by Katerina Lorenzatos Makris ~
Before you assume I’m going all kumbaya on you, let me assure you, I’m talking science first. To me one of the most alarming things about coronavirus, a.k.a. COVID-19, is that it’s not very picky. It will try to grab anybody handy. Whether we’re young or old, rich or poor, VIP or nobody, Mr. or Ms. or Mx., of color or not, we’re targets. The virus doesn’t care a whole lot about who we are, as long as we’re just one thing—human.
For disease prevention efforts, this is a problem. You can’t just give a certain subset of people extra protection and attention while everyone else more or less goes on about their business, like you can with some health threats. For example HIV/AIDS is an equally monstrous virus, but some humans are more susceptible to it than others, depending to some degree on their behaviors. That allows medical experts to narrow their focus on the population of folks who most need help.
Equal opportunity offender
We do know that COVID-19 is most likely to hit someone with a weaker immune system. If you’re an older human, or a human with other health issues, or a lower-income human who isn’t able to secure proper nutrition and shelter and regular medical care, you’re more at risk for catching coronavirus and suffering mightily or even dying from it.
Tragically, as reported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), people of color are more likely than others to become seriously ill and die from coronavirus and its complications, due to “longstanding systemic health and social inequities” that often make health issues in general more severe for those groups, but not for any inherent genetic reasons, as far as is currently known.
Also any job that requires you to have public contact will increase your exposure to the virus and thus your risk.
So demographics definitely play a role. But in general, COVID-19 is an equal opportunity offender. It doesn’t discriminate much between one human and the next. Like, Prince Charles vs. your local grocery clerk? Or Tom Hanks vs. your child’s teacher? Who cares? Coronavirus doesn’t.
Regardless of what we look like, or what we do for a living, or where we live, or who we love, bottom line we are all just one thing to this virus—delectable hosts. Good ol’ yummy homo sapiens. COVID-19 reads our DNA, and DNA doesn’t lie.
We humans try to distinguish ourselves using criteria like gender, color, income, and geography. But with an equalizer like a pandemic disease out there, stalking every single one of us, we’re forced to admit the plain genetic truth. We’re all family.
A chance for unity?
OK, now here is where I go kumbaya. While I have no illusions that coronavirus will draw us all together into one big global tribe and blur our lines and resolve our differences and end war and make us just unicorns-and-rainbows delighted with each other, I can’t help but see our current predicament as an opportunity. Maybe it’s just a tiny speck of an opportunity, but it’s something. A chance to step back for a moment and look at every other person on this planet as a brother or a sister or uncle or grandmother, or at least as a distant cousin. Just for a moment?
Or maybe not. In my darker hours I fear the opposite. Maybe the worldwide economy will tank so hard that it will force many of us into crude, cruel survival mode. There’s no crystal ball here. I pray that sort of apocalypse is not in the cards, but I suppose anything is possible.
One thing is for sure. Whether we love each other or not—no matter how we choose to view and to treat our fellow humans, as neighbors in need or as mortal enemies competing for toilet paper—we are all in the same boat. We are COVID-19 prey. It’s hunting for each of us.
Moreover, we are all earthlings. So far we have just one home—this one lonely planet—a little blue starship twirling through the heavens day and night, ferrying us through time and space, through realities we may or may not like, and through challenges to which we may or may not rise. Our choice.
Katerina Lorenzatos Makris, a career news reporter and fiction author, is Sass101.com’s founder and editor.
Her fiction includes 17 novels for Simon and Schuster, E.P. Dutton, Avon, and other major publishers (under the name Kathryn Makris), as well as a teleplay for CBS-TV, and a short story for The Bark magazine.
She has written hundreds of articles for regional wire services and for outlets such as National Geographic Traveler, The San Francisco Chronicle, Travelers’ Tales, NBC’s Petside.com, RescueDiva.com, AnimalIssuesReporter.com, and Examiner.com (Animal Policy Examiner).
While specializing in animal and environmental issues, Katerina has covered a wide range of additional topics such as hurricanes, elections, 12 capital murder trials, and last but not least, women’s issues.
Her hundreds of interviews include HRH Princess Irene of Greece, Pres. George H.W. Bush, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, Sissy Spacek, Ted Danson, the real Col. Sanders, and Benji the Dog.
Together with coauthor Shelley Frost, Katerina wrote a step-by-step guide for hands-on, in-the-trenches dog rescue, Your Adopted Dog: Everything You Need to Know About Rescuing and Caring for a Best Friend in Need (The Lyons Press).
Please email Katerina at sass101info AT yahoo DOT com with any questions or comments. [We spell out the address that way to try to foil spammers. ? ]
Be the first to comment