I’m angry. Greta Thunberg angry. You know Greta Thunberg: the 17-year-old Swedish climate activist who stares down world leaders with her unflinching child’s gaze and says, “We are in the middle of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of economic growth. How dare you!”
I am no 17-year-old, but I feel similar to Greta. Leaders, from the top down, are playing with human life for economic gain.
If you haven’t seen the front page of this past Sunday’s New York Times, I encourage you to look at it. On it, are the names of 1,000 of the nearly 100,000 who have perished in the United States from coronavirus. Column after column of names are printed and beside each name, a short sentence that says something that makes that name a person—someone who mattered.
“Stopped working, to take care of his aging parents,” it says after one. “Member of Literacy Volunteers of America,” it says after another. “Educator, politician and family man,” it says after a third.
The point is that none were a mere number. Each, from the youngest to the oldest, had a life, interests, loved ones, and passions. All were cut short, interrupted by this deadly disease. This is enough to make any of us sad.
But I’m not just sad.
I'm angry, because, like Greta Thunberg, I feel we must be making better decisions to try to slow down this disease until a vaccine is developed.
In our small towns that make up the Santa Ynez Valley, we have good fortune with regard to virus count. With the exception of the tragic cases of illness at the prison in Lompoc, we have been spared.
However, with the recent rash of openings of stores, businesses, and restaurants, the amount of visitors to our Valley will surely change these numbers.
Julia Daye, on May 25 wrote in the Medium, of a similar phenomenon happening in her town, Taos, New Mexico. Apparently, Taos, like the Santa Ynez Valley, has been sheltering at home since March, cancelling its usual summer concerts and implementing heavy restrictions on travel, activities and foot traffic in public places.
It had only 23 positive cases up until now.
But, Julia Daye reports that small towns are among the most vulnerable when it comes to surges of infection. This is because most small towns have little capacity to handle full-blown epidemics.
Areas like Taos (and our own) rely on small critical care hospitals that are designed for very short-term care. And, Taos, like our own Santa Ynez Valley, has an aging population. That is why, Daye cautions, it is vital to keep case numbers extremely low, avoiding surges in infection.
And that is why, like Greta Thunberg, I am angry.
Over the past weekend, as businesses opened throughout Solvang, Los Olivos and Santa Ynez, it was apparent how many visitors decided to make the Santa Ynez Valley a nice getaway destination.
I saw visitors rolling their suitcases into motels in Solvang; I saw folks in the little parks in Solvang and Los Olivos – packed close together; and crowds walking the sidewalks with no room to pass on either side. What does this mean?
Again, referencing the Taos, New Mexico journalist, even one symptomatic traveler carrying the virus and walking through our grocery stores or gas stations, could start a domino effect of infection. And this, with our aging population and modest health care system, we are not prepared to handle.
Look, I get it. People are restless after being cooped up for two months. Our economy is taking incalculable hits from this disease. Yet, we are learning during this pandemic, that actions we take will and are affecting others.
When I asked a well-known Solvang businessman why he was in such a hurry to open the town, given medical evidence of the severity and infectiousness of the disease, he spoke of "free will." He said we are all allowed to make our own decisions on our behavior.
And that made me Greta Thunberg angry as well.
If people want to gamble with their own life — well, so be it. But, based on the 1,000 names printed Sunday in the New York Times, representing the 100,000 deaths in America, we know that each of those people had people who loved them, were dependent upon them and each made a difference in the fabric of our country. And they contracted the disease from someone else.