During the “lockdown”, we tried to support as many local businesses as possible by ordering take-out meals several times a week and continuing to shop local.
We were extremely careful. We are elderly and I had only recently completed a bout with lung cancer which, in one year, put me through several months of chemotherapy and 5 procedures culminating in major thoracic surgery in October followed by more chemotherapy.
For me, being too casual or sloppy could be suicidal.
Being a patient at Memorial Sloan Kettering meant experiencing a state-of-the-art facility where strict safety measures and preventive education were being put to practice.
After each visit, we came home to our rural community where many, if not most, people get their news from social media which promote the belief that COVID-19 is a political conspiracy rather than a medical situation and is no worse than the seasonal flu.
I wondered how, feeling that way, they could be trusted to practice safety measures that require an understanding that germs actually cause disease. It reminded me of when my thoracic surgeon, a couple of weeks before my surgery, leaned forward and said, “We need to keep you very healthy for this operation.” And then he whispered, “Remember, they always lie. They say they wash their hands.”
He ordered me to carry a little bottle of hand sanitizer and to use it often. This was in October, before the epidemic had even been discovered in China!
If people who are deniers who don’t believe in COVID-19, then what makes me feel that in private, such as in a restaurant kitchen, they can be trusted to take the precautions that protect all of us?
Do they lie?