"It is the most hateful thing," wrote Herodotus, in the ninth volume of his Histories, "for a person to have much knowledge and no power."
Herodotus was quoting a Persian on the eve of the Battle of Palatea, in the summer of 479 BC. The man, gathered at a banquet, knew the impending battle would leave his people's army decimated, but could not stop it. "In a little while," said the nameless Persian to his host, "you shall see but a small remnant left alive of all these." And he wept bitterly, "for even truth sometimes finds no one to believe it."
Last night, I learned that my hometown-Teaneck, New Jersey-is locked down in its entirety, with residents urged to self-quarantine and only go out for essential food and medicine. With 18 confirmed coronavirus cases, it is "ground zero" for the pandemic in New Jersey, mayor Mohammed Hameeduddin said. The leafy streets, familiar mica-flecked sidewalks and playgrounds I remember so vividly will be empty, the restaurants shuttered, all 41,000 residents urged to stay behind closed doors, so that they do not infect one another. "If we're complacent and don't do really aggressive containment and mitigation, the number [of coronavirus cases in the U.S.] could go way up and be involved in many, many millions," director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Dr. Anthony Fauci told Congress last week.
As vivid and shocking as the image of my hometown's streets deserted is, it's infinitely preferable to other scenes around the country as coronavirus spreads unseen: packed bars, crowded restaurants, and pub-crawlers dressed all in green for St. Patrick's Day, filling themselves with beer and disease, in Boston, Chicago, DC, and New York City, where there are now 269 confirmed cases (though the number is likely much higher due to the severe lack of tests). The erratic seesawing of narratives from our government's executive branch-with the president claiming the virus was an overblown hoax for precious weeks, and only late and poorly seeming to grasp any notion of this situation's seriousness-has made it exponentially harder to marshal any sense of civic duty, or even collective narrative, to combat the virus. It's easy to imagine an effective story that could be told by our federal government: any competent propagandist could put together a tale of the need for stoicism, about how preparedness and hunkering down are patriotism in this moment, about responsibility, about sacrifice for the sake of collective survival.
In that absence, an uneven patchwork of epidemiologists, health officials, and officers of local government are issuing dire warnings to stay home and limit contact with others; some schools are shut down and pro basketball courts are empty. Reports from hospitals in Italy, hard-pressed by the virus, indicate that the situation for health-care workers is similar to wartime triage, a series of ghastly decisions about who to fight for, and who to allow to die. Meanwhile, at bars, clubs, restaurants, and parks, the party goes on, defiant and filled with swagger and bravado, and somewhere invisible and silent the germ that steals your breath away enters through a mouth open in drunken song.
Some of us are staying home to slow the spread and buy our hospitals time, in our private fear, our chambers of anxiety. For our pains to protect others and ourselves, we are told we are "panicking," or weak, or easily led. And outside our windows we hear the noise of rejoicing-there is nothing we can do with all our knowledge, which amounts to so little power.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
