Good News, Bad News, Who Can Tell?

My wife, Neelam, and I began 2019 in the Bahamas, bringing in the new year with a friend we had made there, at her church, an old Anglican church, and we returned to the Bahamas to celebrate my sixtieth birthday on their Independence Day in July, the same day as my birthday. We went on that year to see the Grand Canyon and the red canyons of Sedona in Arizona, then on to Doha, Qatar and to Goa, India to celebrate Christmas. We brought 2020 in by attending service in an old church in Goa, India, a tropical paradise with the carnival atmosphere of its Portuguese roots. Landing in the US in mid-January we heard rumblings of a virus spreading, but way over in China, not here. In March of 2020, we were shocked by the viral nature and the mystery of this Novel Corona Virus and how it seemed to be all around us, in the air we breathed, on everything we touched. Before there was a vaccine, when we believed it would be years down the road before scientists could produce one, one of our only defenses against this mysterious virus was the stay-at-home order, which began to be decreed all around us. No matter the sacrifice or diligence, people were dying and getting sick at alarming rates. But we “hunkered down” and stayed to ourselves, for weeks, for months, played and ate with each other in our homes, waiting and wondering what was next. Clearly bad news, bad times. During this early part of the pandemic and our statewide shutdown order, our counseling center stayed open, offering telehealth sessions, as well as maintaining the option to be seen face-to-face (following strict protocols such as waiting in your vehicle and phoning in when you arrive, waiting to be called and invited in, protective facial gear was mandatory for staff and patients, and they went directly to their clinician’s office, which was sprayed with disinfectant after each patient, etc.). We had one of our child psychologists, who is handy with a sewing machine, make facial protective gear for all the staff, and we provided individually wrapped facial coverings for those who didn’t have one. During this period, several of my patients, overall, were getting better. How strange. Whether they were dealing with depression, anxiety, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, or even substance use issues, their symptoms of illness were reducing. Now, not every one of my patients got better, indeed some suffered more, especially when there was existing domestic violence, chronic isolation or lack of technology. I began to reflect on, and asked several of my patients to reflect on, contributing factors or behaviors that could be identified. Irrespective of the illness or symptoms, many of the practices were similar: families playing board games and doing puzzles together; families working concertedly on home or landscape projects; families preparing, eating, and cleaning-up after meals together, some learning to cook for the first time, and delighting in the novelty; fathers, parents were more involved in their children’s education given that many parents were working from home and children were doing tele-education; families were spending more time interacting with and getting to know each other; couples holding hands and strolling around their yard; and one family, usually busy and stressed with dance classes for each of the children during the work week, began having the children give their parents dance lessons at home! Folks living alone were learning to use the internet and social media or reading religious texts, praying more, or looking into the proverbial abyss and finding character and resources developed no other way; neighbors were intermingling and getting to know each other or checking in and offering assistance or simply a kind word (from six feet/ two meters or further); and folks rising to help complete strangers with such tender mercy it brings tears to my eyes literally. No wonder they were getting better when the world was getting sicker. While certainly heartened by their recovery, when the vaccine arrived, we all expected good news was here to stay. Hallelujah! Great news, right? Nope, the controversies grew, as did the politics of mask wearing, of getting vaccinated, and of the loss of freedom and rights. The good news was not so good. Mandates, closures, essential-workers-only, proof of vaccination status etc. all followed. Then another wave and more closures, virtual schooling, work-from-home, and more uncertainty. Then it’s suddenly all better. Must be. You look around and see maskless people, crowds again, traffic, shops, restaurants and sport facilities open and we rejoice at the activity. Yet, at the same time we feel the dissonance of conflicting information about a new variety, that’s even more contagious, and of rising rates of COVID-19. When the shutdown orders were finally lifted, folks began to slide right back into doing more than being, a return to atomization with each one doing their own thing in close proximity, commuting and traveling to/from work and school, families eating on the run and separately, and my patients not only returned to pre-pandemic levels of illness but many were worse off. Whew, so what have been the effects of all of this on all of us? Clearly the pandemic and all of the agony left as its calling card is bad news, right? Over one million men, women, and children, aunts, neighbors, firefighters, grandparents, nurses, bartenders, have died in the United States alone, over six and a half million people have died worldwide. Their lives were ended by a Corona Virus that ripped across the world at lightning speed, leaving pain, loss, and suffering for all. I lost two of my patients to the COVID virus early in the pandemic having never experienced the loss of a patient on my watch in over 35 years of practice.