Closed parks? No basketball in KY? This is shared sacrifice. It could save our lives.
Every day I read the obituaries in our paper and for the past week, they’ve said the same thing: “Private burial at a later date.”
That is shared sacrifice: Families left to mourn in isolation because they know it’s not safe to gather right now.
All over Kentucky, grandparents can’t see their grandchildren, children can’t into nursing homes to see their elderly parents. People have lost businesses, lost jobs and are facing scary uncertainty at every turn. On Thursday, Gov. Andy Beshear expressed concerns about parks and basketball courts; Louisville took down basketball hoops, and natural areas are being closed down, leaving fewer places to get outside.
But at some level, people have agreed there is a threat and it must be met by action.
And if you compare Kentucky to other states, this shared sacrifice may just be working, as our rates are growing more slowly than other states. COVID-19 rates are going to spike in the next two weeks, experts say, and so we have to keep doing what we’re doing.
Here is what is not shared sacrifice: Just as COVID-19 gets ready to spike here, the General Assembly is putting its members and its nearly 400 employees at risk by continuing to meet and pass bills that meet a slender political agenda that has nothing to do with their mandate to pass a budget and help people who are sacrificing every day to escape this disease. According to the National Council on State Legislatures, Kentucky appears to be the only legislature currently meeting.
Yes, they did pass a coronavirus aid bill, which will make it easier to apply for unemployment. And maybe it’s coronavirus-related to allow wine sales to be delivered to your house? But the alleged pro-lifers of the Republican-led Senate also passed House Bill 451 to make sure that the Attorney General has extra power to prosecute abortions in the state. At a time when the public can’t get in to observe and speak against them, they passed the voter ID law, and are looking at plenty of other controversial measures that have nothing to do with the pandemic.
Let’s now turn to former Republican House Speaker Jeff Hoover, who had a similar concern: “Pro-lifers say ‘all life is worthy and should be protected’ and I agree!!!” he tweeted Wednesday. “How then can ProLife #kyga20 justify meeting, not practice social distancing, and put the lives of colleagues, family and staff in danger? Seriously.”
Seriously. A group of protesters showed up to tell legislators to go home, to no avail. There was even the push by Rep. Savannah Maddox, (R-Deranged?), to muzzle the governor’s executive power during such crises. Luckily, not even her Republican colleagues took her seriously.
Seriously.
All for the greater good
The other day I talked to University of Kentucky history professor Tracy Campbell, who is coming out with a new book titled “The Year of Peril: America 1942.” (Yale University Press). He went through press accounts of every day of that year to document how Americans rallied and sacrificed for the war effort, from an 88 percent tax rate of the highest earners to rationed coffee (?!?) and gasoline.
“The response to Pearl Harbor was often called ‘equality of sacrifice,’ and it left out no one,” Campbell said. “Children would participate in collecting scrap rubber and the government rationed basic goods and set wage and price limits, so there was hardly any aspect of the U.S. economy that wasn’t controlled and planned, all for the greater good.”
Campbell said he was wary of too many comparisons between today and World War II. “Roosevelt called it a privilege to participate in this great national undertaking ... it was part of the cost of maintaining a democratic society. I think the jury is still out on what it looks like today.”
Of course, a stealthy killer virus is different from from a two-front war across the globe. (I’m also wary of too much lionization of Gov. Andy Beshear, but I’ve heard more than one person compare his 5 p.m. briefings to Roosevelt’s fireside chats.) It’s a shame that we’ve become so divided as a nation that your political beliefs tend to dictate how you feel and react to COVID-19. But compared to the sacrifices our grandparents and great-grandparents made, including many lost lives, staying at home doesn’t seem too much to ask.
Yes, it’s confusing to listen to our president claim churches will be filled for Easter Sunday, and then to our governor who tells us the worst is yet to come. But scientists and other public health experts agree with Beshear. And New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. And Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine.
“It’s important for us to listen to our local leaders and act on the local level because the impact of this pandemic will be here in our hospitals and communities,” said Kathleen Winter, a University of Kentucky public health epidemiologist. “The information at the national level doesn’t necessarily translate to the reality here on the ground.”
So let’s be patient and kind and think about our communities. Let’s think about our frontline healthcare workers who don’t have the luxury of staying home, and are facing this peril without the proper equipment. Let’s think about our grandparents. They sacrificed a lot for us through the years. The least we can do is sit on the couch for them.
It’s like what Beshear said Thursday: “I know we can do this. We’re just going to have to dig deeper and deeper and deeper, but it’s going to make so much difference to the health and safety of those around us.
“It’s going to call on all of us to do that much more.”
This story was originally published March 27, 2020 at 9:41 AM.
