Here are a few thoughts about the coronavirus situation that have occurred to me.

Each county health department in North Carolina could request up to three COVID-19 test kits and it kind of had a feeling of a cross between Deputy Barney Fife of Mayberry, with his single bullet, and Elaine Benes from “Seinfeld,” whose contraception prevention method had been phased out and so the sponges she had on hand were all that she was ever going to have. Every date became an assessment as to whether or not the male was “sponge worthy.” We will be augmenting the test kits from a private source, so that feeling of hating to use one on the wrong candidate will go away.

In “It’s A Wonderful Life” George Bailey uses his personal money to keep the savings and loan afloat. When the members asked for their money he implored them to take just what they needed. The first person asked for all of his money, but everyone else asked for just what they needed. Would that not be a good approach to securing bread, toilet paper, water, etc.? Instead of taking all that one could, a person would take just what they needed for the immediate future so that others could too. Instead we have bare shelves and many people doing without. On a similar note, a relief organization handed out free supplies to the public. One of these items was a N95 face mask, which must be fitted to protect properly. The executive director was written and asked to not hand those out but to contact the hospital or EMS and give the masks to them. This was ignored, they were handed out improperly and medical personnel are having difficulty locating any masks to use.

We are living in a topsy-turvy time. One moment drive-through lanes are being phased out because of auto emissions and the next moment the dining rooms are being closed and the drive-through must be used. Same for the public schools. On Friday it was essential they remain open and on Saturday they were closed despite CDC recommendations that closing them would have a negligible effect on the situation. The problem with closing something is when will you reopen? In two weeks we still will not have peaked in all likelihood. Now CDC is talking eight weeks of social distancing, there will be no need to reopen the last week of school. As Mr. Potter told George Bailey, “If you close those doors before 6 o’clock, you will never reopen.” Maybe that déjà vue feeling is not a feeling; we have lived this before and all we have to do is pay attention to what worked then.

https://www.robesonian.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/web1_Smith-bill-4.jpg

Bill Smith

Contributing columnist

Bill Smith is the director of the Robeson County Health Department.