If the coronavirus outbreak were a sport like basketball, China was the point guard, bringing the ball up the court, dribbling back and forth. Worried about losing control, the Chinese called a timeout.
Now it was the Middle East’s turn to inbound the ball, but a deflection off America’s fingertips put the stress into the hands of Italy, which also held on too long and all but lost control in a double-team trap. Italy also took a timeout, but that hasn’t stopped the boot-shaped nation from sweating.
Hanging out on the perimeter watching the action has been the United States — nothing but spectating participants. Then, possession came the way of the red-white-and-blue, flag-waving, machine-gun toting, light-beer chugging bald eagle whose talons were full with a litany of self-made messes.
Timeout.
Ok, maybe that was a poor attempt at an analogy for how looney this entire thing has become.
IIn a 72-hour period, we went from America, business-as-usual, to listening to a handful of scientists, doctors and journalists telling us to look out the window and see that this outbreak was unlike the previous media-driven doomsdays of Ebola, SARS and bird flu.
On Monday, March 9, Italy, hit hard with the outbreak, put the entire country on a soft lockdown that lasted two days before turning into a hard lockdown. Hospitals, grocery stores and pharmacies could stay open. No festivals, no mingling in large crowds; a variety of the world’s greatest ancient sites were shut off from tourists.
Late on March 10, the University of Wisconsin convened and decided to halt face-to-face school after spring break, and, in a sense, shutting down campus. I knew right away that was going to have dire consequences on the WIAA as the end of the postseason strung along.
The following day, word went back and forth as to if the Kohl Center would be available for the boys state basketball tournament. I sat at my computer Wednesday night, working on a story that ran March 14 about the impact the coronavirus was having on sports. I was never able to keep up.
It was like trying to write a wrap-up story from a game starting in the first quarter. It was never done, needing to be constantly updated and re-written.
The NCAA tournament would be played without fans, like many of the college conference tournaments planned to do to keep the virus from spreading.
The NBA was ceasing play because Rudy Gobert tested positive. Due to the incubation period, more than a dozen teams were in need of isolation for possibly contracting the disease.
Speculation grew from sport to sport rapidly. At 5 p.m. March 11 I thought we’d get through a couple of weeks of sports with no fans, while concerned that maybe it should all be shut down until June. By 11 p.m., I was wondering how any sporting event in America could be played without scrutiny.
Twelvish hours later, the WIAA appeared set to cancel the remainder of the winter sports season, only to announce limited fan attendance. But 12 hours after that, the state’s governing body changed course again and shut it all down. The next day Wisconsin joined Maryland, Ohio and Michigan, among others, to shutter schools.
Major League Baseball, the NHL, professional soccer, tennis and golf leagues from around the world called a collective indefinite timeout.
All NCAA sports were canceled for the spring.
To pull my head around how the week transpired left me dizzy. So many twists and turns. The numbers were following Italy’s pace of infection, just a week behind. This was inevitably going to hit, and hit hard. At one point I felt as if it were all a dream. You know the dream, the one where you’re like “This isn’t normal, maybe I’m dreaming,” but so much in the dream seems real that you just kind of go with it, hoping sooner, rather than later, you’ll wake up to your regularly scheduled life. (Side note, in my senior year of high school I had a dream so vivid and real, it went on for 3 months. They I woke up and continued with life — only to realize I was still dreaming, washing away nearly the next year. Yeah, crazy. No wonder I believe in aliens.)
This outbreak is affecting the world like nothing seen since the second world war, let alone the Spanish Influenza from more than 100 years ago.
A week after America became the next big victim, it feels even more surreal. I remember the sports world — let alone the travel industry — shutting down for a week after 9/11. But that was just for a week. Then we went on with our lives, coming together to show the terrorists we couldn’t be beaten.
Coronavirus is not a terrorist — it is a disease to the human body. It doesn’t care about solidarity. It doesn’t care the color of your skin, your creed, your gender or sexuality. Coronavirus doesn’t care that it sounds like a bad beer joke. In fact, it doesn’t care about anything. It lacks the physical tools of a brain and sensors that would allow it to feel or care about anything. Its job is simply to stay alive, which is to infect whatever it can. The tribal fear of humans feeds that.
The real solidarity is to take the high road — the momentary individual isolationist road. Stay inside. Promote good hygiene. Eat. Read. Play board games with your kids. Catch up on all of those shows you’ve been wanting to stream.
The economy is going to take a hit (far more than the week-plus of tumbles it already has). While we wait for Washington to try and figure it out (I’m personally skeptical), one way to help keep local businesses afloat is to buy gift cards while the opportunity is there. It won’t be for long, though.
Eventually, life will start to return to normal. In Wisconsin, will it be April 6, when the school ban ends? I doubt it. Will it go until May? June? Will the kids see school again until this fall? Will the NFL be safe to start on time? Will Cheese Days be cleared to happen in September, let alone the fair in July?
This isn’t a doomsday proposition. I know it will get better. We just have to wait it out. After 34 years of life, I feel I have the patience to wait it out if needed. I might be wrong, but I hope I’m right.
Now excuse me while I venture out in my gas mask — my Bane mask — in hopes of finding some toilet paper for my family. (We have three rolls left. Pray for us.)
Then, when it is safe, the world can leave its collective timeout. And then, at long last we shall, “Let the games begin!”
— Adam Krebs is a reporter for the Times and channels his inner Tom Hardy when shopping for TP. “No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.” Adam can be reached at akrebs@themonroetimes.net.
