Markets Won’t Cure a Pandemic

During Governor Cuomo’s briefing on Saturday, he noted the problems the state of New York was having procuring the ventilators they need to manage the increasing number of severe cases of the Covid-19 virus. He described that his state was competing against other states to purchase these critical medical devices from the companies that manufacture and sell them. He said that when he first sought to make these purchases, the ventilators were $25,000. Now that he was competing with other states, the prices were being bid up to $40,000. In more recent briefings, he expressed great frustration about now competing with all fifty states and the federal government through FEMA. Inherent in the Governor’s message is a plea for the federal government to take charge of the process, end the market competition for these devices, and take on the role of purchasing and distributing ventilators based on need. Thus far, the federal government has not taken on this responsibility. The governors must fend for themselves and the federal government seems to be only supplementing these efforts. They are not coordinating a national response.

It is so important to understand the medical implications of a shortage of ventilators. The COVID-19 virus causes a respiratory disorder. People with the most severe cases experience lung damage such that they are no longer able to get enough oxygen transfer into their blood. Every cell in the body requires oxygen to survive. The ventilator takes over breathing for the patient and keeps them alive. The hope is that while the person is receiving this mechanical care, there will be enough time for the body’s immune system to fight the virus and that their natural breathing will return. Without the ventilator, the person will die.

If the number of people who require these ventilators grows more quickly than the availability of these devices, physicians are going to be forced to triage care. This predicament could occur within a hospital system, or within a city, or within a state. If demand outstrips supply, people who might have had the chance to live are going to die. It will be the case that they will die from the respiratory disease. It is also the case that they will die from both ineptitude and our national obsession with a market economy, that capitalism can cure everything.

I haven’t heard how this triage would take place, but I’m guessing that these decisions will be made based on who has the best chance to survive. Those with chronic medical conditions or the elderly (gulp, like me) are going to be left to die. I sure hope they are going to give us so much morphine that we won’t realize we’re not the chosen people. And to make these situations so much worse, people are going to die alone, because their families are not going to be permitted anywhere near them. The dying alone part is happening now.

Are we ready as a society to send our sick out onto the ice floes?

I’m sure no one wants to think about all of this. I sure don’t. But please think about it. Carefully.

I have been advocating for a national health care system for a very long time. Please read my chapter on our health care system in my recently published book, The Patient Experience with Transverse Myelitis: An Anthropological Perspective.

I’d rather not be writing this article. I’m having no trouble at all filling my time watching Westworld, Homeland, or Hunters and reading Vonnegut. I have lots of wonderful distractions. Unfortunately, I feel such a strong obligation to express my opinions on this subject. I’m usually making my case to the community I serve. It is a community of people with rare neuroimmune disorders. My community is more accepting of my views because their medical needs are incredibly expensive and as chronic conditions, these are needs that are going to last a lifetime. We have children who develop these disorders before they are even a year old. They are going to spend an entire lifetime dependent on the medical care they need to survive and to have quality of life.

The people from my community are totally uneconomic to serve. The resources they can contribute to our medical system or that their entire families contribute to the system will never come close to covering their costs. In the olden days, before the Affordable Care Act, they’d never qualify for health care coverage from an insurance company, because they have these pre-existing conditions. They are incredibly expensive to serve. Many people from our community require years of physical therapy. They often require complex surgeries. They take so many different and expensive medications. They are reliant on so many different devices and so much equipment. A motorized wheelchair can cost well over $10,000 and they don’t last for a lifetime. Many need to be replaced in less than five years, but most insurance companies require that you wait for five years before getting a new chair.

Not all people from our community accept my position on a national health care system. I think they are more than confused.

I have never been in a situation where I could make my case to the entire population of the United States of America. This is it. And as I’m not allowed to leave my home, I also have the time to write this article.

When I speak to my community, there are currently about 14,000 who might find my message relevant. In this case, there is a chance that all 330 million people in this country could get the COVID-19 virus. What I am expressing in this article is relevant to every single person in this country. If you are breathing, you have a chance to contract this virus. When it comes down to doctors having to decide who gets the last remaining ventilator, it could be you lying on that bed in the hospital or a loved one. You might practice looking salvageable while your gasping for air. Sophie’s choice in the ICU.

The states are going to spend on ventilators regardless of the cost, because it’s immoral, unethical and bad politics to skimp on life-saving equipment. The problem for government and for all of us is that the money being spent to purchase these devices comes from our tax dollars. Allowing the states to compete in the marketplace is going to drive up these costs. We’re already into this thing a few trillion dollars, and that doesn’t count the tax bailout from last year that already sent us backwards on the deficit and debt front because the tax breaks for the wealthy sure didn’t pay for themselves, as advertised. All this debt will be given to our children and grandchildren.

The shortage issue is far more complicated than a cost issue. A significant part of the problem is a supply chain issue. And having said that, the supply chain issue is also a cost issue. Companies have shifted to on-demand supplies to drive down the costs of keeping inventories. It creates a much more delicate balancing act when demand is increased. And in this case, there is no way anyone could have predicted just how steep and how quickly the demand was going to increase for ventilators. It is also the case that the signs of concern were evident before anyone in leadership on the national level acted on these signs. Another significant issue regarding supply and demand is that so much of what is manufactured today comes from China. Just as a regular old citizen, I often wonder just how much sanity is involved in allowing ourselves to have become so dependent on a nation we don’t trust. Isn’t there a significant national security problem in giving so much of our way of life to China? Isn’t this lack of trust one of the reasons for the trade war? This happens to be a medical and public health issue. I also think about how many components of our weapons systems or our military equipment is made in China? I hope someone besides me is asking that question, and then freaking out about it. For the elderly British among us, the concept of penny wise, pound foolish comes to mind.

Would it be a better idea for us to make more of this stuff here where we can control production and distribution and pay more for it, including in higher taxes? It’s past time for us to be thinking that this control over our national security and our national well being is worth the additional cost.

In a market economy, if demand outstrips supply, companies can increase the price of the product, and particularly when the demand is of a highly sought-after product. In this case, the device can mean the difference between life and death. The demand doesn’t get any more compelling than that. Why are we living in a society that allows critical life and death items to be priced based on market forces?

Even in the context of a market economy, if the federal government took over the role of purchasing and distributing the devices, it would eliminate the competition for ventilators. It wouldn’t slow down demand, but it would keep the states from competing against each other, as well as the states competing with the federal government.

When I first heard that companies were profit maximizing on the price of ventilators, I became angry. Who would do that? In my most rational moments, I see both sides of this issue. Businesses have an obligation to maximize their profits, and this is particularly the case if they are a publicly traded company. They have an obligation to their shareholders to maximize their earnings. If they can sell ventilators at a price that the market will bear, then by all means, let’s make America great again.

I’ve heard some politicians, as well as some of our newsy talking heads, refer to this profit maximizing as war profiteering or price gouging. These dots were connected shortly after our fearless leader declared that he was a wartime president. Their tone of voice when saying it expresses their disgust in this behavior. Hey, I hear ya. But I’d love for someone to explain to me the difference between charging a price that the market will bear and profiteering. If I put my house up for sale and only one person is interested in purchasing it over the period of a year, I’m going to be inclined to sell it to that person for close to an amount that person is willing to pay. If twenty different people want to purchase my house on the first day I put it up for sale, I’m going to let them bid against each other and I’m going to take the highest price. Is that profiteering? This is America. The last I looked, profits are not a dirty word. We don’t set any limits on the amount of money a person can make or a company can earn. Since wealthy people have more power and influence over government policy than do society’s flotsam and jetsam, they usually write tax laws that really ensure that there are not limits on their wealth. We don’t set any limits on a company’s earnings. This kind of limit is contrary to our mythology about individualism, work ethic, self-reliance, and the class system. With hard work, there are no limits to ascension in our society. We can talk about the divergence between the ideal and the real, but the mythology I describe is at the very core of the American psyche.

Against that backdrop of our values and our economy, our society also frowns on people earning profits at the expense of the misery of others. The reality is that we do it all the time, as we ignore the institutional forces underlying poverty, but we sure don’t like to see it too explicitly. Shining a light on our hypocrisy only makes us feel badly about who we are; denial is so much more comforting.

Our society’s values also include compassion, generosity, patriotism and good citizenship. We’re not just hypocritical; we’re also ironic. Such a complicated society and culture. Many businesses direct their advertising in the direction of these latter values, because it is good public relations for them. There aren’t going to be any advertisements next year during the Superbowl touting the earnings that were made on ventilators during the pandemic while thousands and thousands of people died. It might, however, be noted in a shareholder’s meeting when kvelling over the bottom line.

Markets do not have a conscience. Markets aren’t patriotic. Markets don’t have a sense of compassion.

A conscience, patriotism, and compassion can be fundamental values that direct public policy. Our executive and legislative leadership can develop and implement programs based on public policy about the way we regulate markets. They have the authority to control production and distribution and to set prices. Government can do so in an even-handed, transparent manner in the public interest of our society. Government can set prices such that companies recover their costs and earn returns on their investments that are commensurate with the value of their products and services to our society. Government can recognize the critical nature of those products and services and make them available to society such that all our citizens have equal access. That equal access can be accomplished through the determination of prices, and it can be done through government subsidies.

Businesses would be made whole. They would remain motivated to produce and sell their products. They just would not be able to sell those products at absurdly high prices. There isn’t a sane reason to allow companies to sell ventilators at the price that markets will bear. That is immoral. Selling seven cent masks for seven dollars might not end you up in jail, but it also might not get you into heaven.

If government can come down from the free market hallucinations for long enough to recognize our dire situation, this is all possible. And I contend that the future of our society will depend on those in power touching base with this reality on a much more frequent basis.

Markets are not going to save us from the COVID-19 virus. In fact, markets are going to be an impediment to solving this crisis. I know this because I’ve watched how markets are undermining our entire health care system. The problem isn’t that we don’t allow competition across state boundaries, as has been proposed by people who don’t want health insurance companies to be eliminated. I won’t get into my whole economic discussion of why we need a national health care system. Please read my book.

This is a classic comic book version of my conclusions about the economics of health care. Allowing an insurance company to make profits on selling access to health care is not in anyone’s interest. Has anyone experienced a benefit from competition between health care insurance companies? The whole argument that people love their insurance companies is just crazy talk. Most people get their health care through work and they don’t choose their insurance company, their employer does. People love that they have insurance, because they know people who don’t have it, and they love that their employer either subsidizes the cost or pays all of it. People have no idea what is in the plan until they need to use it. Some have good experiences and some have scary experiences. If you want some scary, wait until you’re told you need a year and a half of physical therapy to try to get your paralyzed body moving again.

The whole notion that we don’t want our health care rationed by the government is another example of crazy talk. I had an excellent health care policy my entire life working for the state of Ohio. Pauline also had an excellent policy through her school district. We were blessed in so many ways. After Pauline got transverse myelitis, we spent a couple of decades fighting with insurance companies. Her care became very complicated and there were regular fights about procedures, medications, equipment and therapies. It was never-ending. It is in the economic interest of insurance companies to fight, because holding people to the letter of the contract (the plan) as strictly as possible and denying claims where possible goes directly to the benefit of their bottom line. These are companies driven by profits.

I am currently on Medicare. I honestly have never heard a single person complain about the health care they receive through this government run health care program. All of us old people love Medicare. Will government ration health care? Yes. They would have to, because no one can afford everything possible. No one can receive physical therapy every day for the rest of their lives. There would have to be all kinds of public policy debates about what is reasonable and in the public interest to cover. Currently, companies are making these decisions and they are making them based on a profit motive.

Millions of people do not currently have health care insurance. That number is going to be growing as people lose their jobs and their benefits. That is happening as we speak at an alarming rate. The current administration, through the department of justice is in court in a number of jurisdictions trying to kill the affordable care act. We were told there would be a replacement and it would be better and less expensive than anything we’d ever seen in our entire lives. We’ve had three years to see this unbelievably beautiful thing, but it hasn’t appeared. When the president had a republican house and senate, they did nothing with health care at all. Earth to Americans … Earth to Americans … the republicans aren’t going to save us. They don’t want government involved in health care. If they did, we’d all have it. They did try to kill ObamaCare, and I read the replacement legislation they proposed. It read like it was written by insurance company lobbyists.

I just heard in the president’s last press conference or mini campaign rally that the government is going to pick up the tab for anyone who needs to be tested for COVID-19 (if you can find a test) and that all COVID treatments would be paid for with no co-pays. The government is going to reimburse hospitals and other providers for the costs of providing this care. It sounded to me like the government was going to cover the total cost, not the customary eighty percent that Medicare covers for those sixty-five and older.

Earth to Americans, Earth to Americans, please don’t have a stroke, heart attack, cancer, kidney failure or diabetes if you don’t have insurance. We can pay for your ventilator if you need one and we have one, but you are on your own if you need chemotherapy or an angioplasty. And, hey, we’re sorry if you need insulin to survive.

The government is going to pick up the tab for the costs of COVID-19 because it is right out there in our faces in about as dramatic a way as all get-out. And we have a presidential election in eight months. Many senators will be up for re-election. Every representative is up for re-election. People without health care insurance dying in their homes alone leaves a pretty horrible impression for incumbents running for office. But the fact is, for the person who has cancer, heart disease, kidney failure or transverse myelitis, their needs are no less urgent, compelling, life-threatening as COVID-19.

Our government – the president and the legislature – went directly to Medicare for COVID-19 because it made the most sense and because it was the right thing to do. Well, let’s just sit on that for a minute …. If this doesn’t reveal the hypocrisy and the double talk and the slight of hands lies that are expressed about our health care system, I don’t know what will.

Hey, it is the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do for the pandemic, and it is the right thing to do for our country and its citizens for every health care issue under the sun. And in the case of the pandemic, the government is going to pick up the entire cost. We’re going to pick up the entire cost in our taxes. Well, what is really happening is that we don’t generate enough in taxes to pay for all of this, so the government is just printing money, and accruing debt. Our taxes will only pay for interest on the debt, and our children and grandchildren will handle the rest, for their entire lives. That is if we leave them a planet that is capable of sustaining their lives.

We’re going to offer Medicare for all on the fly during the pandemic, because it is the right thing to do (during an election year). And we’re going to spend trillions and trillions of dollars to clean up the mess caused by the inefficiencies and lack of coordination of the current system.

And here’s the final economic case to be made. When people talk about what will Medicare for all cost, I am certain that no one can possibly know that number. It is just way too complicated to figure out. When Bernie gets brutalized during debates for not giving that number, I feel badly for him, and then I’m confused as to why he hasn’t delivered a more direct response to that question. Here’s how I would respond. If people pay for health care through their taxes as opposed to having employers pay for it, you could require through legislation, that employers add their insurance premium subsidies into the employee’s paycheck. That would help people pay for their health care taxes and it would eliminate the concern of workers who have negotiated health care through collective bargaining. If you put every single American into one risk pool, no one has any idea at all what the savings would be. Currently, the number of risk pools is a totally serendipitous process. If risk is shared by the entire United States population, as opposed to the willy nilly aggregate of numbers who happen to sign up for insurance through a company, there are going to be savings. If you eliminate insurance company profits from the cost of providing health care to people, the savings will be substantial. If you streamline the administrative processes from every health care provider in the universe by having one entity to deal with as opposed to many of them, there will be savings.

If people no longer have to pay insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles, will their taxes for health care be more or less than what they are currently paying for insurance premiums, co-pays and deductibles? I honestly don’t believe anyone has the answer to that question. But here is what I do know. If taxes aren’t enough to cover health care costs, increase taxes. It is a small price to pay so that every person in the United States has equal access to health care, including medications, dental, vision, auditory, mental health, and long-term care.

Why is my vision covered outside of my health care policy? Why is audiology or dentistry outside of this policy? Why is mental health care outside of this policy? It makes absolutely no sense from a health care policy perspective or from an economic perspective. One risk pool for everything about the health of a human being. Not offering long term care is beyond horrible. People don’t know anything at all about this risk until they must deal with a parent who is no longer able to care for themselves. Often this takes place because of dementia. What a horrible thing to do to a family. Many must pay down their way into eligibility for Medicaid. What an absolutely crappy way to treat our seniors. Why not include long term care in Medicare for all and give our seniors the dignified care that they require without forcing them into poverty?

Who are we? Are we going to be the person who fills their grocery cart with every single package of toilet paper in the store, or are we going to take a couple of packages and leave the rest for people who also need it?

We don’t know what it would cost us, but if we want to be the home of the free and the land of the brave, we need to assure every citizen of our country that we’re going to give them access to a publicly funded education, so that every single person in America has equal access to opportunity. And we’re going to offer them publicly funded access to health care to help to keep people healthy and alive. Dead or dying people don’t have earthly access to anything.

Finally, I don’t want to hear anything more about we can’t afford Medicare for all. You have no idea what it will cost. You have no idea whether there would be savings and just how significant those savings might be. And finally, from what I am observing, it doesn’t matter whether you can afford it or not, just print the damn paper. In all of the debates I’m listening to regarding the trillions of dollars of debt being run up on a daily basis, no one has suggested that the corporations and the wealthy people who got the lion’s share of the tax cuts last year, give some of it back to help out during these horribly stressful economic times in our country. The hand-wringing about the cost must stop; you no longer have any credibility on that score.

During the last presidential debate, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders were discussing the current status of health care. Bernie said that we don’t have a system. He was correct. It is also likely the case that very few people understood what he meant. Even the debates between two people don’t offer the time to really understand their positions on the issues. Sorry voters, if you want to understand what is going on, you’re going to have to read.

Our health care system in the United States is a total hodge podge of numerous entities, some public, some are private. Some of them are for profit organizations and some are not for profit. Some are government agencies. There is a serious lack of coordination between all these entities. Medical systems and academic systems collect information that isn’t usually shared between these institutions. In some cases, they are competing with each other. The competition is for resources and prestige. All of which makes for a horrible lack of coordination.

Those of us from a rare disease community could tell you all the shortcomings from this lack of coordination. But there’s nothing like a pandemic to reveal just how horrible, and perhaps deadly, this system really is.

Allow me to point out some of the more obviously advantages that could result from a Medicare for all, centralized health care system during the pandemic. Centralized coordination would facilitate and accelerate surveillance, research, information collection, dissemination of information and development of public health recommendations and directives, development of treatments and vaccinations, development and performance of clinical trials, and production and distribution of medical equipment and medications. The way we are currently operating is inefficient and decision makers are having to operate without the information they need to understand the current situation or to predict the future with reliable data and modeling.

I’ve been wanting for the CDC to be tracking the diagnosis of ADEM, MOG-Ab, NMOSD, ON and TM for years. They only track AFM. It makes no sense at all. That we don’t have a centralized system that tracks all diseases and disorders on a national basis makes not one shred of sense. It is perfectly fine until you are diagnosed with a disease and disorder, in which case, you will suffer from both the disease or disorder and from the repercussions of ignorance. I’ve watched it for twenty-five years and it really sucks.

A nationally coordinated effort to address the pandemic would have allowed for greater planning and preparation and would help to manage the balancing of physicians, nurses, technicians, medical equipment, supplies and hospital beds. Doing some things on the national level just makes more sense economically and socially. We can take care of some difficult and expensive issues more effectively and efficiently because of the scope and scale of programs on a national level.

Presently the federal government is doing some of these things in a willy nilly fashion. I watched a press conference this week where I thought I heard Jared Kushner explain that we the people might not have access to his stockpiles of medical equipment. The people he is saving these for must be something really special. It looks to me like the governors are having to take control of the situation for each of their states. Some governors have been aggressive about addressing the health crisis and some have not. Fortunately, my governor in Ohio and our health director have been on top of the situation as best they can. The people packed onto beaches in Florida or the people jammed into churches for services, not so much. I doubt that stupidity and risk-taking makes one immune from COVID-19, but we’re sure going to find out. Could this be a real-time demonstration of natural selection?

To summarize, we are the wealthiest country on the face of the earth. We keep telling ourselves that we have the greatest health care system on the face of the earth. We spend more money per capita on health care than any other country on the face of the earth. Our number of COVID-19 cases is currently almost triple the number of the next highest country on the list (Spain). Okay, please ponder that for a while also. I’m trying to allow for some pondering time in this blog.

To be perfectly clear, I love capitalism. Our market economy drives innovation, it is the engine for job creation, and competition motivates better products and can drive down costs. It is also the case that markets don’t address lots of critical issues in our society, and in fact, applying market principles to some significant public policy and public health issues are contrary to the public and national interest. There are good reasons for our social security system, including social security disability. There are good reasons for price supports through the Department of Agriculture. The federal and state governments collect taxes and then they redistribute these resources through many different programs that are established and operated through laws that are passed by our representatives. Every single one of these redistribution efforts is socialism. These are programs designed by a central authority for the greater good. Sometimes these programs are established to address inequities in our society. Sometimes they are established to address inefficiencies in markets. Sometimes these programs are established out of the public interest, such as expenditures for medical research or engineering studies, or other endeavors which are critically important for society, but which wouldn’t be performed by private business because they are too expensive or aren’t deemed to be profitable. Our capitalist society is loaded to the gills with socialism. It is targeted towards everyone – private citizens, farmers, small and large businesses, and every form of industry. We Americans are all beneficiaries of socialism.

The sooner we get over the notion that socialism means that the government is going to take over ownership of your house and car or your business; or that you will no longer be permitted to worship in your faith, or that the government is going to take over your life, the sooner we will arrive at some sane and life saving decisions about what is appropriate and beneficial for our government to take over on behalf of the public interest. We’re doing it now. We’ve been doing it since our government started collecting taxes and spending the money for stuff they thought we needed, like police, fire, schools, streets, and a post office. Rural American would not have paved roads or electricity without one heavy dose of socialism. Rural America isn’t going to get good internet access without socialism.

I understand why people are distrustful of government. I’m a cultural anthropologist. I’ve been making observations about our society for the past 68 years. But it is time for all of us to accept this important reality – we are a democracy, and the government is us. If you don’t like the government, you need to start with figuring out your priorities and interests. Then you should support the candidates who best represent your interests.

If you deem that our democracy is no longer functioning the way we expect, then you need to vote for candidates who are in support of fixing it. I know where I stand … totally fix gerrymandering, get money out of politics and publicly fund all campaigns (with no other source of funding), require much shorter and much cheaper elections, term limit every political office, do not allow an elected official to go on to work as a lobbyist in any business or industry. These practices would encourage our politicians to more clearly represent their constituents. My representative sure doesn’t have to listen to me, or anyone else of my ilk. To be re-elected, all he has to do is stay alive, and not do anything to attract a primary (which means making sure to ignore anything I would ever have to say).

While I focused this article/blog on the problems with our health care system during this pandemic, I’ve only alluded to the other very major problem. We have been witness to a degree of incompetence, arrogance, and ignorance among our leadership that I’ve sure never seen during my lifetime; and I’ve seen a lot. Our leadership is so horrible that it really qualifies as no leadership. Sometimes the best thing one can do while we hear from them is not to listen.

To quote the fearless leader, ‘I’m not responsible for anything.’ We’re watching The Three Stooges Fight a Pandemic. The buck stops in an unknown land far, far away. Or, the buck stops with me, you, and everyone else who is going to be voting in November. Anyone who wants a test can get a test. I know people who have not been able to get a test. In large part, the COVID-19 virus has spread in the United States as it has because of the lack of testing. We’re all going to remain vulnerable until everyone in the US has access to regular, easy, rapid, frequent testing.

NBA players and politicians don’t seem to have had any trouble getting a test. The odds are probably pretty good that these folks will also not be told, we’ve run out of ventilators. Like so much that goes on in our society, the odds are also probably pretty good that the health and economic impacts of the pandemic are going to disproportionately hurt the poor, lower middle class and blue collar workers more so than it will hurt the wealthy and upper middle class. Our fearless leader talks about his dispensing medical equipment and supplies like he paid for all of it himself. He didn’t. He’s dispensing all the stuff that I paid for and that you paid for. Don’t ask for gratitude, Fearless Leader; just try to do your job.

The pandemic is revealing the overwhelming and life-threatening incompetence of our leadership in Washington. The pandemic is also revealing in the most profound and heartbreaking ways the horrible consequences of the institutionalized inequities in our society. As horrible as this whole episode is in all our lives, it also represents an opportunity for us to take stock of the reasons for fundamental change in our society. I hope and pray that we take that opportunity for change. The homeless guy on the street deserves the same quality of health care that we give to the president of the United States. And the homeless guy on the street probably has enough sense to put on a mask.

I implore you to vote for candidates who are going to take capitalism out of our health care system. My life and all your lives depend on it.

My hope is that people will follow the recommendations of our medical professionals and the mayors and governors who have delivered aggressive guidance on how to protect ourselves and each other.

We owe our adherence to this guidance to everyone who is out there putting their lives at risk. Nurses, doctors, medical technicians, hospital workers, and first responders have displayed amazing selflessness and courage. People who are going to work every day in grocery stores, pharmacies and other essential businesses, are risking so much to support all of us. We owe it to all these people and their families to do what we’re being told to protect ourselves and each other.

Listening to the blather coming out of our fearless leader is demoralizing and dangerous. Please don’t take medications that are recommended by the president during a mindless, stream of conscious, cheerleading riff. You should never take a medication that hasn’t been prescribed by your doctor who knows your medical history, and all the other medications you are taking. The FDA must approve medications after scientific testing for safety and efficacy.

We’re fumbling and bumbling our way through a pandemic. I hope and pray that more testing is developed quickly. I am hoping that an effective vaccine is developed. I am hoping for the development of effective treatments. Without those measures, it is difficult to envision how we can return to any kind of normal.

In the meantime, this is America, and there are going to be people who rail at the notion of being told what to do, especially by the government.

No government bureaucrat is going to tell me what I can or can’t do. If I want, I’m going to pack myself into church on Sunday morning like a sardine, and then take death home to Bubby and Zadie.

Amen.

Photography has helped to keep me emotionally and psychologically balanced while being asked to self-isolate. And to be clear, emotional and psychological balance is aspirational for me. I’m anxious and I don’t sleep, like the rest of you. Getting out into the woods with my camera does help me to find some peace in important ways. I get physical exercise. I focus on the beauty of nature which encourages me to be grateful. And being in the woods gets me away from the television and news.

I took the following photographs while on hikes during the pandemic. These were taken in the wonderful Metro Park system we have in central Ohio. Unfortunately, over the past couple of weeks, the parks have become more and more crowded. The parks are among the few places people can go when outside their homes. Crowds are not a good thing.

Please stay informed. Please check the veracity of the sources you depend on for information. Please pay attention to the recommendations being made by your physician, your local and state officials and government agencies, such as the CDC, the NIH, and FEMA. Please be kind to each other. Please take care of yourselves and be safe.

Highbanks February 29, 2020

I have a very serious attraction to abstracts. A favorite abstract for me is ice. It can be a challenge to shoot. The best abstracts involve creating the most appealing framing of the subject. I'm thinking about the organization of shapes and colors, and what I want in the image and what I don't want in the image. To get an image tack sharp, you have to align the camera lens perpendicular to the subject. This often involves standing or leaning directly over the scene. It also often involves getting down close to the subject. As ice is frozen water, all of my goals involve working my way around this water, and I'm not allowed to get wet. The best ice for abstracts is partially frozen ice. If it is frozen solid, you get solid white with almost no shapes. Thus, the ice is thin, and I'm not allowed to get wet. I have my special place at Highbanks for capturing these images. If the temperatures are right, I am rarely disappointed. These images are my favorite abstracts from that day at the end of February before our world changed so drastically.

Slate Run Farm March 4, 2020

I had never been to Slate Run Farm. It is a beautiful park with a working farm. My good friend, Bruce, who is also an avid photographer, and I have a monthly plan to get out to shoot together. Bruce has introduced me to new and interesting places. I've lived in central Ohio since 1973. I appreciate that there is so much nature to enjoy in our very urban area, and so much of it I haven't yet seen.

Olentangy Trail March 14, 2020

I was sitting at my desk working on a Saturday afternoon. I leaned over to look out my window, which is on the other side of my very large monitor, and saw the largest snow flakes falling out of the sky. We had very little snow this winter in central Ohio. It was absolutely beautiful. I almost always have my camera battery charged so that I can make a last minute decision to go out to shoot. I left my desk, grabbed my camera, and headed to the closest nature walk, the Olentangy Trail. By the time I got there, the huge flakes had subsided. It turned into a fine show which came down steadily. It was warm enough to be comfortable outside. I enjoyed the hike and it was beautiful. Winter is not an easy time to shoot in Ohio. The challenge is that it is there to see and capture; you just have to work a bit harder find it.