The COVID-19 rates are spiking all over the country, and it’s only going to get worse for some time. We are all terrified, understandably. Most everyone I know is sheltering in their homes and afraid. We’re all asking ourselves what we can do to protect ourselves and our families, and that’s good. We ought to do that of course. But I encourage everyone to also look at any possible way they can to help others– their neighbors, the local poor, their whole community. There are little things we can all do to slow the spread of COVID-19, to keep the most vulnerable alive during this crisis, and to comfort each other in this time of isolation.
First of all, follow the rules of social distancing, as much as you’re able, at all times. That’s something we can all do to keep everyone in the community safe. It feels like cruelty, but it’s not. The fewer people you touch or breathe on outside of your immediate household, the fewer people you accidentally infect or catch the infection from. It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel sick yet. You may be carrying the germs on your clothing or skin just waiting to be breathed in– or, you may be infected already and don’t know it. So stay in your home. Go out to your porch or backyard for fresh air, walk the dog, but stay six feet from any people you meet because you can spray the virus for a yard on your breath. If you feel a cough or sneeze coming on, do it into your elbow and not your hands. Don’t go on any errands that can wait. Remember, the virus can live for weeks inside human hosts, but only hours in the air and three days on surfaces. We can greatly reduce its transmission if we stay physically far from one another right now. This is a work of mercy even if it doesn’t feel like one. You’re saving lives by staying home.
Wash your hands often, with soap. This also helps you to keep other people safe from the virus. Hand sanitizer is getting all the attention of the hoarders, but the joke is on them because soap is actually better. COVID-19, as we all know by now, is a brand new variety of coronavirus. Coronaviruses have a “lipid bilayer” which is like a thin skin made of fat. That’s how they stick together; without it, they just fall apart and die. The chemicals that make soap soapy, dissolve fats. That’s how they work. That’s how soap keeps your face from being oily, your hair from being greasy, and your dishes from having residue on them: by breaking up fats. When you wash carefully with soap, you’re actually skinning any coronaviruses on your hands alive. I try to imagine what I would do if the entire surface of both my hands was covered in Crisco, and wash like that. Every coronavirus you kill on your hands, is one that can’t live to multiply exponentially and kill hundreds of people. Save the sanitizer for when you can’t get to a sink, but wash your hands with soap often.
Next, don’t horde personal protective equipment– surgical masks and gloves and such. Don’t horde anything, but this surgical mask business is especially dangerous. Doctors and nurses are facing a severe shortage of protective equipment, and that’s going to be a worse and worse problem. If you have any of that equipment stashed at home from back when everyone was panic buying, here’s how to donate it to hospitals.
This does not mean that you should take it upon yourself to make things hard for people you see wearing a mask, though. Some people have medical conditions or sick family at home and they actually need them. Don’t judge other people, but don’t keep the equipment for yourself unless a doctor told you to wear one.
Now, we’ve covered that you shouldn’t go out unless you must. When you inevitably have to go to the grocery store, as we all do, there are many opportunities to be helpful to others or at least not hurt them there. You can start by calling your elderly or chronically ill friends and telling them you’re going to the store, and asking if they need you to pick up anything for them. If you don’t know your elderly neighbors well, you can put a note in their mailbox saying “I’m your neighbor at XYZ, this is my phone number, I am going to Target at this time, please text me if you need anything and I will leave it on your porch.”
When you’re at the store, follow all the rules they’ve set up and be especially polite to the employees who must be living a unique hell right now. If they tell you to not line up in the usual place but to follow the red x’s they’ve drawn on the floor, just do it. If they order you out of the self-checkout line because it’s time for the hourly sanitizing, say “thank you” and get out of line. If they are rationing fresh meat and paper products to three per customer, don’t try to wheedle for four. In fact, if there is a three-per-customer limit, consider just taking two. I had two packages of chicken and one of hamburger in my cart yesterday and I put back one of the chickens, because they were almost completely wiped out even with limiting sales per customer and I saw people there with two or four or five kids trying to buy meat as well. I didn’t want someone with a bigger family than mine to not even have three to choose from in the first place. Let’s everybody try to do that when we can.
If you have a choice, avoid taking the groceries that are marked WIC-eligible– there’ll be a little sticker near the price tag on the shelf. The lower-income breastfeeding moms and small children on WIC can only choose from a limited number of cheap healthy foods to buy with their WIC card– sometimes they can only buy one sized bag of brown rice, for example, and the other sized bag or a different brand of the exact same thing isn’t eligible. People on WIC don’t have choices, so if you do, buy something else.
When you are able to pick up soap, paper products, canned food and other necessities, drop one off on your way home at your local charity that works with the poor and homeless. In Steubenville, the Friendship Room is still serving the poor but they’re no longer taking donations of clothing or household items and they ask that you don’t congregate on the porch. Just leave your bag of groceries and toilet articles on the porch and ring the bell, and keep filling their self-serve little free pantry. This means you won’t accidentally sicken anybody who comes by for help. Maybe you could also include a thoughtful note for them in the bag when you donate, since they must be incredibly stressed and lonely there. The address is 419 Logan Street.
If you’ve already panicked and hoarded more of something than you need, give it away. Give it to a charity like The Friendship Room, or go from door to door leaving a package of toilet paper on each neighbor’s doorstep. Something. Don’t keep it.
Wherever we end up going in the coming weeks, be nice to people. Smile and say hello to the person you pass by six feet away on your walk. Shout “thank you” to the mail carrier if you see her when you open the door to get your mail. Chat with people in the checkout line or on the bus if that’s where you happen to be. This is your one chance at some socialization, so don’t miss out by being rude to people.
If you have any money to spare: good, because a lot of people don’t. You can make a cash donation to feedingamarca.org, and it will go straight to food banks all over the country. Those food banks are going to be strained past their limit as this goes on. You can also give money straight to small organizations that are helping the poor in impoverished communities and are still open– the Friendship Room has a Paypal donate button like the one I use on my blog. Shirley Raines who works with the homeless on Skid Row has promised not to abandon them even though she can’t cut their hair or serve hot meals right now with the state of California sheltering in place; last I saw she was using your money donations to buy orange juice and vitamin c packets to help them stay healthy. Imagine what it must be like to have to shelter-in-place in a tent, in March. You can donate to her organization here.
If it’s possible, find a way to use whatever other gifts you have to brighten your neighbors’ day from a distance. My musician friends are posting beautiful videos online so we can be comforted by their music. Maybe you can take your guitar out to your porch, or hold a live video sing along on Facebook, or paint a mural on your garage. I’ve seen some people putting their Christmas lights back up so that everyone has something festive to look at; you can do that too.
This will come to an end someday. And when it does, I want us all to have little stories of how we did our best to be heroically faithful in the small things.
Here are some small things we can do.
Image via Pixabay
Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross.
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