We're Isolated, but NOT Powerless

“How are you holding up?” That’s the standard question to ask one another these days as the COVID-19 virus continues to sweep across the planet. Unless you are a health care provider, grocery store employee, or have some other essential community role, the best thing to do for yourself and others is to stay home...or as some people put it, “do nothing.” But to do nothing feels like a cop-out. It makes me feel powerless.

My message to everyone is that we are not powerless! 

Even though the days seem to run together, every day we get to wake up and decide what we will to do to make it different and special. If you are an advocate, take heart that almost every advocacy tool we used before is available to us today! And beyond our advocacy, there is a lot that we can do for ourselves and others.

So, how am I holding up? I’m holding up by getting up every morning to ask myself three questions and try to do something about each one.

1) What can you do to take care of yourself?
Flight attendants tell us every time we board a plane that we must take care of ourselves before we can care for others. What works for airplane safety and oxygen masks, works for coronavirus isolation. Every day, try to do something that makes you happy/sane/stable even if it’s small. For me, that’s often exercise, but I’ll be honest in admitting that doesn’t always work. Sometimes, my self-care looks like a zoom call with friends and wine. Other times, it looks like video games and a margarita. One day, I just got really fed up with everything happening around me and retreated to take a bath and have a cry.

2) What can you do for someone locally?

Window scenes from our neighborhood "Bear Hunt"

There is so much need in all of our communities right now. Sheltering in place comfortably is a privilege. Families in poverty are running out of food as unemployment skyrocketed last month.

It’s both frustrating and overwhelming to think about all that need when we’d be a danger to the community if we physically went to provide help. What can we do?

That’s where ingenuity and creativity come in. Some things we can do are big and grand, but the right small gestures can be grand, too, when someone is lonely.

Some of my thoughts might inspire some of your own that you can share in the comments.

• Sort books from your home to give away to neighborhood kids learning to read who can’t get to the library anymore. Sure, they have to keep them in the garage for a few days to make sure the virus isn’t living on them before reading, but it’s quicker than waiting for the library to open! We took a walk to drop them at the door of some friends and got that daily outdoor exercise in, too.
• Organize a Teddy Bear Hunt in your neighborhood. We invited neighbors to put stuffed animals in their windows, so that the local kids (and us!) could have something fun to look for when taking walks. 
• Send someone who is struggling with bills some grocery money via Paypal or Vinmo.
• Open your windows and play an instrument, so your neighbors can hear. Live entertainment is scarce these days, so if you have a talent, share it!
• If you can sew and have materials, make some face masks to give to neighbors.
• Call/text someone who is lonely, especially seniors. Give Grandma a proper phone call!
• Offer to pick up groceries for someone over 60 next time you’re going shopping for yourself to help them stay home and safe.
• Offer to tutor a child (via computer) who might struggle with online school classes. 
• Bring your kids something nice while they are in an online class. There might not be much in the house as far as snacks go, but even a glass of ice water can be thoughtful and supportive.

The possibilities are endless! What else can you think of that works for you? 

3) What can you do to change things nationally or globally?
The pandemic has exposed all the cracks in our national and global health systems. So, there's not shortage of things we can work on!

If you’re already an activist comfortable writing letters to the editor, this is an excellent time to put your thoughts out in the media about health systems or the effect of COVID-19 on people in poverty. If not, this can either be a convenient time to learn that skill or put in a daily phone call to Congress. Here are some tips for writing letters to the editor. 

Here are a few of my recommendations for issues to work on right now with links to help you take action:

• U.S. Housing: Housing IS health care. You may never have have thought of it that way before, but it’s never been more clear that having a safe place of your own protects you from the elements, violence, viruses, and a lot of stress. Even before the outbreak families looking for affordable housing were in crisis. Please tell Congress that in the next virus response bill, they must take more action to help people keep a roof over their heads. This link from RESULTS has a media action called “Coronavirus exacerbates need for housing and nutrition assistance” to provide talking points for you to take this U.S. action. 
• Global Health Systems: If we can “flatten the curve” on coronavirus infection, we may avoid overwhelming our healthcare system. But for many people living in nations with fewer resources, even a few critical cases will overwhelm their healthcare system. And there are others with little to no access to healthcare at all. Tell Congress to prioritize global health systems, alongside the domestic response, as we move forward together. People living in poorer settings must not bear the brunt of this pandemic. This link from RESULTS has a media action called “Virus reminds us that everyone needs access to health care” to provide talking points for you to take this U.S. action. 

I hope this blog might help someone reading it. But even if it’s just one or a few, it helped ME today just to write it!

World Moms Give Perspective

World Moms Network contributors from around the world gather on
inform and comfort each other in our shared isolation.
Photo credit: Tes Soloman Silverman

Like a lot of folks these days, getting together with my friends for drinks and chats also means sitting in front of a computer screen. That can seem like an annoyance when it’s with my friends a few miles away, but it’s a giant privilege when I can get together with the women of World Moms Network!

World Moms Network was started by Jennifer Burden in 2010 with her vision that people would be much more tolerant and understanding of others who are different if they could personally feel connected to others globally. She built relationships with moms around the world and invited us to write blogs with our stories of raising children.

Over the years, we wrote of joys and concerns of motherhood in our own countries, which grew to include over 30 nations. The world would suffer many catastrophes like flooding in India, hurricanes in the U.S., and major earthquakes in Japan, Nepal, Ecuador, and Haiti.  Moms affected by disasters would write about their experiences, and the rest of the moms would read and check up on them with words of support. That was how it went until the coronavirus pandemic.

Never have we all experienced such an event all together. When several of us connected on our first online zoom call since the pandemic started, we had moms from Canada, Singapore, New Zealand, and several parts of the United States. All of our communities were in various stages lockdown depending on how our respective governments handled the COVID-19 crisis. It’s astounding how similar our experiences and feelings are, despite the miles between us.

The lives of the moms on the call were quite varied. Some have young kids, some have teens. Some moms work - requiring a 5AM wake-up to do work before kids must be supervised for at-home school) - and others are not employed. Our houses might be big or small, but all of us were feeling both anxious and glad to see each other’s faces.

As I listened to them, I kept thinking that if every American had friends like these, it would inoculate us from those that label COVID-19 coverage “fake news” and call the virus a “hoax” dreamt up by a political party. When you talk to a real live mom who tell you first-hand about what is happening in her community, it gives you context for your own situation and the news you consume.

Over email, I’ve continued to see more lockdown stories from Belgium, Switzerland, South Africa, and Portugal. In South Africa, they are only now starting to brace themselves for COVID-19 as it took longer to reach them. Racial issues persist as they battle a mis-informed rumor that only white people can catch the virus. Our Belgian mom is a scientist who shifted her attention to tending her garden as she can no longer access her lab. Switzerland was ahead of us in terms of remote learning, so our Swiss mom hopes they will reach a more normal state now that the teachers have things running smoother. A mother in Portugal tells us that the police are enforcing the stay-at-home order, but they are tentatively celebrating a flatter curve than Spain despite a shared geography on the Iberian peninsula.

I hope we’ll be able to share some of these stories soon at www.worldmomsnetwork.com soon. In the meantime, it’s a source of joy and comfort to me to know that my fellow moms are out there doing the best they can to bring comfort and routine to their families and friends. Stay safe and healthy, everyone!

Social Distancing is Kindness: #FlattenTheCurve

I've been a global health advocate working on infectious diseases for over 10 years now. But this Sunday morning (instead of going to church) I'm writing to you as a science-loving mom to encourage a shift in attitude about how we view a world-wide and national plea for social distancing. 

I'm well aware that a policy of social distancing goes directly against a core American ideal of individualism ("I have the right to do what I want and you can't stop me!"). But Americans are compassionate, too. Together, we can turn an attitude of forced isolation to one of solidarity in kindness.

The Science of #FlattenTheCurve
It's now too late to stop the spread of the corona virus, so we need to take every precaution to SLOW the spread. That's what people mean when they use the phrase "Flatten the Curve." They're talking about a graph representing the number of daily cases over time. This graph from the CDC shows what we are trying to achieve with social distancing: a reduction in the outbreak's peak. We want to slow the spread of the virus so that everyone doesn't get sick simultaneously, which would overwhelm our ability to care for everyone.

Source: CDC and distributed by Vox

The most important part of the "Flatten the Curve" graph is the location of the peak in relation to the dotted line. The line shows the limits of our health care system. That's the point where we reach the maximum care that our doctors, nurses, clinics, and hospitals can provide. The worst case of a big spike in COVID-19 would be health care rationing! 

Source: Washington Post

If you really want to geek out with more detail, The Washington Post put out an article today with several excellent simulation models showing how social distancing works.  









The Need for Kindness
Crossing that health care line would be especially alarming because we all know who gets access to anything in the US when a resource is scarce...the wealthy. High-risk medical populations and people experiencing poverty would be most in danger. The virus would spread quickly through populations unable to self-isolate (hourly employees needing money to survive, homeless populations, etc).

Isn't it the most noble thing we can do...to use our personal actions to protect the most vulnerable people? Isn't it an exercise in kindness and compassion to protect the lives of our elders, our neighbors in ill health, and people struggling through this crisis in poverty?

Stephen and April
Folks are worried. They're scared and asking for our help. But don't take it just from me. Read two stories from my friends who depend on our actions to keep them safe.

Steven lives in Syracuse, NY, and is in a life and death struggle with kidney failure every day. I follow him on Twitter because of the way he daily expresses his love of his family, Disney, video games, Huey Lewis & the News, and other things we have in common. But he also tweets about what life is like waiting every day for a kidney.

Source: China Centre for Disease Control & Prevention

Steven says:
"I'm sure this pandemic with COVID-19 is scary for everyone. We have decent protocols in place, but I think things are going to be different for everyone in the next few weeks. Schools closed, events cancelled...some people have lost jobs. It's rough. For me, I worry about being able to get dialysis as well as my increased potential for infection due to being immunocompromised. In all those articles where they talk about the people most at risk...well, that's me. 

And I've fought for so long to survive for my family. I don't want to get sick and have to try and fight this...and if I have to go to the hospital, can I get dialysis? Will they be too overwhelmed? See, I can't put off dialysis. It's not something I can stop doing for a while. I HAVE to do it. Or I die. So, I worry about that. Then I worry about being able to pay our bills. We're stretched as thin as butter over too much bread as it is. We're not sure if my wife can work the next few weeks, either. We're still waiting on word for that. And my "safety cushion" savings got used up long ago. It's an adventure down this road, for sure."

April of St Louis, MO is one of the strongest women I know because of her spirit, and not just because she's one of my TaeKwoDo instructors who carries a sword! She's not a complainer. When injured, she has an incredible tendency to push through all kinds of pain as she performs jump kicks and other physically demanding feats in our workouts. Most people would not think she'd be medically at risk just to look at her.

April says:
"I'm really tired of how little concern some people are showing for those of us who would contract a serious case of COVID-19 and could die from this. Your jokes about the flu also are not comforting or funny. I end up in the hospital every flu season. I won't be one of the "mild" cases, so when you make fun of those of us who are showing concern and taking caution, you're showing me you really don't care about my well-being. Please stop. I am scared and if you can't be a decent human being and empathize with those of us who aren't as lucky and healthy as you are, please just do us all a favor and don't say anything at all."

So what can we do? Author Cindy Wang Brant posted this brainstorming exercise a family did with "Family Quarantine of Love" written right at the top of it to remind them all that these sacrifices are acts of love. 

My last note is that none of us will get banners or balloons if we do a great job with this. A successful social distancing policy will look to critics as if there was never an emergency and we over-reacted. As with most acts of kindness, we must be willing to do the unpopular thing. We have to do the right thing when we know no one is looking. Do it for the Stevens, the Aprils, your grandparents, and people relying on soup kitchens. Do it because you care.