We Are All in This Together

By Robin G. Jordan

So why is everyone doing his or her own thing?

As far as the COVID-19 pandemic is concerned, it is tempting to blame outgoing President Donald Trump for the pickle that we are in. But if we are honest with ourselves, while Trump and his administration have contributed to the mess, we ourselves also share the blame.

We have listened to family members, friends, and coworkers who downplay the seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic, who insist that the virus is no worse than a common cold or a mild case of the flue, who argue that face masks are ineffective in preventing its spread. We have agreed with them when they have maintained that the pandemic is a hoax, perpetuated by the health experts and the media to deprive President Trump of a second term in office.

We have chosen to believe the misinformation peddlers and the conspiracy theory mongers. There is no way around it. The more we listen, the more they are emboldened. They do not crank out their inaccurate and false information and baseless theories for no reason. They have an audience and people’s attention is what they crave the most.

We have become the laughingstock of the intelligence services of rival nations, those who stand to benefit from a weak United States. They are mixing their disinformation with the misinformation and conspiracy theories circulating on the internet. We are fast becoming a nation of dupes and they are roaring with laughter over our gullibility and stupidity.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a number of strengths of the American character. At the same time, it has revealed an even larger number of weaknesses of our character. We are self-centered and self-indulgent. We do not like to delay our gratification. We are not as concerned for the well-being of others as we might be, for a nation that some claim was built on a Christian foundation.

We say things like “You can wear a face mask and social distance. But do not tell me what I should do. I let you do what you think is best for you. So let me do what I think is best for me.” We do not see that we are connected to each other. What we may believe is best for us may not be best for others. What we choose to do or not do has consequences not only for ourselves but for those around us. We do not live in isolation from each other. What we do impacts other people regardless of our intentions. We are not completely independent, discrete individuals. We cannot practice a kind of individualism that treats other people beside ourselves as if they do not exist and our actions have no impact on anyone other than ourselves.

To the COVID-19 coronavirus we are an aggregate of potential hosts which it can invade and in which it can replicate itself. How we see ourselves and others is meaningless to the virus. For the virus, our individualism is simply an opportunity of which it can take advantage, an opening which it can exploit. The virus is not self-aware. It gravitates to the nearest environment in which it can reproduce itself.

When we insist on doing what we please, doing what is right in our own sight as the Bible puts it, we reduce the barriers that keep the virus from spreading and multiplying. The virus does not have a sense of time. It does not get tired of face masks, social distancing, handwashing, and other safeguards. The virus has no feelings. It does not get angry and become defiant out of the belief that no one has the right to tell it what it should do. When people lower their guard or deliberately ignore the recommended safety measures, it spreads and multiplies. It is as simple as that.

We are all in this together. The COVID-19 coronavirus will keep spreading, causing serious damage to people’s bodies and taking people’s lives as long as we do not accept the truth of this statement. As the seventeenth century Anglican poet and priest John Donne wrote in his sermon, Devotions upon emergent occasions and several steps in my sicknes—Meditation XVII, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…” We are all in this together. Those who treat others as if others are not their concern are allying themselves with the virus, not their fellow human beings. Whether they wish to acknowledge it, they are allying themselves with suffering and death.