The Wall Street Journal - 21.03.2020 - 22.03.2020

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‘M

ommy, I like coronavirus
because I get to spend
time with you,” a patient
of mine, a lawyer, quoted her son as
saying. With schools closed, social
events postponed and workplaces
empty, usually busy professionals find
themselves at home baking cookies,
playing games, watching movies and
doing arts and crafts to keep their
children occupied. Some are surprised
to find they enjoy it.
As anxiety and fear settle over the
world, there’s a silver lining to this
pandemic. In a self-occupied world,
the coronavirus is making people re-
assess their priorities and values. The
U.S. is one of the hardest-working
countries in the world. More than half
of all workers don’t use all their vaca-
tion days, according to the U.S. Travel
Association, and mandated maternity
benefits are meager compared with
those of other developed nations.

‘Mommy, I Like Coronavirus’

America’s productivity comes at

a price—the emotional well-being of

families and children. Maybe it

takes a crisis like the Covid-19 pan-

demic to make us slow down and

ask why we’re so intense about

work. Do we need to go into the of-

fice every day? Is it so critical to be

there by 9 a.m. when we could walk

the kids to school and arrive by

9:30? Is an extra car or a trip to

Disney World worth giving up pre-

cious time with our families, friends

and loved ones?

This crisis reminds me of the

days after 9/11, when New York City

parents hunkered down and were

grateful to be hanging out with their

children. Many of my patients were

especially grateful to be there for

their kids at such an uncertain and

frightening time. Some made major

changes in their lives—quitting jobs

they didn’t like, moving to a quieter

suburb or city, moving closer to

their parents, making themselves

less busy with work so they could

devote more time to their loved

ones. Many returned to their hard-

driving professional lives, but the

happiest were the ones who made

changes.

When the pandemic passes, the

world will go back to normal. That

doesn’t mean you have to return to

the status quo ante. My hope is that

it encourages people to be more

mindful as parents and less intense

as professionals.

Ms. Komisar is a New York psy-

choanalyst and author of “Being

There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood

in the First Three Years Matters.”

By Erica Komisar

Busy professionals have

an opportunity to reflect

on what’s really important.

OPINION

Rome

I

taly is confronting its grav-
est crisis since World War II.
Hospitals are so overrun
with patients suffering from
Covid-19 that doctors have
been forced to choose who will live
and die. On Thursday the Italian
army began transporting coffins
out of Bergamo, the country’s hard-
est-hit city, because its morgues
have been overwhelmed. Some
4,032 have died in Italy, more than
in China, with 627 Italian deaths
reported Friday—the highest daily
toll for any country so far. Italy
earlier this month pleaded with its
European Union neighbors to send
face masks for medical workers on
the front lines. No EU country re-
sponded to the call. Germany even
briefly banned the export of medical
supplies to Italy. So much for the
European dream of “ever closer
union.”
China, however, was the first to
deliver: A shipment of Chinese ven-
tilators came last week, and some
300 Chinese intensive-care doctors

and nurses are arriving to staff be-
leaguered hospitals. Italy’s leaders
have been effusive in their praise
for Beijing. Foreign Minister Luigi Di
Maio of the populist 5 Star Move-
ment heralded China’s assistance as
an “act of solidarity” and added,
“Friendship and mutual solidarity go
a long way.” The statement doesn’t
come as a surprise, as Mr. Di Miao’s
party has warm relations with Bei-
jing and is Europe’s strongest sup-
porter of China’s Belt and Road in-
frastructure initiative. Italians,
however, shouldn’t be naive: China
is using coronavirus aid to white-
wash its responsibility for unleash-
ing a global pandemic.
TheVaticanwasthefirsttohelp
China during the outbreak in Wu-
han, by donating 700,000 face

masks. The Italian government fol-

lowed suit, reportedly giving two

tons of medical equipment, includ-

ing face masks, to China. Now Italy

faces crippling shortages of masks

and other supplies. “Maybe you for-

got, but we will always remember,

China’s Embassy in Italy tweeted on

March 15. “Now it is our turn to

help out.” In addition to ventilators

and personnel, China is sending test

kits and masks.

But these acts are not as altruis-

tic as they might appear. The major-

ity of ventilators shipping to Italy

are from the Chinese company Min-

dray, which sells its products at a

lower price than its global competi-

tors. China has a surplus of medical

equipment now that the outbreak

appears to have reached its peak

there. Demand is rising elsewhere as

the virus spreads, so Chinese com-

panies are ramping up production to

gain global market share.

Medical aid from the Chinese

government and state-owned enter-

prises deserves scrutiny, especially

as the Chinese Communist Party

forbids dissent at home and at-

tempts to evade responsibility

abroad. China will contribute its

“strength and wisdom to securing a

final victory against the pandemic,”

the Chinese foreign ministry has

said, tying this soft-power strategy

to Xi Jinping’s ambition to build “a

community with a shared future for

mankind.”

Yet concern for the global com-

munity’s “shared future” doesn’t ex-

actly describe China’s actions. The

Communist Party silenced those who

tried to raise alarms about an

emerging virus. The Wuhan doctor Li

Wenliang warned his colleagues in

late December about a possible out-

break that resembled SARS. Local

police reprimanded him for “spread-

ing rumors.” The Chinese govern-

ment said this week it would for-

mally rescind his penalty after

outcry on social media, but this is

too little, too late. Li, 33, died of the

virus in February.

News of the virus started circu-

lating on nongovernmental social

media accounts in the first half of

January, and they were shut down.

Mr. Xi eventually responded to the

outbreak publicly, but by then the

epidemic was out of control.

On Feb. 11, the World Health Or-

ganization named the disease the vi-

rus causes Covid-19, which spared

Beijing the embarrassment of having

the name tied to SARS, another cor-

onavirus of Chinese origin. China

announced on March 8 that it was

donating $20 million to the WHO,

perhaps as thanks. Days later, a Chi-

nese Foreign Ministry spokesman

tweeted that the U.S. was responsi-

ble for bringing the virus to Wuhan

in the first place.

Subsequently, Xu Zhiyong, an ac-

tivist who had criticized Mr. Xi’s re-

sponse to the coronavirus, was

jailed for “subversion.” Li Xehua, a

former journalist for the Chinese

network CCTV who had tried to pro-

vide independent information on the

outbreak from Wuhan has disap-

peared. Fang Bin and Chen Qiushi,

two independent citizen journalists

in Wuhan, are also missing after

filming virus patients in makeshift

hospitals and urging citizens to de-

mand accountability from their gov-

ernment. Now many of the Western

journalists who brought these sto-

ries to the world’s attention have

been expelled from China.

“The Chinese government quickly

corrected its mistakes by recogniz-

ing the role of Dr. Li Wenliang, fo-

cusing on positive news, like the

nurse who sings Chinese opera to

help her patients, but the thousands

of deaths in Wuhan and in the rest

of the country have remained with-

out a face and without a name,” a

journalist in Beijing who has been

following the crisis closely told me

under anonymity for security pur-

poses. The only independent sources

of information in Wuhan have virtu-

ally disappeared, together with the

city’s activists, professors, and law-

yers who had asked for Mr. Xi’s res-

ignation, the source added.

Some Italians see through the

soft-power ploy. “If this is all true,

Beijing’s totalitarian regime would

have to answer questions on why

it thought its state censorship and

propaganda were more important

than the right to health care of its

citizens and those of the world,”

Alessandro Giuli, a TV presenter at

the Italian state broadcaster RAI,

told me.

No amount of foreign aid can

make up for the Communist Party’s

botched early response that helped

produce the pandemic now afflicting

most of the world. Even long after

the initial outbreak, the Chinese de-

clined to tell other nations about

the severity of the threat or to pre-

vent its spread outside China.

It is ironic to see Beijing trying to

swoop in as Rome’s rescuer. West-

ern nations should come up with a

plan quickly to help one another

weather the storm of the virus. Oth-

erwise the Chinese Communist Party

will exploit this opportunity to pres-

ent itself as the savior of not only

Italy, but Europe and the world.

Ms. Bocchi is a writer in Rome.

China’s Coronavirus Diplomacy

MATTEO BAZZI/SHUTTERSTOCK

Rome praises Beijing’s

‘solidarity’ in sending

ventilators, face masks,

doctors and nurses.

By Alessandra Bocchi

Chinese doctors arrive in Milan, March 18.

Confessions of an Urban Prepper

Brooklyn, N.Y.
A friend showed up
to my apartment re-
cently bearing not
wine but a bottle of
99% isopropyl alco-
hol. I was thrilled,
since I can add it to
my stash of aloe and
start manufacturing
home hand sanitizer.
I probably shouldn’t
have let him in, but he was helping
my husband paint—with masks and
breathers and open windows, like so-
cial distancing on HGTV.
While they worked, I went shop-
ping, snatching up two lone cans of
white hominy from an otherwise
empty shelf at the Red Hook Fair-
way. When the painters broke for
lunch, I offered themposole,aMexi-
can soup I’d made with the hominy,
some frozen chicken and a can of
Walmart green chilies that’s been
hanging around since 2015. When my
husband asked for seconds, I re-
fused. “New rules,” I barked. “One
serving per meal. We don’t know
how long this will last.”
He frowned. “You’ve been watch-
ing too much ‘Walking Dead.’ ” But I
know he was impressed. He’s an Ea-
gle Scout. To ease the blow, I made a
tart from two questionable apples
and a frozen pie crust leftover from
Thanksgiving. Easy on the sugar, I
thought, which may soon be in short
supply. I remembered the six-cube
stash I’d seen in January on a tour of

Winton Churchill’s underground war

rooms.

As a Kentucky country girl living

in New York City, I’m naturally a bit

of a survivalist. Our laundry room

has always had a post-apocalyptic

vibe, filled as it is with jugs of deter-

gent, cases of protein shakes and

leftover paper plates from my kids’

birthday parties. And, not to brag,

but we always have toilet paper. I’ve

been a devoted Costco shopper since

they opened the Sunset Park location

in 1995. We had seven jugs of arti-

choke hearts in my upper cabinets

long before the coronavirus came

calling. Next to five jars of Rao’s spa-

ghetti sauce, 12 cans of black beans,

five cartons of bone broth and a

month’s supply of canned tuna.

It isn’t only the food. I’ve always

tried to teach my kids skills for the

end of days. My sons endured years

of audiobooks on wilderness or post-

apocalyptic themes: Laura Ingalls

Wilder’s “Little House on the Prai-

rie,” Gary Paulsen’s “Hatchet” and

Emily St. John Mandel’s “Station

Eleven.” I taught them to target

shoot—BB guns and bows and ar-

rows.

My brother, a truck driver and

outdoorsman, gave the kids pocket

knives for Christmas every year. We

had to ask him to stop after they

took one to their progressive Brook-

lyn private school for show-and-tell.

The episode prompted a parent-

teacher conference about “the item,”

which was never named. I ought to

look for those knives. They are prob-

ably next to the hand-crank radio

and flashlight I bought after 9/11,

stashed next to my battery supply.

Maybe Ihavebeen watching too

many disaster movies.

I’ve often wondered what work I

could do in a postcrash economy. I’m

a lawyer, which wouldn’t be of much

use, at least in the early days while a

justice system is being re-established.

I’m bossy, so maybe I could help with

security. My husband is an architect

and can fix anything, which would

add value. I’m a pretty good cook. I

tried my gardening skills in a little

plot near the Brooklyn-Queens Ex-

pressway last year, partly with this in

mind, but it was an epic failure. Even

the rats rejected my three mealy to-

matoes.

At the Red Hook Fairway I got

nostalgic when I saw one can of Vi-

enna sausages on the shelf. Back in

Kentucky my dad would stockpile

them for camping trips and tornado-

related power outages. He snatched

up sardines, too. I still can’t get my

head around those, but I do have

eight jars of peanut butter, like he

used to have. At Duane Reade, I

bought three boxes of saltines. New

Yorkers don’t understand prepping

at all, I thought. Saltines keep for-

ever. Gluten-free crackers start to

taste like worm paste after a few

weeks.

I’m told there have been long

lines and empty shelves at upmarket

grocery stores like Whole Foods and

Trader Joe’s. It goes against my

prepper nature to mention this, but

the less trendy Key Food across the

street is cheaper and still stocked

with canned goods. They are also

still handing out plastic bags. So we

don’t have to watch, as I did from

my apartment windows this week-

end, a bagless father juggling rolls of

Scott and a box of organic power-

bars while trying to keep two tod-

dlers from running into the street.

Don’t get me wrong. My attitude

is not every man, woman and child

for themselves. I have carryout con-

tainers ready to share meals and pa-

per products with my elderly neigh-

bors. My 95-year-old friend Grace

loves beef stew, so I’ve got ingredi-

ents for three batches. I’ve got in-

stant mashed potatoes, too, for when

things get dire.

My biggest problem? I trained my

kids too well and they’ve abandoned

Brooklyn. My oldest son, now 23,

texted to say he’s decamping to his

girlfriend’s family compound in

Maine. “It’s safer than the city,

Mom.” My other son, sent home

early from his college study-abroad

program, is headed first to his girl-

friend’s house in rural Vermont. All

of this prepping can’t fight hor-

mones. “You’re a good mom,” con-

soled my friend Eddy, a master-sur-

vivalist in Kentucky who I suspect

may be stockpiling ammunition

along with mandarin oranges. “You

need your offspring to survive.” All I

candoissigh.

But I also know—in my expert

opinion—that New Yorkers have

something that can’t be bought in

stores. What they lack in shopping

skills, they make up in heart. The

people of Brooklyn are tough and

stand together. I saw that in my

building lobby on 9/11. Neighbors

welcomed each other covered in ash,

stumbling, dazed and wearing one

shoe. Those same neighbors ran cold

lemonade to cops directing traffic

during the 2003 blackout and re-

sponded to my 6 a.m. call for cooks

to make breakfast at Plymouth

Church for first responders during

Hurricane Sandy.

I think with my stash and their

gumption, we will all do just fine.

Ms. Koster is a New York lawyer.

I’m a New York City

lawyer, but coronavirus

has brought out the

Kentucky survivalist in me.

CROSS
COUNTRY
By Caroline
Aiken Koster

Coronavirus

Imperative:

Do No Harm

By Ron Johnson

A

merica is in the midst of a na-

tional crisis that is no one’s

fault. Elected and nonelected

federal, state and local officials are

making tough decisions and taking

decisive action to limit the spread of

the coronavirus. They deserve our

collective support and our accep-

tance that results will be far from

perfect.

That said, as we legislate, we

must identify specific objectives and

follow a basic problem-solving pro-

cess: Gather information, identify

and define the problem, establish

achievable goals, then design solu-

tions. We should also take the Hip-

pocratic oath: “First, do no harm.”

I was one of only eight senators

to vote against the “Phase 2” stimu-

lus. I had identified a specific prob-

lem, but my amendment to fix it

failed. As a result, the many Ameri-

cans who will be laid-off will get far

less from state benefits, and many

employers will face a federal man-

date they cannot afford. Hopefully

we can fix this in Phase 3, 4 or...

who knows? We’ve only begun.

The best way to get things right

is to keep it simple. There’s a lot we

don’t know, so we are forced to de-

fine problems and make decisions

with limited information. So let’s

start with what we know. Covid-19 is

caused by a highly contagious new

virus. Without mitigation, it could

overwhelm health-care systems. So-

cial-distancing strategies are essen-

tial. A vaccine probably won’t be

available this fall. Existing antiviral

therapies may work but are un-

proven. Yet social distancing is do-

ing great harm to the economy. Sec-

tors of the economy are shutting

down and employees are being laid

off. Essential services must continue

to function.

Based on all this, I believe our

primary goals should be these: First,

limit the spread of infection and de-

velop effective therapies and a vac-

cine. Second, provide financial sup-

port to idled workers. Third, provide

support to viable businesses so they

can survive the crisis and help re-

build the economy when it ends.

Americans know what’s being

done to limit spread. An effective

treatment would break the crisis al-

most overnight. Former Food and

Drug Commissioner Scott Gottlieb

has described an approach to test

existing therapies, without giving

placebos to a control group, to speed

consensus and regulatory approval.

Sen. Steve Daines has proposed

funding the manufacture and stock-

piling of vaccines as soon as they’re

developed but before they’re ap-

proved. Once a vaccine proves safe

and effective, we will then have suf-

ficient inventory to inoculate the en-

tire population immediately.

As for the economy, we need to

acknowledge that this is a supply-

side, not a demand-side, slump. Even

in demand-side downturns, indis-

criminately writing checks to indi-

viduals has not been effective. As

good as “free money” might sound,

it will do little good. Instead, federal

support should be efficiently pro-

vided directly to idled workers using

state unemployment systems,

through forgivable loans provided to

employers, or some combination

thereof. Sens. Marco Rubio and Su-

san Collins have developed a forgiv-

able-loan program for small busi-

nesses that is included in the initial

Phase 3 legislation. Both of these

concepts need to be thoroughly ana-

lyzed for feasibility and effective-

ness to ensure sure we’re not spend-

ing tax dollars on what the

functioning private sector can fund

on its own.

Providing financial support to

businesses may be the hardest di-

lemma. To what extent should help

be targeted to essential businesses?

How do we avoid creating moral

hazard? Sen. Pat Toomey has sug-

gested loans with higher interest

rates. Sen. Mike Rounds has a plan

to funnel assistance using insurance

adjusters and something like a fed-

eral business-interruption insurance

facility.

The devil will be in the details as

these massive support packages are

crafted and debated. But staying fo-

cused on the three goals detailed

above will help ensure the massive

amount of federal spending will be

used as efficiently and effectively as

possible.

Mr. Johnson, a Republican, is a

U.S. senator from Wisconsin.

Washington needs to keep

focused on specific goals

and tailor its interventions

to achieve them.