By John Baer
I gotta think that these days it’s hard for many to sing.
So hats off to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. It’s not only pressing forward with a virtual rendering of its annual, unique and amazing Farm Show. It’s also offering a competition for a chance to sing the national anthem to start each day of the online show, Jan. 9-16.
More on the “Oh, say, can you sing?” contest in a bit. First, there are reasons singing “these days” presents a challenge.
State COVID-19 numbers, like the nation’s, continue climbing: thousands of new cases daily, rising hospitalization and death counts, no evident end in sight.
When I ask an official at the Department of Health if the department is seeing modeling that suggests when the current wave might peak, the answer I get is, “Not yet.”
This as the holiday season starts. Thanksgiving with no guests. Whatever passes for Black Friday. No neighborhood parties, office parties, holiday lunches.
All of which, in normal times, leads to good paydays for caterers, restaurants, bars and food services. All of which leads to overtime pay for their workers. And all of which now can lead to less singing.
Plus, who knows what to think beyond fear, frustration and anger in such an unsettled, unbalanced time?
On Tuesday, state Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, during a virtual media briefing, read from a White House coronavirus task force report to states.
It said: “There is now aggressive, unrelenting, expanding broad community spread across the country, reaching most counties, without evidence of improvement, but rather further deterioration.”
First of all, who knew the task force was still around? Second, its message is like a blaring klaxon with somebody yelling “RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” Or the pandemic equivalent: “HERMETICALLY SEAL YOURSELVES IN YOUR HOMES!”
Yet Levine’s response was “new mitigation efforts” with a reach well below the level of alarm.
She told hospitals to brace for bad stuff, told colleges to test students coming back to campus after the holidays, told anybody traveling into the state to get tested or quarantine (as if), and “strengthened” a masking order to something along the lines of “we really, really want you to wear masks.”
Some must wonder, that’s it? Armageddon’s at the door, flip the welcome mat over?
Don’t get me wrong. Levine’s mitigation efforts are good. And who wants anything harsher?
But how are record cases and projected overruns of intensive care units eased or dented by unenforceable travel orders for testing and quarantines?
Wearing masks? Who doesn’t know to wear a mask? And those who choose not to mask? They’re suddenly going to turn compliant?
Testing? Yeah, get tested. It’s just that like everything else to do with this virus there are mixed views and results.
Take the widely reported case of billionaire genius inventor, entrepreneur Elon Musk. Had four tests for COVID-19. Two were positive. Two were negative.
Since somebody with a net worth of $97 billion is likely to get the best possible testing and medical care, such results aren’t quite confidence-building.
Meanwhile, more than 700 nurses go on strike in Bucks County over low staffing, low wages and fear of increased COVID-19 hospitalizations, which has to raise anxiety levels across the state’s already-stretched health care system.
And in Washington, especially in Congress, there’s contentment to maintain a spectator status while awaiting a new administration in hopes, one assumes, of more aggressive antivirus effort.
Put it all together, mix in Philadelphia shutting down gyms, museums and indoor dining, and it becomes hard not to think such restrictions and maybe more are likely coming down elsewhere.
Which gets me back to “Oh, say, can you sing?”
Contestants — individuals, families, groups — have until noon Dec. 7 to submit videos of their signing the anthem, without musical accompaniment, to the Farm Show’s Facebook page (facebook.com/PAFarmShow).
The contest seeks simple creativity. Nothing flashy. No special effects.
I hope there’s a flood of entries. I hope millions of Pennsylvanians see them.
I think, more than hearing words of public officials, hearing voices of fellow citizens whose chosen lives feed our bodies, might also feed our souls.
I think it could help us embrace the “collective responsibility” repeatedly cited as needed to combat the virus. I think it could touch us. I think it might remind us of the unerring value of being part of “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”
John Baer may be reached at baer.columnist@gmail.com.
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