COVID-19 JOURNAL #3 HUMAN FACES BEHIND THE NUMBERS
Title
COVID-19 JOURNAL #3 HUMAN FACES BEHIND THE NUMBERS
Creator
Lfj Gill
Text
From an email to a friend today: May 13, 2020
Yep, things have certainly changed. As an introvert, I have greatly (almost guiltily) enjoyed the quiet, the staying in and having everybody else staying in, too—the corridors empty, no chatter, no ambush when going down the hall to get the mail or empty the trash—hardly any traffic on the roads the few times I went out to pick up my groceries... I am sure it is harder on extroverts, though maybe some have taken this chance to discover they have an inner life, full of potential riches, the din of the world having been silenced for a while.
As you say, strange times indeed. Terribly tragic times for so many. Listening to the various governors' news briefs now is like listening to the evening news during Viet Nam—so many infected today, so many in the ICU, so many deaths. Already far more than we lost in Viet Nam—and yet—maybe because I don't look for it—I don't hear much of a hue and cry—not enough for the situation at least. Eighty-five thousand Americans DEAD—and that’s only so far!
I vividly recall we would sit in front of the TV every evening, cringing in horrified anticipation, watching the news report of the day’s body count. It was our friends, brothers and sweethearts being sent to the slaughter at that time. I can still feel the pain in the heart, watching the images of body bags and hearing the soul-wrenching numbers. And that was a situation both created by and stoppable by human beings. Yet the slaughter went on and on, insanely, unforgivably.
Now in this Covid situation we get data. Every day in the governors’ news briefs, “Today’s numbers are: 650 new positive cases, 400 hospitalized, 100 in the ICU, 75 on ventilators, 85 new deaths…” Numbers, with no human faces. Bodies, not souls. Why don’t they include a look at some of those people trying to breathe in the ICU? There are videos popping up on Youtube made by patients with their phones, gasping out their stories and warning people to “take this thing seriously”—and some are quite young.
Maybe the people who don’t deign to protect the rest of us by wearing face coverings would wake up if they saw the human beings behind the numbers on their screens.
_____________
Corona Virus Journal for RI Historical Society Covid-19 Archives
Journal #3 The Human Beings Behind the Numbers
—Lfj Gill
Yep, things have certainly changed. As an introvert, I have greatly (almost guiltily) enjoyed the quiet, the staying in and having everybody else staying in, too—the corridors empty, no chatter, no ambush when going down the hall to get the mail or empty the trash—hardly any traffic on the roads the few times I went out to pick up my groceries... I am sure it is harder on extroverts, though maybe some have taken this chance to discover they have an inner life, full of potential riches, the din of the world having been silenced for a while.
As you say, strange times indeed. Terribly tragic times for so many. Listening to the various governors' news briefs now is like listening to the evening news during Viet Nam—so many infected today, so many in the ICU, so many deaths. Already far more than we lost in Viet Nam—and yet—maybe because I don't look for it—I don't hear much of a hue and cry—not enough for the situation at least. Eighty-five thousand Americans DEAD—and that’s only so far!
I vividly recall we would sit in front of the TV every evening, cringing in horrified anticipation, watching the news report of the day’s body count. It was our friends, brothers and sweethearts being sent to the slaughter at that time. I can still feel the pain in the heart, watching the images of body bags and hearing the soul-wrenching numbers. And that was a situation both created by and stoppable by human beings. Yet the slaughter went on and on, insanely, unforgivably.
Now in this Covid situation we get data. Every day in the governors’ news briefs, “Today’s numbers are: 650 new positive cases, 400 hospitalized, 100 in the ICU, 75 on ventilators, 85 new deaths…” Numbers, with no human faces. Bodies, not souls. Why don’t they include a look at some of those people trying to breathe in the ICU? There are videos popping up on Youtube made by patients with their phones, gasping out their stories and warning people to “take this thing seriously”—and some are quite young.
Maybe the people who don’t deign to protect the rest of us by wearing face coverings would wake up if they saw the human beings behind the numbers on their screens.
_____________
Corona Virus Journal for RI Historical Society Covid-19 Archives
Journal #3 The Human Beings Behind the Numbers
—Lfj Gill
Date
2020-05-13
Language
English
Location
Hopkinton, RI
Description
Data vs real live human beings
Collection
Citation
Lfj Gill, “COVID-19 JOURNAL #3 HUMAN FACES BEHIND THE NUMBERS,” Rhode Island COVID-19 Archive, accessed July 7, 2024, https://ricovidarchive.org/index.php/items/show/295.
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