I guess you can call that a silver lining, although I would call a pox on Humana leadership that during this crisis seem to have no scope for how people's hands are tied by the legal ramifications of lockdowns and quarantines.Some of the senior nursing homes are seeing clusters of COVID-19 erupt. So far, where Mom is living is safe and she is safe, although bored out of her mind. The staff there is very kind and on strict order where they can't go anywhere even on their own time. I truly appreciate people who are making enormous sacrifices for the welfare of others. When I'm allowed I will make this up to them. So Mom's safety is a silver lining.
All this could, and did, depress me. I miss my kids. I miss going out with friends. I miss shopping at the store. But on the other hand, I'm out walking twice a day with my dog and saying hello to people I don't know-an unusual behavior in most urban settings. The constant hum of rush hour traffic has dulled where I can hear birds sing in the morning. It makes me feel like Cinderella. The air is fresher and with the abundant rain, the yards and parks are lush with new growth. Since the city has furloughed many workers in parks, these places will begin to grow wild, providing habitats for all kinds of animals and birds in time.
I looked at my bank account and found we spent a thousand dollars LESS staying home. We're not gadabouts, but that number stunned me. I'm cooking and baking more. I'm more careful to avoid waste. I'm having to be very creative because I never know what will be depleted in the store. One day there's no cheese. The next there's no eggs. There's always a lack of frozen food and the fresh produce is come and go. In spite of this we've managed to have enchiladas, steak, hamburgers and shrimp creole from food I stored in the freezer. The silver lining beyond having food to eat is that my husband can never ever again gripe about me buying and storing too much food.
On a larger scale I'm wonder what work at home and homeschooling are doing for and to our culture. I believe that prior to this situation, many Americans were lacking in compassion and empathy for others. Humans had been reduced by modern society to pixels on a screen. The enforced family togetherness is limiting the outside influence of peers to teens. This in turn may change behavior as the outrageous acting out that gets attention in most public schools only gets a shrug or a glare when Mom or Dad are working right across the table from you. I had to laugh when I saw the news stories with parents complaining the lessons they were expected to present were "too hard" or that their children were goofing off and not completing work. Not so easy, is it parents? A million teachers just laughed.
Perhaps from this parents will learn how to establish some discipline, stop blaming teachers for their kids' failures and get more kids off of medications they don't need once structure is applied. That would be a big silver lining. Before you attack, my youngest son is ADHD and was on Ritalin for a long time. When he was 18 he demanded to stop. He hated the way it made him feel. He's managed to become successful in sales. Imagine the 4, 5, and 6 years old enduring these feelings and having no words to describe what is happening to their brains and bodies.Wouldn't having fewer kids on medications be a silver lining?
I wonder if all the cities that offered tax abatements to entities like Amazon and IKEA will suddenly find they don't need all that subsidized office space. My daughter works for a Very Big Bank in their fraud division. She's been working at home since early February. She does her job well, she's not as tired because she doesn't have a 45 minute commute each way She does miss her friends and performing, but for fun she's turned her garage into a dance studio and is teaching online dances from musicals she's choreographed. My daughter in law is also working at home five days a week, actually logging overtime since her large global company lost an entire call center in American Samoa. I believe that just like homeschooling, there are some who will be reluctant to return to their office cubicles where, let's be honest here, there's so much wasted time. Getting to work at home and having it become more common is definitely a silver lining.
For those in service oriented jobs, being there is a necessity. My two sons each have jobs that require their presence. One works in automotive, the other in bikes. Both are supposed to be working service only, but my youngest son's retail store is getting hammered by people insisting they are entitled to come in and buy stuff. My youngest used to be a bouncer and at six foot four inches and 240 lbs, is built like a linebacker, it's not a good idea to argue with him. He's trying to keep his skeleton staff safe by limiting it to five in the store. I don't know why people have to be belligerent. That they have jobs, even with reduced hours, is a blessing.
On a national scale, I wonder if people will start paying more attention to what they see as opposed to what other people are telling them. I don't see how anyone could watch the task force daily and then believe what is being spewed in the media. I am also wondering if people will start paying attention to secondary stories. I think the stories on the misuse of FISA is huge and that's absolutely being buried by all the CoronaVirus coverage. The story is important because it demonstrates that under the Obama administration DOJ, the FBI was indulging in absolutely illegal, unconstitutional behavior. Likewise the emerging insider trading scandals related to the congressional COVID-19 closed door meeting is another example of corruption that needs to come forward. I think all those participating should be prosecuted including Nancy Pelosi, who right after the hearings bought five million in Amazon stock. That kind of behavior being ousted from Congress would be a silver lining indeed.
In the end, this is all going to come down to attitude. I hope I don't get this virus. There's no real assurance that I won't, but likewise there's no way to know that I haven't already had it and gotten better. I have allergies all the time. Fall and Spring are major allergy triggers for me. I sneeze and cough pretty much all year round. I feel like I need a shirt with a disclaimer "Not Positive, But Allergic" for going to the store. That being said, I'm looking at the numbers and while not great, they aren't as bad as some are claiming. I'm reading about Sweden and Denmark where there are allowing herd immunity to rule. I'm curious if protocols established will work and if some, perhaps even many, of the deaths attributed to COVID-19 were actually only a minor cause for much larger issues that were ignored for the sake of media headlines. Moving the American public away from blind allegiance to ANY media source and returning them to a renewed vigilance on their own constitutional rights. And that would be a big shiny silver lining right there.
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