A pandemic cannot be quantified. Numbers are symbols created to replace specifics instead of generalizations. As children, we learn five apples and five thorny tumbleweeds are the same thing as the number of fingers on one hand. The fact that hand should grasp the one and not the other is relevant to getting through the day, but not to passing arithmetic class.
As of May 13, Rio Arriba county had an accumulated total of 28 cases of coronavirus. [1] If one only counts the past two weeks, we have at least 14 known, active cases. [2] It will be at least a week before we know how many those individuals infected before they were quarantined.
But that means nothing unless you know one of the 14 or 28.
Yesterday, a friend in another part of the state wrote me he/she [3] probably had the virus the end of March, but he/she didn’t see a doctor, and nothing was reported. Now, a month after the fever passed, the person still has viral pneumonia. Not a statistic, but a life endangered.
Today another friend sent a message his/her spouse died. The cause was not the virus, or any of its complications. But, the individual was staying in a nursing home. One assumes, the employees in the facility were distracted by virus, and the person’s last weeks weren’t as comfortable as they might have been. Not a statistic, but a passing made more miserable than necessary.
Now, my friend is waiting to learn if their children can come console him/her or if it still is too dangerous to travel. Not a statistic, but mourning made more burdensome.
Isolation can be endured when one can buy groceries and stay occupied during the day. It is not healthy when it dams the flow of human emotion, and the nights are empty. There are times when people need other people near then, watching over them.
Today, the Federal Reserve issued some general numbers on employment. It said 36% of those who lost their jobs thought they couldn’t pay all their bills. Jerome Powell noted: "This reversal of economic fortune has caused a level of pain that is hard to capture in words, as lives are upended amid great uncertainty about the future." [4]
New Mexico has updated its unemployment statistics through March. Of the 16,801 in Rio Arriba county’s workforce, 1,108 have lost their jobs. That’s 6.6% of the total, perhaps a lesser number of households, since more than one person may work in a family. [5]
One is certainly more likely to know one of the 1,108 who’ve lost a paycheck, than the 28 people who tested positive for coronavirus. This is not an abstraction; it’s a neighbor or a neighbor’s child. My one friend’s children all lost their jobs early; the other is self-employed and not usually eligible for unemployment.
Sources:
1. Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Last updated 13 May 2020.
2. The virus usually passes in two weeks; sometimes it lingers, and some bouts with it are shorter. I’m using 14 days to define active cases.
3. The details of my friends’ lives are their business. I hate the clumsy "he/she," but this is one time it’s appropriate.
4. Victoria Guida. "Job losses have now hit 40% of low-income homes." Politico website. 14 May 2020.
5. "Unemployment Rate by County." New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions website. Checked, 11 May 2020. The numbers used to define the unemployment rate never make sense. According to the Census, 54% of the county’s population is between the ages of 18 and 65, the ages when one is part of the work force. 54% of the estimated 2018 county population of 2,095,428 is 1,142,008. [6] But, the state says only one 1.4% of that group is in the workforce. Who are the others? Housewives, students, ranchers and farmers, the self-employed, possibly the Pueblos. Like the coronavirus disease rates, something is missing.
6. United States Census numbers from Wikipedia. "New Mexico."
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