What should we carry into 2021? -- Dec. 31, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

Four years ago this week, I wrote about “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien’s haunting short story about the weight of things foot soldiers carried in Vietnam.

The soldiers carried necessities as practical as mosquito repellent, as powerful as anti-personnel mines and as personal as memories. The short story is a classic, beautifully written, rich in detail and as poignant now as when it was first published in 1990.

Rereading it made me start thinking about the New Year, what I wanted to carry into 2017 and what I hoped we could leave behind.

I mainly thought we should leave behind the 2016 presidential election. At the time, the wounds of Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump were still fresh. Her supporters were devastated, and recriminations were flying.

Yes, the election was a shock, but we need to let it go, I said.

Commentators were prolonging the agony, and even President Barack Obama opined that he could have beaten Trump in the general election had he been able to run again. I thought that was the kind of wishful thinking Democrats should leave behind with 2016.

In retrospect, the 2016 election was a civics lesson. While Democrats were sad about Clinton’s loss in the Electoral College, after winning 3 million more popular votes than Trump, they did not deny Trump’s victory. No one harped for weeks the election was rigged or voter fraud rampant. Clinton was gracious in defeat.

No one could have imagined then how the Trump presidency would shred democratic norms and values or that it would end in a Trumpian hail of false claims of victory, spurious attacks on election and state officials and even on Republicans who dared to acknowledge reality that Joe Biden won.

But Trump has always been all about Trump. Even after dozens of defeats in the courts challenging election results without producing any verifiable evidence and numerous failed overtures to bully state legislators into overturning the will of voters, Trump continues to rage against facts and truth.

“Can you imagine if the Republicans stole a Presidential Election from the Democrats – All hell would break out,” he tweeted Tuesday from Florida. His temper tantrums are ludicrous but also dangerous.

Trump still has many dedicated followers, and I write this knowing they will see red – and not just their MAGA hats – at my opinion.

Democrats, take note: Trump was the most admired man in America in 2020, Gallup poll reported Tuesday, with 18% of respondents naming Trump compared with 15% for Obama. Trump toppled Obama from the top slot after 12 years.

Biden came in at 6% and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, 3%.

When Gallup asks people the open-ended question which man and woman they admire most, the incumbent president usually wins, the pollster reported. But 21% of respondents this time did not offer an opinion at all and 11% named a relative or friend as the man they admire most.

So what should we leave behind in 2020? I wish we could leave the disputes over the 2020 presidential election, but we know Trump will never concede. He’ll keep flailing in the mud from Mar-a-Lago or wherever he ends up after Jan. 20. But Americans will no longer need to pay attention to his sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Biden has a rocky road ahead, and it’s made more difficult by lies that he gained the office by cheating. Biden, though, already is showing a contrast with the last four years of megalomania. He has the experience at governing that should help restore confidence in our battered institutions.

He’s surrounding himself with a diverse group of competent people, starting with his choice for vice president. Kamala Harris will inspire new generations of young people to public service.

And what should we carry into 2021? You already know. We need to keep our masks and hand sanitizer close and our social distance. We need to fight coronavirus fatigue and be ready to roll up our sleeve to take the COVID-19 vaccine when it’s our turn.

That’s the only way we truly will put 2020 behind us.

Happy New Year.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Cause, effect and the need to test for COVID-19 -- column of Aug. 27, 2020

By MARSHA MERCER

A wise editor of mine used to say, “Wet streets don’t cause rain.”

John’s point, of course, was not to confuse cause and effect. I’ve thought about his warning often since President Donald Trump began his counter-narrative about coronavirus testing.

As the number of positive cases of COVID-19 soared this summer, Trump repeatedly blamed the tests for causing the cases.

Testing “makes us look bad,” he tweeted in June.

At the Tulsa rally a few days later, he said, “I said to my people, `Slow the testing down, please.’”

His aides tried to pass that remark off as a joke, but Trump said, “I don’t kid.”

“Cases, Cases, Cases! If we didn’t test so much and so successfully, we would have very few cases,” he tweeted in July.

And, he told reporters, “When you test you create cases.”

That’s all wrong. Pregnancy tests don’t create babies.

Not only the number of cases but the positivity rate – the percentage of tests coming back positive -- also soared in many places.

“A higher percent positive suggests higher transmission and that there are likely more people with coronavirus in the community who haven’t been tested yet,” the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health says, noting it may be a time to add restrictions to slow spread of the disease.

On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly posted new guidelines on its website that likely will sow confusion and discourage people from getting tested.

“If you have been in close contact (within 6 feet) of a person with a COVID-19 infection for at least 15 minutes but do not have symptoms, you do not necessarily need a test,” the latest guidance says.

Previously, the CDC urged all people who had come in close contact with an infected person to get tested.

The timing could not be worse. Hundreds of thousands of children and older students are going back to school and college. To keep them, their teachers and other essential workers safe, people need to know if they’re infected so they can self-isolate.

The new guidance cites as an exception “vulnerable” individuals and advises everyone to listen to health care providers and local public health officials.

“I’m dumbfounded by this recommendation,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of infectious diseases research at the University of Minnesota, said on CNN.

It may take four or five days for exposure to show up on a test, he said, but people still need to be tested.

Trump and everyone who comes near him at the White House are tested repeatedly. He doesn’t need to wear a mask, he says, because everyone gets a test.

Good for them. But what about the rest of us?

Admiral Brett Giroir, assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in charge of testing, denied Trump pressured the CDC and said the guidance had been updated to reflect “current evidence.” But he didn’t present any.

“All the docs” including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had signed off on the new guidelines at a meeting, Giroir said.

Not so, said Fauci. He had seen an earlier draft but wasn’t present when the final version was approved. He had a good excuse.

“I was under general anesthesia in the operating room and was not part of any discussion or deliberation regarding the new testing recommendations,” he told CNN. Fauci had surgery Aug. 20 for a polyp on his vocal cords.

“I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact, it is,” Fauci said.  

About 40% of COVID-19 cases are asymptomatic, the CDC estimates, and the chance of people with no symptoms infecting someone else is 75%. That’s why knowing who is infected and having them quarantine for two weeks is important.

Trump has consistently attacked his own health experts, pressuring the CDC to rewrite guidelines for opening schools and businesses and rushing at “warp speed” to have a vaccine by Nov. 3.

Everyone wants to live in the world again, and most of us rely on science for the facts. 

That means we need to know more – not less – about the coronavirus, who has it and how it works.

For now, wear a mask, wash your hands, keep your distance, stay home if you’re sick, and remember: Wet streets don’t cause rain.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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Home is where the festival is -- June 25, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

One of summer’s pleasures in Washington is the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

Since 1967, for about 10 days around July 4, musicians, dancers, artisans, cooks and storytellers have entertained large, sweaty crowds on the National Mall.

Not this year. Like most events, the folk festival has wisely moved online because of the new coronavirus pandemic.

Even though the festival took place outdoors and many people are eager to return to some semblance of normalcy, those who can avoid risking their health should.

For some of us, the more things open, the more we want to stay home.

I’m in this camp, although the urge to nest makes me feel guilty. As a freelance journalist, I work from home, but millions of Americans have been out of work for months. The economy depends on consumers for recovery.

With no national strategy for a safe reopening, though, people suffer when states pretend the virus doesn’t exist and rush back to business.  

New coronavirus cases are surging nationwide. In 33 states, from South Carolina to Oklahoma to Washington, the number of cases from the most recent week is  higher than the two-week average, a Wall Street Journal analysis released Thursday found. That compares with 21 states at the start of June.

Although the White House insists case numbers are up because we’re testing more, some states are swamped with record numbers of hospitalizations for COVID-19, the disease the coronavirus causes.

While death rates overall have declined, public health officials warn deaths typically lag hospitalizations by weeks.

Governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, having tamed the spread in their states, yanked the welcome mat for visitors from Arizona, Florida, North and South Carolina, Texas and a handful of other states with high per person infection rates. They’ll need to quarantine for 14 days.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott urged residents to wear a mask, wash hands, maintain safe distance, and “importantly, because the spread is so rapid right now, there’s never a reason for you to have to leave your home unless you need to go out.”

And, he emphasized: “The safest place for you is at your home.”

The safest place for everyone is at home, even in Virginia where rates of infections and deaths trended down in June. Most of Virginia’s nearly 60,000 infections and 1,700 deaths are in Northern Virginia.

Since the federal government hasn’t drawn up workplace safety rules for the coronavirus era, Virginia is working on such rules, a good move.

“Getting back to normality is going to be a gradual, step-by-step process and not throwing caution to the wind,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told a House panel Wednesday.

Caution definitely seems thrown to the winds in Old Town Alexandria, where I live. Crowds throng the Potomac waterfront to enjoy drinks and meals at tables set out on King Street, where a block is closed to car traffic.

It’s a celebratory scene, as though the virus is history. Few walking around wear masks and most ignore social distancing advice.

And that was before Phase 3, which, as of July 1 allows groups of 250 to gather, and stores and restaurants no longer have limits on the number of customers.

The District of Columbia is still in Phase 2, and Smithsonian museums remain closed.

Yet the Smithsonian Folk Festival Beyondthe Mall continues online through July 5.

Programs center on solutions to social and environmental problems with a focus on the United Arab Emirates, Northeast Brazil and the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathalon. 

I’m a long-time fan of the free festival but to me it lost something when it shifted from being the Festival of American Folklife in 1999 to international topics.

Fortunately, the American FolklifeCenter has many programs online, including a Homegrown Concerts series through September. Next at noon July 1 is folksinger John McCutcheon.

So, take advantage of festival offerings online. Staying home for now makes sense and has summer pleasures of its own. Stay safe and cool.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Say `Thank you' to heroes of coronavirus -- March 26, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

In a presidential debate before the 1988 election, Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush, the Republican nominee, was asked about heroes who could inspire young people.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, he said.

“You’ve probably never heard of him. He’s a very fine researcher, top doctor at the National Institute of Health, working hard doing something, research on this disease of AIDS,” Bush said. C-SPAN found and posted the clip this week.

Today, nearly everybody has heard of Fauci. The director of the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is a hero of the novel coronavirus crisis.

Fauci, 79, stands behind President Donald Trump at news conferences and, with grace and courage, sets the record straight when Trump errs about the virus.

The coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease it causes, have upended daily life, caused sickness, financial hardship, fear, grief and more than 1,000 deaths nationwide. 

The crisis is also showing us the best in America. It has brought us together as we stay apart to stop the spread of disease. And there are many other new heroes.

Often standing near Fauci at news conferences is Dr. Deborah Birx, 63, who was U.S. global AIDS coordinator in the State Department until the White House picked her to be the coronavirus response coordinator.

Her calm presentations are professional, reassuring and personal. Urging young people to practice social distancing, she told of her grandmother’s lifelong guilt after as a child she brought home the Spanish flu that killed her mother.

“My grandmother lived with that for 88 years  . . . this is not a theoretical. This is a reality,” Birx said.

Another hero to many is New York’s Democratic Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who has shown extraordinary leadership and empathy.

Cuomo calmly and clearly explains in daily news conferences how New York became the epicenter of the outbreak and how the state and the country can get through the crisis.

He reminds New Yorkers and all of us to thank those who put their lives on the line when they go to work.

“Our health care workers, who are doing God’s work. . .  Can you imagine the nurses who leave their homes in the morning, who kiss their children goodbye, go to a hospital, put on gowns, deal with people who have the coronavirus?” Cuomo said at Tuesday’s briefing.

“You want to talk about extraordinary individuals. And it’s the nurses and the doctors and the health care workers. It’s the police officers who show up every day . . . And it’s the firefighters and it’s the transportation workers, and it’s the people who are running the grocery stores and the pharmacies and providing all those essential services.”

Many are finding ways to help. In Virginia, when Gov. Ralph Northam asked for volunteers for the Virginia Medical Reserve Corps, more than 1,500 health professionals signed up in a month. On Wednesday, Northam asked for more volunteers.

At least half a dozen Virginia distilleries have shifted from producing whisky and other libations to hand sanitizer. Bakeries donate fresh bread to food banks.

Amy and Jeremy Filko of Vienna, Virginia, are using 3-D printing to make plastic shields to protect N95 masks, Washingtonian magazine reported.

The Filkos send four free masks to doctors, nurses and health care workers who request them through their Facebook page and cover the shipping costs themselves. They also are sharing the technology with others who want to make shields, as long as they agree to provide the shields free.

To this group of everyday heroes, I would add blood donors, neighbors who shop for others, delivery people, sanitation workers, mail carriers, cashiers -- and the people who cover the news day in, day out.

In this time of rampant misinformation on social media and mostly unfounded criticism of reporters by the president and his fans, we need solid, fact-based reporting more than ever.

News organizations face grave financial challenges, and with continued layoffs and cutbacks work harder to do more with less. There’s never been a better time to subscribe to a local newspaper in print or online.

And, as we keep our distance, we can still smile and say, “Thank you,” to all the unsung heroes of this crisis.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

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