We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality…

The conversation on the frontlines currently is about “virulence” and “reopening”.  For many healthcare providers, the idea that the mortality rate of the COVID-19 virus is relatively low (2.5% is the figure being mentioned) is justification for presumed low virulence and suggestions of reopening in favor of herd immunity – “let’s just get it over with”.    

The irony is that most healthcare providers enjoy a relatively privileged lifestyle with more than ample means for effective social distancing practices, information and relative access to effective personal protective equipment.  In communities that lack these types of resources, (i.e. the Bronx, Detroit, Milwaukee) where the income rate is low and co-morbidities are high, the mortality rate is 4x higher.  Perhaps we should talk about the effect of this virus in terms of lowest-common denominators; in the words of someone much wiser than myself, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.  We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality”.   In this battle, we are all as strong as our weakest link…stands to reason that the link that is most vulnerable should get the most attention.  

Ironically, there is some parallel with policing here.  If one community has little to no deaths related to policing while a neighboring community has substantially higher rates of death at the hands of the same police department, what should the narrative be? – that police cause very little harm and we should all go about as if there is no problem, or that the same police officers are actually responsible for disproportionality high death rates in a neighboring zip code?  Only recently have we began to have a conversation about policing practices, not because of the low rates in affluent zip codes, but because of the visibly high rates in others.  As is with most disparities, the struggle is for equal representation as a narrative – the voice of the voiceless being heard; the reality of the invisible being seen.  Only by recognizing the lowest common denominator can we all rise as a society.    “No one is free until we are all free”.