Castles in the air

It was 1956. We sat on the steps of the school watching the cars leave the parking lot. Barb’s eyes scanned the procession up Fair Street, looking for the 1952 Ford and its driver. It was the name of this driver that she wrote over and over on the back pages of her social studies notebook. Mr. and Mrs. Richard C. …

“How can I find out if he likes me?” she sighed. “I know what! If the ninth car that passes the road sign across the street is black, he likes me.’” A version of “He loves me, he loves me not,” sans the daisy.

We started to count cars. And, lo and behold, the ninth car was black. Barb was elated. “He likes me, she cooed.”

Richard C. and his car moved to New Jersey a week later. Barb never found out whether her crush returned the favor.

Magical thinking didn’t mean that much then. Maybe a dented heart, but an easy recovery.

Some years later …

Sharing an office, coworkers often talked of aspirational, fanciful dreams. Nora’s big dream was to buy a vintage sports car. It was one of those wish-but-not-want things, or so I thought.

A local radio station had a contest that offered the winner a substantial amount of prize money. To enter the contest, you had to listen to that station for a month, filling out a daily questionnaire about clues offered each day. The winner would be drawn from all of those who completed the challenge. Nora brought a radio to the office and listened carefully for the daily clue. She was meticulous, filling out and mailing the questionnaires.

Nora was absolutely sure that she would win. Her expectation was palpable. She dreamt it. She prayed about it. She told everyone that she was going to win. “If I believe it to be true, it will happen.” Peggy told us that she had even visited the showroom where the car of her dreams was on display.

“I’ll be in to pick up my car as soon as I get the prize money,” she told the sales staff. A bit eccentric, but harmless.

On the day the radio station was to announce the winner, Nora came to work anticipating a celebration. She bubbled with enthusiasm. And that enthusiasm had us all listening as the radio station, embroiled in waiting for the drawing the winning name.

It’s hard to describe her reaction when she realized that her name was not the name of the winner. Sobbing uncontrollably, she left her desk and didn’t return to the office for a week.

What she hadn’t told us was that she had been so sure she would win that she had signed a contract to buy the car.

Magical thinking can mean you have to hire a lawyer.

Still later …

COVID-19 is a new virus. Four months ago, no one, and I mean no one knew how this virus functioned. In the beginning the scientists thought, based on the existing evidence, that it was a respiratory virus, like the other coronaviruses. They also knew that it was especially deadly since infection was silent, the infected only showing symptoms in two weeks. More ominously, it became clear that one could be infected and shedding virus with no symptoms. Airplanes helped spread this new virus around the world.  At first the common thought was that it only affected those advanced in age and/or with some underlying co-morbidities. But then younger adults started to die from it and more recently, even children. What armaments did we have? Nothing more than what the pandemics of the middle ages: social distancing, hand washing, housekeeping and wearing masks.

As the numbers increased and science had more data available about how COVID-19 affects the body, it became clear that this was not a respiratory virus but one that caused inflammation in the circulatory system and organs leading to strokes, something called COVID toes, the overreach of the immune system called a cytokine storm, respiratory failure and a post infection nightmare in children akin to Kawasaki syndrome. Doctors tried a multiple approaches to this constellation of inflammation as more information about the virus and its affects came to light. The word ventilator became common.

The gold standard to fighting viruses is a vaccine. Hundreds of entities began the search and the time consuming, laborious protocols involved in testing vaccines with a cautionary promise that it would take more than a year to have a working vaccine available to ordinary folks. Meanwhile, other universities and pharmaceutical companies began a search for some kind of medication, a treatment that could affect the virus, stopping it from infecting human cells, weakening its ability to reproduce, etc. Investigations included testing medications that had been developed for other pandemic viruses. Remdesivir, concocted as a general anti-viral has shown some effectiveness in shortening the infection time. It is not a cure, it behaves more like Tamiflu shortening the misery of the yearly flu virus. Even this medication, with its limits, is in short supply.

Evidence-based trials on other medications have eliminated them as being effective in the treatment of COVID-19, some causing significant heart complications and death.

While we wait for the evidence-based results, some have turned to magical thinking about the virus.

Some say it is a hoax, perpetrated as political chicanery. I’m wondering if Ireland, England, France, Spain, Russia, India, Brazil, etc. are in on this hoax. Some tell us to take medications that are off-label, citing their “safe” use for other maladies when evidence-based studies tell us that these medications do not help with COVID-19 and have proved to be disastrously dangerous. The numbers infected and dead due to COVID-19 are challenged as being manipulated by those who are part of a plot to increase the power of media and/or government. Maybe both? Again, is this also true in other countries?

While we have been advised to wear a mask to protect others and for others to protect us, there are those who refuse to wear the mask because it is an infringement on their “rights” or that it is inappropriate for their station in life. Rights end where the rights of others intersect and, as far as I know, there is no one whose station in life absolves them from caring whether they may infect others because of their behavior. And there are those who believe or say that they believe that the virus will simply disappear. Add the various conspiracy theories about Big Pharma and there is no wonder that confusion reigns. All of these concepts are a means to wish away the realities of the virus, “If I believe it to be true, it will be true -” magical thinking.

Acting on magical thinking? As a noted anthropologist once said, “Humans are the only species that can build castles in the air and then go live in them.”

You will not be protected and the virus will not go away because you believe it will go away or because your behavior is based on that or some other erroneous belief.

Today magical thinking is far more dangerous than unrequited love or a lawsuit over a car purchase. It means life or death.