannot afford the staffing required to scrub everything—or to manage the challenges of getting everyone out of the water each hour to comply with the mysterious rules. All of it is ridiculous and pointless, as the virus transmits in dry air, not in water and steam. During a homeowner’s meeting for a vacation rental I own, the board told us the pool and hot tubs would remain closed indefinitely, “for safety.” An owner gently pointed out that the virus doesn’t transmit in water, eliciting a response from another owner who announced that he is a doctor and that we need to keep everything closed. He must have been inspired by all the TV doctors telling us what to do.
We all knew, without admitting it, that the gloves weren’t doing anything. We understand we don’t catch it from surfaces. Given the high levels of ambient fear, it’s telling that not a single private citizen has worn gloves in months in my area, at least not that I’ve seen.
Mask up for Safety
Shortly after returning home from a May camping trip, I received an email with a link to a post on Nextdoor, the neighborhood discussion platform. A young man named Stephen advised us:
WEAR A MASK: NEIGHBORLY SHAMING
Do you really want the economy to return to normal?
Do you really want to show support for your country?
Do you really want to show your concern for others?
then
WEAR A MASK,
WEAR A MASK!!!
Unless you’ve been in a coma these past few months the world is undergoing a pandemic. The Covid19 disease (and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease) is still relatively unknown but one of the things we know for certain is that asymptomatic people (people that have absolutely no symptoms - no fever, cough, nausea...NOTHING ) can walk, run, move around with the virus (coughing, sneezing or just breathing) infecting hundreds, thousands of people without even knowing it. . . .
He went on for many more paragraphs and inspired more than a hundred swift responses, nearly all of them on the side of safety. His complaint was about people on sidewalks, the street, and in parks—not indoors where there might be some risk. His angry poem was pure theater. He must have enjoyed the jolt of power he got from it. I suspect he doesn’t care much about safety.
Safety Scooting
The same people who ostentatiously recoil from a barefaced jogger were speeding and weaving on rickety e-scooters from public-nuisance companies Lime, Lyft, and Bird on every sidewalk in town, where a dog’s leash or a pedestrian stepping from a doorway could cause serious injury. They were wearing masks as they careened and wobbled down the sidewalks—dangerous, but displaying their safety badges. We saw these people, or at least the same demographic—young, underemployed, anti-capitalist though constantly spending—behaving normally in grocery stores and breweries. The performance took place where most people could see them, outdoors and on social media.
The scooting menace reminded me of “Munch in Manhattan,” an old New Yorker cartoon featuring a balloon-headed diner who becomes Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” every time his waiter appears. In the first panel, he sits idly at a cafe table, looking into the distance with his head resting on one hand. In the second panel, when the server says, “Hi. My name is Todd and I’ll be your waiter tonight,” the diner turns into “The Scream,” with his head in his hands and his mouth and eyes circles of terror. By the next panel, he’s back to normal, browsing the menu. When Todd returns to explain the specials (“blackened redfish with shallots and blah, blah, blah—”), he’s full Scream again. Next, he’s chewing his food, relaxed and maybe a bit bored. When Todd returns to offer ground pepper for his salad, he becomes the Scream, but now, caught by surprise, he has a fork sticking out from one of his hands at the side of his head. After Todd leaves, he’s a regular guy cutting his food. Like the Manhatten diner, our young shamers had lives to live between their safety performances.
Visit here for a companion piece on re-opening safety theater.