I’ve been paying attention to nationally televised news reports in relation to the coronavirus. Most of the telecasts are saying the situation in New Orleans is bad. But despite the warnings from numerous news stories, for a number of reasons, I don’t believe we are getting an accurate assessment of our conditions.
One, in the absence of broad-based testing, we have no way of accurately determining what our situation is. Two, given that we are dealing with a virus that has already demonstrated in Asia and Europe that once the virus hits a place, there is no mild case in any densely populated area. And three, the truth is so deeply discouraging that as the saying goes, we can’t stand the truth.
I believe our situation is worse than bad.
I remember reading last week–which seems like a long time ago–when New Orleans popped up into national consciousness as an example of how bad the virus is. Like many, my initial reaction was that our politicians had fallen victim to the Louisiana syndrome of being incompetent and even criminal. The number of politicians who have spent time in jail is a long-standing and cliche-ridden story.
As the tale is told, we never should have celebrated Mardi Gras in 2020. The mayor should have called it off. It was rank incompetence for us to be dancing in streets while large numbers of people were dying from a highly contagious disease. That’s a backward-looking verdict that seems to make sense, but the timeline of what happened tells a different tale.
During my investigations I ran across a clip of mayor Cantrell. She was mad, close to stereotypical Black woman upset. As was reported in the Washington Post:
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said canceling or curtailing Mardi Gras was never considered. Federal agencies that are part of planning Mardi Gras every year — including the FBI and Homeland Security — did not raise concerns about the coronavirus, she said. Federal officials who walked the parade route with members of her administration were focused on terrorist attacks.
“We were not given a warning or even told, ‘Look, you know what? Don’t have Mardi Gras,’ ” she said.
At that point in late February, American life had not been seriously altered. People were still packing airports. The NBA hadn’t suspended games, and Disney World was still open for business.
“Leadership matters,” Cantrell said. “And if the federal government is not responding to or saying that we’re potentially on the verge of having a crisis for the pandemic coming to the U.S. — that would change everything. But that wasn’t happening.”
Cantrell noted that a couple weeks later, she did cancel the St. Patrick’s Day Parade — and was harshly criticized by some in New Orleans. As it happened, partiers didn’t heed the ban, and bars in the French Quarter were packed.
In short, there was no government authority warning her, not to mention, no one prohibiting her from carrying on as they have year after year, celebrating “fat tuesday” even during the leanest of years. Well, at this point, it is difficult to imagine a 2020-like celebration with over a million revelers in 2021.
We’ve got some turbulent waters to cross, waters that will require us to deal with tons of therapy and, in the most extreme cases, endless hours of exhaustive and intensive treatment. In the interim, there is the reality: the economic wealth as we knew it pre-virus will not survive the onslaught of repercussions that will be the result of the necessary business slow-downs and shut-downs that inevitably will happen in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
We will survive but what will our new reality look like and how many of us will be able to confront and carry on in the immediate future? Those are two critical questions — questions we are not yet able to accurately answer.
And on another note, a man who called for and led a second-line funeral had an arrest warrant issued for organizing a traditional send-off. At somebody’s funeral we can’t celebrate life in the streets anymore. Oh, my darlin’ New Orleans really got the blues. We sho nuff got the coronavirus blues.
My dad (John Walton) and my dads long time friend ( Jesse Bell ) both recently had bouts with pneumonia . They are now home recovering but they are all the same age and Dillard classmates . This has been a lot even for me to understand at times , the isolation of my dad last week at Ochsner was really difficult . I’m going to share this with them both and pray for his recovery .