Rethinking "back to normal" when Covid-19 dwindles

At all levels of governance, United Nations, USA President Biden, many governors among the 50 USA states and perhaps among the territories, as well as from the mouths of (big city) mayors there is recognition of value in and pledging to "build back better" with a minimum wage that lifts a worker with a family above the statutory annual income poverty line (definition). Examples are the policing habits and mandatory sentencing (social justice), higher education and health care as a basic right (regardless of ability to pay), unequal access to clean air and water (environmental justice), and obstacles to building generational wealth ---burdens touching all lives, but proportionally more costly for those starting with fewest financial, informational, and social resources to drawn upon. In other words, using pre-Covid standards as the benchmark for restoring a state of 'normal' is not sufficient, not desireable, and not right.

 

In the video clip the carillon that plays at noon and again at 6 p.m. on weekdays at this church evokes many things about the pre-pandemic routines of the week that formerly comprised normal, proper, and generally pleasing parts of the social landscape. For example, the church annual cycle of events was one set of calendar markers that structured many residents' year. Dining out, vacation or business travel, and the many functions of consumer society all filled people's imaginations, budgets, and schedules. Focusing on the front end of those processes --- choosing what to eat, where to go, what to buy for self or as a gift for others --- there used to be an element of hunter/gatherer thrill of the chase: spotting the thing to satisfy one's goal. To complete the circuit from idea to pursuit to purchase to consumption there used to be a set of conditions (pre-coronavirus) that were taken for granted and now (during the pandemic) have been either prohibited, ill-advised, or otherwise abandoned. There was the fuel burned in driving from retail place to place (in Covid times substituted to some extent by online browsing, wishlists, and deliveries). There was the recycle or landfill burden of transport packaging and retail boxing that is discarded. And psychologically there was the imaginary land of endless purchase, use, disposal; as if one's individual indiscretions and feelings of wanting, deserving, or feeling obligated to go out and get something was disconnected from carbon footprint, energy consumption, food waste, and all the other components adding up to the USA 5% of the world's humans using up 20 or 25% of the planet's energy.

So what might this "build back better" look like? The list of issues, above, touches on some examples that may be engaged with seriously to find local expressions for attaining the goals and addressing wrongs of present and future (maybe even compensating for past wrongs, too). But from the experiential level of individual "life chances" or dreams and realities of people in all points along the social and economic status spectrum there will be other changes to look for; things that translate from the slogan level to the lived-in level.

For the sake of this argument and skipping over all the conflicts, obstacles, excuses, and special interest lobbying, suppose that minimum wage does go up and working hours go down. That could lead to more consumer activity - in direct contradiction to the Green Economy recognition that the carbon footprint must be reversed for this generation and for the burgeoning human populations on all continents that are yet to come. Not reining in the consuming of fossil fuels only worsens the extreme weather, expands the destruction of habitat --including water and air for humans, too--, and accelerates the extinction of diverse plants and animals of air, land, and sea (and non-salty waters, too). So from the experiential, first-person point-of-view, better laws and enforcement, along with income levels improving, results in individuals having greater social, economic, and aspirational reserves to face good times and bad, normal life and the times of disaster from natural source or human cause.

Supposing, further, that big consumers of the G-20 societies where much of the global energy and resources are used up (not just to survive, but for discretionary uses) were now to cultivate a mindset of conserving water, air, species, and material wealth (make it last, right to repair, barter and down-cycling before recycling). Then the limited resources and the renewable resources will be consumed at their HABU (highest and best use), rather than to be squandered in unsystematic, careless ways. At the personal level as well as at the organizational scale this new mentality would translate into amplified mindfulness about disposition of resource and its final disposal, and before that, careful use of the things one is in charge of using. Much more of the economy's services and products, and leisure pursuits will leverage the savings of time, knowledge/expertise, and fuel by using Internet for communication and engagement in a subject virtually instead of in-person, face to face.

Finally, if it were so that health care and higher/further education were guaranteed rights obtained in one's citizenship and in one's active contribution to society (paid or unpaid work, building rather than breaking the social fabric), then people from all walks of life could imagine bigger and better futures for self and others. The possibility of pursuing one's dreams would be actually within reach, unhindered by matters of net worth or generational wealth/poverty and social capital in the names and interpersonal debts and credits among the constellation of one's own contacts.

Taken all together, "building back better" instead of "back to normal" is exciting to think about. Some parts may actually take initial or even final form, but other elements will remain talking points to aspire to in the next generation of people participating in "the art of the possible," as the political arena has been characterized over the years.

Grocery patriotism a month after Independence Day

Sunday afternoon grocery shopping in the peanuts, dried fruit, snack section.

Although the waist-level grab shot makes the Star-spangled Banner look very large, in fact this is the normal retail size that homeowners display on poles attached to the front of their house. Since this instance is indoors and cannot flutter in the breeze, the supporting structure holds the full rectangular shape rigidly unfurled.

The range of possible intentions by the grocery-store corporate headquarters, or the local branch store manager could be one or more meanings. Without probing in conversation, though, here are a few ways to interpret this public display on private property indoors, listed in no particular order of significance.

1. Initiated around the time of the July 4th national holiday in celebration of the Declaration of Independence from the colonial powers in London, this show of The Colors is a traditional sight, albeit normally outdoors instead of in the food rows.
2. Ever since the pandemic arrived at the end of winter season, little by little the small and large impositions on people of all ages and social circumstances has led to tension and irritability, tribal outbursts and blaming one another. So perhaps this national unity statement is a reminder that all citizens (and tacitly, too, the undocumented non-citizens) are members of the same team.
3. At the risk of overthinking the possible primary or secondary meaning, maybe what began as traditional July 4 exhibition has slowly taken on a new meaning as the federal government, starting with the POTUS, has failed to lead a response to Covid-19, including the Black Lives Matter movement, and will soon face the November election, preceded by the August Primary Election. Thus this flag might be a visual reminder to shoppers that times are bad for life expectancy, for social interaction, and for economic livelihoods and therefore it is time to elect fellow citizens who actually do have leadership credentials, plans, and results demonstrated in their careers.
4. Lastly, and not particularly compelling as a purpose for displaying the national flag, it could well be that this one location in all of the vast store, at shoulder height or higher to most shoppers, is meant as nothing more than a cheerful, comforting, decorative and status-quo declaration: "we were here before, we are here now, and we will be open for business tomorrow, too."

Seasonal foods for sale - neighborhood grocery store

In most parts of the USA it is the large national chains of food-plus-general merchandise "super" markets that attract most buyers as a one-stop solution to products for sale. Particularly in urban centers there are "food deserts" where there is no place to buy edibles not processed or ready-to-eat. Things designed for human consumption can be bought at convenience stores and gas stations. Fast food restaurants proliferate since profits can be had in urban centers with commuters and other temporary consumers on the ground during the day. But for residents, it is common to find no full service grocery store.

By contrast, this photo shows a store operating for generations in the city of Grand Rapids where shoppers can buy a wide range of fresh foods, knowing that the store's buying team constantly seeks local businesses to source the foods. The price is higher than the mass scale, low-margin business model for the national and regional huge floor plans of supermarkets. But enough people nearby this store are willing to pay for the flavor from freshly harvested produce and locally raised meat animals that this business is sustained.

locally sourced fruit, vegetables, and meat is part of the business model here

The weekly sign changes first thing every Sunday to advertise what is promoted with special pricing for the coming seven days. At the end of July the list includes Michigan cherries, blueberries, tomatoes, leaf lettuce varieties, in addition to chicken (breast). A smaller sign in the corner of the parking lot in the distance can be seen between the uprights of the big sign. It lists sweet corn for sale at 2 ears for $1.

The brick building in the background is one of the fire stations in the city of Grand Rapids. Sometimes the navy blue uniformed fire-fighters can be seen in the checkout line after they walk across the parking lot to buy a sandwich or other things to eat or drink. During the 2020 pandemic most customers readily began wearing masks early on, when trips indoors were recommended to include face-masks. Now there is a statewide order for all retail customers and workers to wear face coverings of some kind, so compliance is 100% by casual survey, looking around the premises.

Outdoor movie night hosted at church parking lot

Summer get-together during Covid-19 pandemic, masks at hand, as needed

Here and there the cars park to face the inflatable movie screen and sound system. The closest space is cordoned off for people to arrange their chairs without any worry about cars being in the way. Before the sky darkened enough for the digital projector to fill the screen, a rock and roll trio of church members played a few sets of pop songs as church members, friends, and members of the general public began to arrive and socialize, either with masks (especially those with their own health problems, or anxious about any risk caused by bringing Covid-19 back home to others or infecting co-workers) or by keeping approximately 6 feet between each other.

As the pandemic overtook this county seat in middle February, the church's liturgical calendar was complicated by the need to close the building. Fairly soon their leadership arrived at a solution involving drive-in worship: people isolate themselves in their car or truck, then tune into the low-power FM signal on their phone or car radio to listen to whoever is at the microphone, sometimes broadcasting from indoors and sometimes from outdoors. Initially things were restricted to outdoor, in-car, gatherings. Then the Michigan governor made incremental changes to the emergency orders and gatherings out of doors up to 100 persons (in masks) developed. At one point limited indoor worship also was permitted with distancing, masking, and limiting the exposure time. These days there are some worshipers who scatter themselves widely among the pews inside and others in their cars at the worship hour on Sunday mornings. The worship leader makes an effort to broadcast from both indoors and outdoors over the course of the service so that everyone has a chance to see him in person, rather than hearing only a disembodied voice.

The logistics of serving the sacrament of communion was a challenge to overcome. Eventually, they created individual serving size packets for each person taking the communion. The commercial ones use grape juice instead of wine (grape juice that has been fermented). So in the interest of conforming to pre-pandemic customs of using wine, the church crew prepares their own individual serving size packets.

This photo is taken soon after the movie began. The wide-angle lens exaggerates the small dimension of the projector screen. In fact it is the size of a very small house side. All together there were  perhaps 50-70 people attending of all ages, mostly adults, many of them retired or nearing retirement age. By way of concessions for sale, a brightly painted and lit up ice-cream truck was open for business to the left of this frame, near the church entrance. A table on the porch of the church had pop-corn and soft-drinks on offer, too. The evening music group with amplified speakers was playing near the corner nearest the church and movie screen.

Everybody seemed especially grateful for the chance to mingle informally in the warm summer evening, either unmasked and keeping their distance from each other, or standing at the pre-pandemic accustomed "personal space" of 3-4 feet apart.

Drive-by birthday recognition to thwart Covid-19 transmission

friends and relatives make this little girl's 4th birthday memorable at a distance

Wearing a tutu and tiara, and accompanied by a pink chariot bearing "princess" on it, this little girl and her family waved and shouted as each of the cars in queue rolled up to the house, rolled down their windows (some wearing face/nose masks), and voiced their appreciation of this special day to focus on the star attraction, the Birthday Girl.

This was at 1 p.m. on a Saturday when the chirping birds and distant hum of lawnmower sound was shattered by a few mega-decibel police patrol cars with flashing lights leading the procession. The participating parade cars staged themselves a block away in the parking lot of an empty elementary school, closed since middle March by order of the Governor, along with the rest of the state of Michigan. Then one by one each car approached, one with a disco-beat version of the Happy Birthday theme or melody, and some held out cards or packages for the parents to collect (maybe to sanitize or quarantine for 72 hours to keep the coronavirus from transmitting). One or two cars parked after making their pass so that the riders could get a little closer to the family, while maintaining the 6 foot cordon from each other.

This photo shows one car with a helium balloon in the shape of a Happy Face sticking out from the rear passenger window. Other cars displayed hand-made posters and other signage to wave out the window or attach to the glass. A display table holds some of the gifts and what looks to be an older sibling enjoys the day, as well, knowing that each member of the family gets special attention in their turn.

Some commentators and interviewees on the radio programs have pointed out the possible bad effect from keeping school children cooped up, at a distance from peers. A touchless, socially distant "normal" non-verbal communication, and the heightened germ awareness of all surfaces will play out in the developmental cycle of young lives in many unexpected ways, no doubt. And the huge disparity between rich, middle, and poor countries; as well as within a single society, will also present a range of Covid-19 habits and expectations, too.

All this mayhem from a micro-organism! But then yeast is a small creature that affects life vastly, too. And then there was the vast swatch of death and economic collapse from the waves of Black Death pestilence, blood-borne or the aerosol, pneumonial type from 1348 onward.

Funerial social distance, May 13 west Michigan

Late afternoon Wednesday more than a dozen people gathered at the burial ground next to the hole in the ground that had been prepared for interment. Most were wearing masks to keep from transmitting the water droplets of their breath or talking or praying or singing or crying. A line of personal automobiles lined the access lane to the left of this picture taken at the streetside western boundary to the cemetery. The graveyard appears to be city owned, since the municipal symbol appears at the entrance road and the bright yellow vehicles in this photo belong to the city: backhoe to excavate the sandy ground, and the hydraulic liftbed truck to hold the sand to be returned to the grave after the body of the deceased is laid to rest.

click image for larger display: black hearse bearing the casket at left (5/2020)

At the end of the ceremony the bereaved family and friends stepped to the side to allow the liftbed truck to line up and the workers to guide the stream of backfill into the grave, burying the casket for all time. Then the mourners arranged some hanging baskets (on the ground for now and later to be retrieved as memory of the occasion to be cared for and displayed at home), as well as wreath stand. Each of the attendees left a single cut spring flower to dress the grave.

With the precautions to minimize transmission of the coronavirus during this pandemic, in addition to most people wearing masks, for the most part everybody kept their distance from each other (social distancing) - about six feet. At least one group photo was taken, though, in which some of the people pushed together to fit into the composition frame. According to radio reporting, funeral parlors have allowed visitors to pay their last respects at set intervals to keep physical distance and time gaps between each person. And in churches, too, funeral attendees have been limited to remote viewing (online streaming or recorded view) and/or physical spacing in the worship hall by blocking some of the pews to create buffers between those seated.

The full-size photo is online at https://www.flickr.com/photos/anthroview/49897923666 and the grave photo is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/anthroview/49898233317

Masked times, Covid 19 grocery shopping

surgical mask (left) and home-made cloth mask (right), ready for next grocery trip

Early March 2020 is when the people in the state of Michigan were instructed to “stay home, stay safe” and venture out only for essential workers (food, medical, car care, dog walking). But around the middle of April all grocery visits were no longer advised but now were required to be made with some form of mask (scarf, bandana, surgical, home-made cloth). This photo dates from the time of obligatory masks.

People remember the pre-Covid-19 social life, carefree about social distancing 6 feet apart (more for athletes breathing heavily). And at the moment people seem to be nonplussed by the normality of seeing everybody in some form of mouth/nose cover. Probably a time will come when only the high-risk people will carry a mask. Perhaps a vaccine will protect them and then most of the pre-virus habits will return. Memory is a fickle thing and all too soon lessons learned and habits formed will be lost to the mists of time. A look back at scenes from the midst of the pandemic will be regarded as alien or outlandish. And yet right now that is the standard practice, the “new normal” for May 2020.

Covid-19 pandemic, new waste streams

latex glove near city street in Grand Rapids, April 13, 2020

Five months after the Wuhan outbreak of coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and four weeks after the State of Michigan lockdown of all private enterprise, except food and medicine and car fueling, there are a few signs of the pandemic here in west Michigan's biggest city. Confirmed cases of Covid-19 now in Michigan top 24,000, but many more are contagious and showing few or no symptoms. That same number happens to be the nation-wide death count so far. Half of the known cases in Michigan are Detroit and surrounding counties. So far 1400 people in the state have died from c-19 complications.

Here are some signs of the pandemic. Schools are closed, along with all non-essential business operations. People sometimes park at stores by leaving an interval from the next nearest car. Maybe 1/3 or 1/2 of customers don masks of some kind (commercially produced or homemade or jerry-rigged scarfs, etc) to trap their own breath (inhaling others' water droplets is reduced, too; but one's own expelled droplets are trapped most of all). Recommendations for social distancing at 6 feet apart are expanded for runners and bikers, who create a slipstream of water droplets when they exhale. The above photo shows the wide-spread use of vinyl or latex disposable gloves to use when selecting purchases at retail store, or when grabbing the handle to fill one's gas tank. With so many people unemployed or working from home, few cars fill the streets and highways; wildlife has been observed venturing out more widely than before, too. Those who walk their dogs or exercise do seem to follow the social distancing guidance, having to leave the sidewalk to create distance from oncoming people. Families, friends, book clubs, churches and their small groups, as well as businesses have been using some of the video meeting services to communicate by way of home Internet connections or using cellphone data services. Zoom Meetings have been particularly used a lot for their "one click" ease of use: 40 minute session free, or one person can pay the monthly $15 to obtain "host" credentials (up to 100 simultaneous users and 24 hours of uninterrupted connection per session). Food stores and perhaps other retail operations have installed plexiglass barriers to separate the breath of cashier from customer. Curbside pick-up of recycling and yard trimmings (official yard-waste bags) has been suspended, too.

Imagining the steps leading to more and more restrictions eventually going the other way, loosening up as Covid cases decline, it is hard to know precisely how all these precautions will carefully be dismantled. One radio commentator summarizes the "3 T's" as (1) testing, (2) tracing any flare-ups, (3) treatment that is effective and proven. Only when that infrastructure is in place can the free movement of people and their exhaled water droplets resume; not just in the orbit of the local economy, but also to go longer distances and between countries, too. The whole thing in the aggregate will be uneven, since hotspots differ from the areas most lightly affected. That is true within a particular nation-state, but also globally, with some societies better organized and supplied and informed than others. So long as the virus has a reservoir to reproduce, the risk of pandemic will always be on the horizon. The disruption to the status quo of transporting capital, ideas, people, raw resources and value-added products could lead to new ways of regionalizing or evaluating the things capable of conveying viruses. Recession or sustained recession that results in shrinking the economic pie (depression) may be another multi-faceted legacy of these months now.