April Fools
VIEWPOINT
From the West Memphis Police Department’s Facebook page on Monday morning: “O ur of_cers responded to several large gatherings yesterday, ranging from people having cookouts to large groups playing basketball. This situation will continue to get worse and be prolonged until er all begin to take this seriously. Please practice social distancing so that we can all resume our normal lives as quickly as possible. This story is an example of how quickly and easily this virus spreads.”
The post was followed by a link to a news story from CNN.com with the headline “40 people in Connecticut exposed to coronavirus at a party, of_cials say.” Did these people get confused and think there’s a chicken-pox epidemic going around? I jokingly opened up an editorial last week with something like, “In case you haven’t heard, they’ve got this coronavirus thing going around” or something like that. Please note the part where I said “jokingly,” because you’ve undoubtedly heard of it. And the 40 people in Connecticut have heard of it too… and these people attending these “large gatherings” in West Memphis have heard of it too. And shame on them for being so willfully ignorant of the threat these types of gatherings have on not just them, not just their friends and family, but every single person they will come into contact with over the next two weeks.
A few years ago, there was this online “game” of sorts called “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” that was popular for a while. The gist of it is, you name a famous person and see how many connections it took to get from them to the actor Kevin Bacon. The “six degrees” part comes from the theory that no one of any level of fame is more than six connections away from the popular “Footloose” star.
Want an example? Take Elvis Presley. Presley appeared in the movie “Change of Habit” with Ed Asner. Anser appeared in the movie “JFK” with Kevin Bacon.” Therefore, there are only 2 degrees of separation between the King of Rock and Roll and the dancing fool from “Footloose.”
The concept itself is based on the “Six Handshakes Rule,” which states basically that you can connect virtually anyone to anyone in six steps or less. And that’s why these types of gatherings are currently being prohibited. You’re not sick? That’s awesome. What about that guy over there at the cookout eating a hot dog? Oh, he’s not sick either? Cool beans. What about his grandmother? Oh, you don’t know? Did you know he went to see her yesterday? Yep. It’s probably _ne, though, because she’s not sick either. But she did go to the doctor on Thursday to get her blood pressure checked. Turns out, she’s _ne, but there was a man in there that dropped off some cases of hand sanitizer to the clinic. No, he’s not sick either. He did also drop off some hand sanitizer to another of_ce in Memphis. The guy that sweeps the oor there? Yeah, his son has coronavirus.
These are, of course, _ctional examples, but only because I don’t actually have names and places to use. It’s happening all over the place. I’m sure you’ve heard about the Greers Ferry church congregation last week. They all decided that it was more important to have Sunday church services than obey directives not to gather in large groups. Now 34 of them have coronavirus, and many of them fall into the most susceptible demographic groups. You know many of them knew very well that they weren’t supposed to be having church services. I bet they hugged and shook hands and sad “God’s got this.”
I, too, believe “God’s got this.” But if my house catches on _re, I’m getting out of the house and calling the Fire Department, not sitting in my living room as it goes up in ames and telling myself that God is going to protect me.
I have seen as recently as yesterday, groups of people making get-together plans on Facebook, people in groups larger than 10 at the park, and people on the news saying they’re “still going to live their lives” even though there’s a global pandemic going on all around them.
It’s April now. The warm weather is coming. Hopefully, this COVID-19 virus follows a similar pattern to the u, and the summer heat will help make it go away. Until this is over, though, practice social distancing, wash your hands, don’t hold or attend large gatherings. Go outside, do fun things, be with your loved ones, but do it the right way.
And don’t be an April Fool.
