The Gospel According to Emil

"Knowledge is Good"

-Emil Faber

Late Tuesday, the Santa Clara, California Medical Examiner confirmed that two county residents who died in their homes in early February were infected with COVID-19, which finding is significant for several reasons, including (a) both died weeks before what had been believed to be the first COVID-19 death in the United States; and (b) both contracted COVID-19 without any documented travel history, meaning they did not go to where the virus lived, the virus came to where they lived. 

The first of the two February deaths in Santa Clara, California happened on February 6, 2020, which is less than eighty days ago.  In that brief period, COVID-19 has killed more than forty thousand other Americans. Here in my home state, it has killed more than forty-five hundred New Jerseyans. It continues to attack various parts of the country with vigor, while appearing to have plateaued in other parts of the country.  

We the people of these United States are a people on edge.  We have every right to be.  Hell, we might need to go for a collective mental status exam were we not.  With very rare exceptions (and you lucky ducks who were alive for the 1918 Spanish Flu, I am looking at you) most of us have never lived through a global pandemic.  It has not simply turned our world upside down.  It has, thereafter, shaken it up, thrown it up against a wall, and kicked it down the road a spell, just for shits and giggles. 

As we have looked in every corner of our universe for the "How-To" manual on managing this crisis, both inside the four walls of our home, and in the common area we know as our world, we have discovered that "Pandemic Survival for Dummies" is not available for purchase.  Not even on Amazon.  Unlike Purell, its unavailability is not related to supply and demand. It is related to something exponentially more terrifying:  It does not exist. 

Do not be terrified.  Human beings are not only a supremely arrogant bunch of mother fuckers, we are a supremely intelligent bunch too.  Not me, per se.  Others.  As someone who sought refuge in the social sciences (B.A. in Political Science followed by a J.D.) in substantial part due to my profound limitations in all things mathematical and scientific, I have an extraordinary amount of respect for the men and women who dedicate their lives to such pursuits.  I have an even greater amount of belief in them and in their ability to problem-solve.  How do I get through my day-to-day and keep my wits about me?  I stay as well-informed as I can and I pay attention to what scientists are saying.  I shall abandon all hope only after they do.  

Spoiler Alert:  The solution to this problem will not come from the brain of a politician or an elected official.  It will come from the scientists, as it has in the past, and as it shall until we succumb to our arrogance and burn this planet to the ground.   

Thank you, Emil Faber. Knowledge is good.  

Indeed it is. 

-AK