MARCH 18 • 2021 | 5
W
hat’s most heart-
breaking about
reading the essays
published in March 2020 was
that they could have been writ-
ten today.
The tired joke
is that this month
is March, which is
funny because last
month was March,
too. The reality
is that half of the
country is isolated,
half is overwhelmed and half a
million are dead.
Those without children or
family nearby are often bored
and lonely. The less fortunate
are struggling to pay for basic
necessities, battling addiction
or substance abuse, or are
overwhelmed with health care
expenses. Those caring for chil-
dren or the elderly, already a
Sisyphean task in a society mer-
cilessly obsessed by productivity,
are barely hanging on.
The scientific community
has managed to develop four
astonishingly effective vaccines,
a true modern miracle. But basic
necessities like mental health
care, childcare and sick leave
have become luxury goods.
Jewish community and ritual,
a life-sustaining force for Jews
for thousands of years, has been
reduced to uneasy gatherings,
standing masked and dis-
tanced — alone, together — and
computer screens, or selfishly
exchanged for public safety.
And some, it’s true, have
gained new understanding from
this strangest of years — about
the ways we are all connected,
perhaps, and the things they
realize they value the most.
Have we really learned any-
thing in a year turned upside
down?
I asked those who wrote essays
for JTA in March of 2020, just
as the upsets were beginning in
earnest, to share how their lives
and thinking has changed since
then. There are moments of
grace and resilience, but there’s
not a lot to take solace in.
I mostly feel like crying.
Maybe that’s all we can really do.
(Responses have been lightly
edited for length and clarity.)
FROM DR. GARY SLUTKIN
I’ve been guiding and leading
efforts to control major epidem-
ics in the U.S. and
abroad for over
35 years, much
of that time with
the World Health
Organization.
Over those years, I
learned that popu-
lations do not like to make the
changes in their behaviors that
are needed to stop an epidemic.
These changes may be in
sexual behavior (AIDS), contact
with sick people (Ebola), or in
the case of COVID-19, avoiding
gatherings as well as wearing
masks, and other inconvenient
but lifesaving efforts — changes
needed until an epidemic is
under control.
I was glad to be helpful to the
Jewish community, if I was, as
well as to other religious com-
munities in the earlier days of
the COVID pandemic. However,
with the exception of a very few
governors, and a very few cities I
worked with, denial was way too
strong. And I and we failed.
This epidemic of COVID-19
in the United States is one of the
largest preventable failures in
modern history. However, the
blame does not go to one politi-
cal leader alone, but to a culture
that is not used to inconvenience
or personal sacrifice for the
greater good. And, also, to many
of my own scientist and media
friends and colleagues where
communication efforts were not
nearly good enough.
The focus was rules rather
than understanding the virus in
the air; bending of a curve and
opening up instead of stopping
the virus, which other countries
successfully did!
We’re not out of the woods
now. There is still way too much
complacency and more prevent-
able death to come if people let
their guard down prematurely,
before we have control.
FROM ALLISON DARCY
In March, I wrote about the
beautiful, virtual, connected
world of Judaism
that COVID-19
opened up to me.
One year later, I
find myself still
inspired about what
a post-vaccination
world will look like
for those of us who still need to
stay home, but also a bit cau-
tious.
After a few-months burst of
all-Jewish Zoom calls all the
time, a combination of Zoom
exhaustion and people realizing
this was going to continue and
that hosting was real work that
they deserved to get paid for
essay
One Year Later
Laura E.
Adkins
JTA
PURELY COMMENTARY
Essayists share what they have
learned since the pandemic began.
Dr. Gary
Slutkin
Allison
Darcy
“I’M HOPEFUL THAT ORGANIZATIONS
REALIZE THEY OPENED THEMSELVES
UP TO SO MANY NEW PEOPLE THIS
PAST YEAR — AND THEY DON’T HAVE
TO LOSE THOSE PEOPLE WHEN
THEY MEET IN PERSON ONCE AGAIN.”
— ALLISON DARCY
continued on page 10