Community, health, and Covid-19: Thoughts in an Epidemic
“Community- in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures- is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms.”
Photo by Macau Photo Agency on Unsplash.
by Joe Waters
When we planned the release of our new podcast series on Wendell Berry’s essay from 1994, “Health is Membership” we had no idea how timely a discussion of health as membership would be.
As community transmission of Covid-19 begins here in the United States, Italy is on lockdown, and China trumpets the apparent success of their draconian lockdowns in combating the virus, we are strikingly reminded of Berry’s observation that “community- in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures- is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms.”
In the face of our fears and anxieties, threats to our health, changes in how and where we work, the closure of schools and universities, and the seeming powerlessness of some governments to manage the crisis, what we hold dearest and most valuable comes immediately to the surface.
As we highlighted in Foundations for Flourishing Futures: A Look Ahead for Young Children and Families, a crisis of trust in institutions - like the present crisis- is likely to lead families and other distributed institutions to self-organize new solutions to meet the needs of their children, their communities, and themselves.
The super-rich prepare germ-free enclaves and purchase concierge medical services; the poor are still victims of the “hostile architecture” of a society that makes health care an unaffordable commodity. Gig workers have helped drive record low US unemployment, but at the cost of their security when a healthcare-cum-economic crisis hits. Distrust in our institutions seems to be accelerating as the Trump administration stumbles towards any sort of coherent, concise, and reassuring message.
How do we not succumb to fear, but instead use this crisis to walk along new paths of solidarity, fraternity, and community? How do we ensure that quarantines and cancellations do not become yet more causes of our atomization and loneliness?
Let’s hope that this crisis reveals that what we hold most dear is worthy, humane, and permanent. Let’s hope that this crisis becomes an occasion for renewing relationships that we’ve allowed to fall into abeyance.
Let’s hope for deeper commitments to one another and the communities upon whom our health depends.
Indeed, let’s never waste a crisis.