What is our carrying capacity?
Last week I had a chat with a gal who had tracked me down because she read that I had quarter inch elastic that I couldn’t use.  I explained that I had, in fact, used it to make masks after finding a stash of fabric that I’d forgotten. I’d purchased it years ago to make Teddy Bears and put it away in a safe place.  You probably have similar safe places in your house.
We talked a bit about making masks, the disappearance of quarter inch elastic and other things in stores.  We talked about this column.
“It’s about nothing important”, (I’m paraphrasing), she said.  I agreed. Most of what I write about would not make headlines in any newspaper or be fodder for Breaking News on television.  Even the blogs would find it less than exciting.
I write about ordinary things, because life is most extraordinary when it comes to ordinary things.  So, often, I receive a comment that what I’ve written is something that a reader has thought about but never articulated.  These ordinary things fill most corners of our lives every day.
And today?  What is ordinary?  Social distancing. Learning to stay home, being present 24 hours a day to those with whom you ordinarily live and finding ways to connect with family, friends, colleagues, helpers, even people you don’t really like, who are distancing away.  Missing the freedom to come and go at whim, knowing that inappropriate interaction could prove to be disastrous to you and others.
Not enough is known about the virus and its transmission, beyond that it is highly transmissible.  Do you strip down when returning from the store, immediately take a shower and sanitize your purchases? One source says one thing, another says another.  It’s ordinary to be confused.
We have come to learn that this mysterious virus, this inanimate collection of DNA and proteins, has exposed some interesting things about us.  While we are distancing, air pollution has greatly diminished over our large cities, and wild animals are walking the streets in others, although, in Marcellus, that’s ordinary.  Crime has dropped precipitously. Certain populations of people are more vulnerable to the worst consequences of Covid 19 infections. People who work at what are called essential services, most of which are medium-to-low-wage jobs, who are exposed to others in the pursuit of these jobs, who have any number of co-morbidities (lots of things wrong health-wise) are disproportionately dying after being infected.  African-Americans and Latinos are dying at much greater percentages than they number in any given population.
It has lain bare other disquieting ordinary things about us too.   While SUNY Upstate generously sends members of its staff downstate to help with the overwhelming onslaught of Covid 19 cases, there are voices that keep me awake at night, voices that refuse to acknowledge or understand that we are really in this together.  They decry any sharing of resources, challenging the idea that we can move resources around to meet needs as they arise. Maybe I am just too naïve to understand. This is not how I was brought up. If we turn our backs on others in need, when our need is less, what does that say about us?  Is this the ordinary way we hold our society together?
The impact on the economy is evident.  That can’t be denied, but at the same time, the virus will write the final history depending on how we approach reopening the economy.  The scientists who have successfully worked with viral pandemics before, tell us that we need to be able to test a substantial portion of the population in order to gradually resume economic activity.   Without testing, they tell us, we will be quickly back at square one.
I am reminded now about an ordinary biological concept called “carrying capacity.”  Carrying capacity is a term used to describe how many individuals can live successfully in a given place.  Let me share a quote from Google.com: The carrying capacity is a measure of how many individuals can a given ecosystem provide for. An individual and its population is dependent on various components of its ecosystem for necessities such as food, habitat, etc. An ecosystem can only successfully support a given population.
I’m not sure whether this thinking is ordinary, but I do think that my grandmother would agree.  When we ignore the reality of how we live on the land, how we interact with one another, how we treat one another, nature will bring us up short, show us the folly of our ways. When our treatment of the resources of the earth, including our fellow humans, how what we value reaches a certain point, the ability of the earth to support us, its carrying capacity, responds.  Have we forgotten that we are a part of the whole, not above or separate from it? Is the Covid 19 a response? A test?
When the economic and political engine is stripped away by the more powerful force of nature via the virus, we can see what is important.  There are still voices that say that this will soon be over and all will return to “normal.” This virus will rewrite what is normal. A precipitous attempt to go back to what was ordinary may just show us that this is exactly the same as “riding it out.”  Let those vulnerable face the virus, cull the herd so to speak, to save an economy that puts the most vulnerable on the front lines of contagion at the supermarket checkout, in the nursing homes and waiting to hear from their grandchildren. Return without proper preparation and we will truly demonstrate what a disposable culture is.
Or, we can take a page from the medical community, those exemplary doctors, nurses, techs, respiratory therapists and housekeeping personnel who expose themselves to the vagaries of this virus in order to save lives.  They know that protection is paramount, that appropriate distance, whether behind a N95 mask and Tyvec gowns and suits or social distancing practiced by the public, are vital. They also will tell you that until you can safely know who has the virus, you must always use some form of distancing. It’s a slow dance that we must learn.
We face a return to ordinary. Do we have a way to know who has the virus?  Do we need testing? Yes. Not impossible if we have the political will and, believe me, it is only the political will to preserve lives that will demand and execute comprehensive testing.  Diverting attention from the chaos and poor planning of the federal government will not produce the political will to test. Hunches don’t count. When we set our collective minds to something, we can do it, but we need clear, intelligent leadership.
Is our culture, our way of life such that it can’t accommodate the protection of vulnerable people.  Is this the measure of the carrying capacity of a country infected with Covid 19.
I also remember so true a saying, that you deal with people where they are, not where you wish they would be.  Where are we really? What do we have to do to get to where we wish we could be?

Ann Ferro is a mother, a grandmother and a retired social studies teacher. While still figuring out what she wants to be when she grows up, she lives in Marcellus with lots of books, a spouse and a large orange cat.