'All In This Together' Does Not Ring True With Everyone

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There are facts, and there are opinions. It is easy to see by talking with almost anyone, that fear is driving opinions, and that facts, although very important, are often overlooked.

A uniting message that is meant to bring us all hope and solidarity is ringing through the land. It is the uplifting idea, “We are all in this together.”

I like and am encouraged by this message. I am even somewhat dependent upon this message. At the same time, like having a favorite new shirt you really love, but that, somehow is giving you horrible hives, we can’t accept it. This message is like a beautiful shirt that is not easy for everyone to wear.

Back in late December and then January, a serious illness broke out in Wuhan, China. When the first deaths occurred, around January 11, 2020, there were already dozens of cases. Hospitals were already beginning to be overwhelmed. One month later, on February 11, there were more than 1,000 dead in China. By that time, also, millions of people had already moved throughout the country and the world. They, and everyone with whom they interacted, which was by no means only “Chinese” people, had begun to travel throughout the globe.

Our vulnerable human cells, together, are at risk. Not our Chinese, or rich, or poor, or Black, or American cells. Our shared global community’s human cells. Looking at what faced humanity, very few leaders (if any) said: “We’re all in this together.” But, factually, we were all in it together.

By this time, questionable “leadership” had banned travel from China, as if, somehow the virus was only carried in the bodies of Chinese people, and not within the wider travel network that already had placed many people, in many nations, worldwide.

Not everyone saw the same threat.

Trump is not the only leader to try to scapegoat, and distract, but he is the most powerful and influential. To him, his re-election campaign rested on finding someone to blame to deflect from a rocky economy.

Around this time, Trump said: “We shut it down coming from China.” He had also repeated at every chance that he could, that “We have it well under control,” and other comforting, optimistic, misinformation that costs lives.

Experts, already seriously concerned, tried to get the word out. Li Wenliang died a martyr, and scientists and doctors including Tom Frieden, Luciana Borio, and Scott Gottlieb, among many, took every effort to tell people: “we MUST all be in this together.”

Misinformation spreads mistrust like a virus.

Looking at how China was overcome, then Asia, few people in the USA were touting solidarity with these people. Our fellow human beings were given little sympathy at a time when we needed cross border collaboration and knowledge.

By the time in late January that Trump went to Davos, in Europe, there were already many thousands of people dead. Despite urgent warnings from experts, when asked whether he was concerned he answered: “No. Not at all.”

Making a virus, and the illness it causes “nothing to be concerned about” also makes messaging political, divisive, and even more dangerous. It tells people not that “we are all in this together,” but that some of us are concerned about the illness. Some of us are concerned about the economy. Some of us are concerned about rising hate crime against Asians. Some of us are concerned about how income loss will devastate our family. Some of us are concerned about going to work as an ill-equipped health care provider. Some of us are concerned that rich people will almost certainly fare better than less privileged, under-represented, poor, and homeless people. Some people are concerned about our most immune-repressed individuals, and our elderly.

And, lastly, most of us are concerned about hoarding toilet paper.

Anger at injustice does not promote solidarity.

Rightfully, people are angry. Our natural tendency to want certainty allows us to point fingers. I am pointing one right now at the Trump administration, for example. However, as a psychologist, it is easy to understand that knowing I have a rash does not mean that I am immune from having that rash, any more than I am immune from COVID-19.

Yet, I remain sure that recognition of our human defense mechanisms, awareness, can also lead to insight and solutions.

The first death in the USA occurred in my home state. My husband and I prepared to fly out. There was no talk of “We’re all in this together” at that point. We made it safely back to Hawaii, where now, here too, COVID-19 has arrived. The fact of this pandemic is that before people acknowledge their vulnerability — and their needed “togetherness” — it is among us. This is one vital fact we must all take in with solidarity for humanity, and civilization.

The world experts of global health have long known that always a pandemic is on its way. They are justifiably frustrated at our ill-prepared response which has now made the USA a hot zone, (rather than reflect that we are the richest nation on Earth who had all the resources but little of the political will to do the right thing). We should have, and should even now, listen to their insights. We, in solidarity, should unite around science, research, and expertise.

This message, that if we are all in this together, means that we understand the urgent need to listen to those who know whereof they speak, then yes, let’s all be in this together.

Together, apart.

The Novel Coronavirus causes COVID-19. Let’s first agree on that. It is transmitted from person to person, sometimes invisibly. We must stay away from other people — apart, but together. It does not at all care whether your concern is about the stock market or your infant’s vulnerability; It will wreak havoc on both, and on everything in between.

Let us first get the knowledge we need and then, hopefully, recognize that our separate concerns are really one and the same.

We are, after all, all in this together.

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Previously published on Medium.com

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