As our COVID-19 days and weeks of self-isolation turn into over two months, we’re all feeling the same collective fear, frustration, anger and impatience.
It’s hard to know that our fellow community members are struggling financially. It’s hard to see the fear in everyone’s eyes above their face masks when we venture out. If they were smiling at us we’d be hard pressed to tell through those masks.
It’s the uncertainty of this pandemic that makes it so different from other tragedies we’ve faced as a community. We know that our Stay Home, Stay Safe date has been moved forward to May 16. But it could change again.
We know that Governor Scott has a plan for slowly opening the spigot for businesses that is science- and evidenced-based. We know this won’t last forever, but we really don’t have a sense of what the landscape and our communities and our state will look like afterward.
It’s hard to worry about your health, your finances, your businesses, your families and protecting others by wearing masks and practicing social distancing. There’s a lot on all of our collective plates.
We're going to get through it though, and when we do we’ll remember how painful and scary this was, but we’ll also remember the good things that came out of this.
We will remember that people’s better natures emerged when this happened. Volunteers sewed masks and gave them away. Professionals sewed masks and gave them to health care workers. Our local distillery made and gave away hand sanitizer week after week. The Mad River Valley Food Shelf received enormous donations and delivered food to people who needed it.
People shopped for their neighbors. People delivered supplies where needed. We all learned to use Zoom and conference calling like champs, and parents learned how incredibly valuable teachers are.
At the state level, we are fortunate to have seen real leadership from Governor Phil Scott and his cabinet. We have been kept well-informed and provided with candid and timely information during this pandemic.
Let’s hope the good news that Vermont appears to have hit its COVID-19 peak and its plateauing will ease our collective angst and that the balm of people working for the common good will help us sleep better as we wait for spring.
