106. News of the Day

In today’s New York Times, we learn that “a year into the pandemic, millions of Brazilians are going hungry.” In India, there were 276,000 new cases yesterday; the death toll—196,000—now surpasses Brazil’s and is second only to our own. Yesterday, after a string of weekly 20 % Covid increases in Oregon, there were 1020 new cases and nine new deaths; hospitalizations were 276, with 64 Oregonians in intensive care. New variants and relaxation of pre-vaccine rules for masks and distancing seem to be at the center of it.

The scientists tell us that we need 80 to 90 percent of the population inoculated or immune through having had the disease before we arrive at “herd immunity.” Given the news of the day and the continuing resistance of many to be vaccinated, that seems unlikely anytime soon. More likely is Governor Brown’s sending 12 counties back to the “extreme risk” category, and the return of restrictions on human activity across the country.

One can’t lay this situation to any one factor, but there are some common attributes of human behavior that seem to be involved. We like crowds, and we like leaders who like crowds; from     President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India to our recent President Donald Trump, followers have gathered in crowded swarms without masks to hear their leaders. But there is a kind of opposing human action—egoism, the self-centeredness that encourage us to do what seems right or advantageous for me at the moment. At the end of this egoism is hubris, the radical individualism and overweening pride that puts me and my life about all others, with a supreme—and often tragic—confidence that I am right though the world around me says otherwise.

It all adds up as a recipe for a continuing struggle with Covid. It will bounce back and forth between counties, states, and countries, dipping here and exploding there, gaining traction with stronger variants, dipping as the citizens of a county, state, or country come together to look out for each other.

There’s the key. Do we have enough herd mentality left to build herd immunity midst a moving and changing covid? My mentor, Alvin Josephy, often said that Indians were the only ones in America still capable of “group think.” The news from a few Indian friends is that tribes are doing this. 

We might look now to Lapwai and Colville and Umatilla for guidance in human health—as we are looking to them for ways to fish, water and fire health. 

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