Coronavirus: Grassroots public health

There have been two recent images in the New York Times that capture a crucial aspect of what is going on in the US as we struggle to respond to the novel coronavirus, COVID19.  In the first, health care executive Bruce Greenstein replies with an elbow to Donald Trump's offer of a handshake.  Trump has been shaking hands with lots of people, including some who have been found to be infected.  Greenstein demonstrated in that moment, caught in this dazzling photo, enormous self-possession -- exactly what it takes to enact social distancing when it has not been endorsed by the hierarchy.

That's where we all were a week ago, feeling slightly awkward about refraining from a handshake.  But a week has passed and something has happened in society. In the second image, a Times' graphic listed events canceled and places closed.  These include: the NBA season, SouthxSouthwest and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In the terrifying absence of sane national leadership, a grassroots public health response has surged. If social distance was what could help flatten the curve, and dampen the epidemic, every organization had the possibility of enacting that: WE COULD CANCEL EVERYTHING.  By Friday, major colleges and universities had sent their students home for the duration, large gatherings (however, you define that) had been called off, and Zoom chic had become the new black (cute top, cool headset, modeled here by my goddaughter, Gahlia Eden).

I know a lot about grassroots public health because I started my research career in San Francisco in 1986, looking at AIDS in black and Hispanic communities.  The activism of the gay community created the essential push on the government to get an epidemic response moving.  I am not surprised to see veterans of that era in the forefront of response to this pandemic, Gregg Gonsalves among them.  Many others are stepping up as well.  In my own email has come news from the presidents of UU congregations in my district about going online for services, foundations' reassurances to grantees, public health leaders' communications of reliable information and demands for care for the vulnerable.  Most important of all, in my view, has been the updates from the Poor People's Campaign, mobilizing efforts to ensure a response to the epidemic that includes all the people.

Here is what has been surprising to me: It is evident that this grassroots public health comes from LOVE, in the way Rev Dr. Martin Luther King taught us. There is profound concern for neighbors and strangers.  While we see videos of people, in their fear, fighting over the last pack of toilet paper, what is happening in this broad mass enactment of public health is LOVE.  It is a powerful motivator in this moment when we are left to our own devices to make the best of what we have.

The many expressions of this LOVE have been touching.  Here is one message from a friend.

December 5th in the Urbanist's Calendar

On December 1st, 1995, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, a watershed moment in the modern Civil Rights movement. Protests up that point were important but small: Freedom Riders on a bus, for example, or protesters at a lunch counter. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a mass movement, in which 50,000 people boycotted the bus system for more than a year, until integration was achieved. The mass movement actually started on Monday December 5th. People who were leaders of the movement all described what it was like to wait for the first buses that Monday morning, wondering if the masses of black people would agree to boycott. It was thrilling when the buses started to roll past empty! That night, in the first mass meeting of the Montgomery protest, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., stepped forward to lead the movement. In film of that night, we can see him hesitate for second, knowing that he is changing the course of history and of his own life. He steps forward humbly to do his part. December 5th, then, is an important day in the urbanist's calendar. A quirky aspect of the day in the New York Metropolitan area is that December 5th marks an abrupt shift in the weather, from fall to winter. There is usually a storm on that day. This has frustrated our efforts to have December 5th parties, I can assure you. Just as we know that the first weekend in June is likely to be fine for our Hike the Heights party, we know that December 5th will be blustery for whatever we have planned. In these uncertain times, I found today's snowflakes reassuring. Happy December 5th to one and all!