Novel

Corona viruses have been around for a while. What makes COVID-19* dangerous is that it's new.

A novel virus is so strange we don't know how to respond. It takes time for our bodies to build up immunity. And while our immune systems try to work it out, so do our health systems. We try many things, hoping that one or a combination of several will work. We make progress in some areas, while failing in others. Each failure is another lesson as we struggle to effectively address the problem.

Some of our efforts seem obviously reasonable, like ventilators for respiratory failure. But we don't even know how effective these measures are; few of those on ventilators survive. We experiment in search of a solution. Different drugs or combinations are tried, not, as one physician said, because we necessarily believe they will work but just to try something. There was anecdotal evidence that chloroquine, an old drug no longer very effective for malaria, might work. So many doctors tried it, only to find it not only ineffective but prone to dangerous side effects.

We even muse about ways that disinfectants, so effective outside our bodies, might somehow be able to kill the virus once it is in our bodies. We are that desperate for a cure.

We are also new to responding socially to this virus. I forget to keep my distance when chatting with neighbors walking past until they remind me to keep my distance. Different communities experiment with different levels of isolation, making their best judgments on balancing rights of personal freedom with community safety and welfare. Some organizations seem to think that health experts are incompetent and that the need to reduce interaction is nonsense; they seem to believe guns are the cure for this virus. Fortunately, these seem to be a small minority—but protesters can be concealed carriers of the virus, and their selfishness is beyond disturbing. Others admit the danger but believe money is more important than life and we should be willing to sacrifice lives to prevent the economy from tanking. As I understand it, this view holds that we are morally obligated to interact with each other pretty much as normal because our economy is what defines us.

Our inability to deal with novelty applies to social infections as well. We expect leaders to think before they speak, even if we disagree with their logic or point of view. When a president spouts whatever fool notion enters his head at the moment, we don't know how to respond. Some follow his musings as instructions.

After being accustomed to presidents who at least tried to seem honest and caring, we were unprepared for one who blatantly lies and then either brags about the veracity of his lies or denies that he said what he said the previous week. We had come to expect someone who would prioritize comfort and solace for those who have lost loved ones in a national tragedy. We were unprepared for one who shirks all accountability, who insults reporters for asking valid questions or calls them liars for telling obvious and demonstrable truths. We were caught off guard by someone who would direct all his influence toward propping up his own ego. We don't know how to deal with this audacious new form of irresponsibility.

News, at its name implies, is about novel events. And this novel contagion at our highest level of government has caught our attention; we are fascinated. Some of us are outraged and research every false statement or otherwise waste energy in reacting. Often we play into his muddled but time-tested strategy of sowing destruction and then picking up the pieces for himself.

But now a new competitor shows up and steals the show. Our president has made a valiant effort at discrediting the newcomer as he has every other challenger. But this one ignores him. The bluster, disinformation, and braggadocio have no effect. The virus goes about its business of serving itself. It has outdone him.

President Trump may manage to ally himself to this new devil, just as he has cozied up to human ones. He may find ways to turn this tragedy into a source of self aggrandizement. He may convince enough of us again that only he can fix it despite his bungled attempts so far.

Or maybe this new disaster will alter the perspectives of some who have embraced the one in the White House. Maybe we will have had enough of what's new and be ready to return to what is less newsworthy and more competent. We might decide that we need more than slogans and blame-shifting to fix the effects of this virus and, while we're at it, to begin to restore other ruins left by this administration.


* Technically, the name of the novel virus is SARS-CoV-2. The disease it causes is COVID-19.