Editor’s note: This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer who lives in North Calais.
With over a quarter million Americans gone, many needlessly, the country faces perhaps the darkest holiday season in any of our lives, still lacking the national leadership and consistency, missing since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic back in February. Ignorance and arrogance coupled with toxic politics at the federal level have trickled down to states and municipalities, setting the stage for a catastrophe becoming exponentially worse even as the means to keep it at bay have been literally at our fingertips.
Instead, tactics to mitigate the crisis, mask wearing in particular, have fallen into the partisan abyss, becoming as divisive as abortion rights and the Second Amendment, with total abdication by the White House leaving individual states to fend for themselves, opening the door to disinformation and mass confusion. In fact, whether or not someone wears a mask is frequently determined by their political affiliation. Red state governors and their blue state counterparts decided to protect either their economy or their constituents as though the only choices available were “your money or your life?”
And now as we enter the most dangerous period since last February, we are tasked with the kind of individual decisions likely to determine the course of this virus and — not to put too fine a point on it — who may get sick and who may die. And as we try to negotiate the confusing maze of options and bizarre political climate, there are any number of fringe dwellers perfectly willing to provide enough bogus solutions to compound the lethal disorientation that began last winter. The current record-setting explosion of new infections has prompted a laser-like focus by the administration on … not resolve, not empathy, not encouragement … but on golf … golf and silence.
As we’re seeing over this most disconsolate of Thanksgiving weekends, the virus is apolitical, crossing party lines at will to sicken or kill indiscriminately. Even more troubling, messages from the feds are still garbled, inconsistent or flat-out false as efforts from the man-with-no-plan are largely focused on inuring himself from the harsh judgement rendered by the overwhelming will of the people. Mercifully, his treason notwithstanding, he will soon be gone, but leaving incalculable wreckage in his wake.
A colorized map of the United States is beginning to look like drone footage of a crime scene, as a darkening crimson stain spreads from coast to coast, obliterating the simplistic lines we once thought divided us, consolidating the populace in misery. As emergency rooms and intensive care units again fill to capacity, horror stories illustrate how badly we missed the mark. In the upper Midwest, thoroughly shaken nurses point to dying patients, bewildered by their plight, refusing a last FaceTime with families because they’re stuck in denial, not believing Covid exists, still invested in the fabrication that it’s a “hoax.”
Off in the upper righthand corner of that map though nestles Vermont, still a comparatively bright spot nationally even as our numbers are also rising with a 50% increase in cases expected in the next six weeks. What may have been a long summer’s complacency has come up against a stark autumn reality, with the central portion of the state, Washington County in particular, once the epicenter of the “safe” universe, now the focal point of the surge with over 200 cases in Barre alone, infections there doubling in just one week.
Phil Scott has been the rare Republican governor who’s provided a steady hand since day one, honest, clear circumspect and when indicated, flexible, as he was last week, amending his previous order banning outdoor, multi-household gatherings. In retrospect, after some pushback, two friends on a walk, hike or bike ride made “common sense” according to the governor, as long as they were adhering to the other precautions like masking up and social distancing.
Scott’s leadership has gone beyond the simple dos and don’ts of Covid restrictions, instilling bipartisan confidence that Vermonters can do this together, treating politics almost as a distraction, incidental to the larger task at hand. With his campaigning limited to doing his job, Scott won reelection by 40 percentage points with nearly 70% of the vote. Consequently, Vermonters seem to be taking the surge and their own actions to blunt its impact seriously. Coupled with the increasing possibility that an effective vaccine might be available to the most vulnerable as early as next month, a slight glimmer of hope appears that might finally imagine ourselves on the other side of this.
But as promising as the vaccines are, as sanguine as we may feel about the future, normal is still a long and perilous way off. Just how treacherous the road ahead may be is up to our understanding that what we want may be the opposite of what we and our neighbors need. From all reports travelers have largely ignored the CDC recommendation to stay home, with airlines at their busiest since March. Planes have been determined “safe” as industry reps cited airports as problem areas. Apparently no one made the connection that every passenger on every “safe” plane came through a dangerous airport.
Covid continues raging nationally at a terrifying rate with thousands of new cases daily and projections of unthinkable mass mortality. But closer to home, earlier this week, on a cloudy, dank afternoon, Montpelier was a ghost town: stores shuttered, few people on the street and hardly a car in sight. What would ordinarily be a depressing scene only days before a major holiday, was actually uplifting, an indication that Vermonters got the message and were taking their responsibility seriously, quietly determined to do their part. Perhaps in doing so, an indication that each of us can be that ray of light we’ve been seeking for so long.
