As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the Oxford Languages “word of the year” for 2020 was “pandemic.” There was so much change in our language usage in 2020 related to the COVID experience that Oxford Languages which is the parent organization of the Oxford English Dictionary has put out a document describing all of our new phrases that you can download, Words of an Unprecedented Year. I first heard of this report during an NPR segment. What stood out for me was the word “unprecedented.” 2020 was a year unlike any other of my 75 years, it was unprecedented as an individual experience, and for every other person on the planet. Whether or not you were infected by the virus you were surely affected by it. 

In my mind, “unprecedented” should have been the word of the year. 2020 should be the end of the myth that position or wealth could protect a person from a threat. Those of us who have not been infected measure our losses in different ways. Some of us have lost jobs. Many of us have lost businesses. I dare say that all of us have lost the pleasure of important life events like graduations, weddings, family gatherings, the joy of socializing with friends and family, and the pleasure of participating in sports or watching sporting events as part of a cheering crowd. The list of losses for all of us goes on and on. It is hard to believe that many among us have doubted science and want to deny the truth of the pandemic. They are inclined to explain their losses as the result of some conspiracy, but what they don’t deny is that their lives have changed in an “unprecedented” way. No one has escaped losing something. We are all connected by loss, and that is unprecedented.

Despite the fact that we all have losses, we are injured or experience loss as a function of our unique personal circumstances. Minorities and women have lost more jobs. Minorities have suffered a greater percentage of infections and deaths. Many in high tech have enhanced their fortunes as much of the business and educational world has gone online while workers in the restaurant industry have been devastated. Inequities exist but no one has escaped, and no one has not noticed that we are all dealing with a new and different set of realities. The economic manifestation of the virus is not the only worldwide disaster that faces us, but it is the only one that almost nobody can deny. Global warming is the other disaster that impacts us all, but the damage it does is protracted in time, easier for the rich to avoid, and changes are slower so that the variation from year to year can be explained by deniers as normal cause variation. No matter what we think of the virus, how to manage it, and where it came from or what caused it to come, it is hard to deny the fact that with the pandemic jobs have been lost or that there has been an overflow of bodies into refrigerated eighteen-wheelers. 

Numbers often tell a story or raise important questions. There are 7.8 billion people in the world. As of now, 89 million people have acquired a COVID-19 infection and almost 2 million have died. Those numbers mean that 1% of the world has been infected and that the mortality of those infected is about 2.25%. Here in America, we are ahead of most of the world in a negative way, we have experienced 22.6 million infections and 376,000 deaths. The 22.6 million infections mean that about 7% of Americans (330,000,000) have been infected and our death rate is 1.7% Is the percentage of our population that is known to have had the virus higher because we have tested more? That seems unlikely when compared to other developed nations where there have been fewer people infected. I don’t think we know the answer. 

If only 1% of the world and 7% of Americans have been infected (those are probably gross underestimates for the world and substantial under measurements for us), we must admit that there is the potential for many, many more infections and deaths. Indeed, since the vaccines were approved a little over a month ago we have experienced more than 80,000 deaths in America. Deaths and infections are trending up in a non-linear way. You can confirm this by studying the graphs on the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 site. There were 292,500 reported deaths as of December 10. As of January 10, there were 373,400 deaths. That is 80,000 additional deaths in the last month. It is hard to predict just how many people will be lost before the combination of the vaccines, herd immunity, and the natural course of pandemics bring an end to this ordeal. What is obvious is that our rate of loss is increasing rapidly and that a half million deaths by sometime in the late winter are possible. This ordeal may be at the beginning of its end, but the end of the end is months away despite the miracle of rapid vaccine development and with the hope of improved management under Joe Biden. We must keep in mind that even under better leadership victory over this virus is further into the future than we would like it to be. 

The situation reminds me of long-distance running. There were many times while running marathons when my body was ready to stop at 13 or 15 or even 20 miles but I knew that the finish line was much further down the road. These times are unprecedented because we don’t know where the finish line is. We don’t even know if there is a finish line because this virus could mutate in a way that negates the effectiveness of our vaccines. It is also possible that the minute we conquer this virus the recent cascade of new challenges like H1N1, SARS, MERS, Ebola, and COVID-19 will be followed by COVID-21. Zoonosis is a potent process that may be cooking up our next challenge even as I write today. We long for our old way of life and it is hard to admit that facemasks, social distancing, and basketball with no fans in the stands may be a persistent “new normal.”

There is small consolation in noting that our superior medical resources and the devotion of our medical providers have resulted in a lower death rate than has been the experience of the world taken as a whole, but the data from country to country reveals unexplained variations that can be surprising. What has been most disappointing to me is the variation in the distribution of our medical resources. It is probably appropriate that President Trump was given aggressive treatment for his COVID-19 infection. When he got out of Walter Reed he announced that he wanted everybody to get the treatment that he had received. Now over three months later most of us would still have a hard time getting treated as he did or with several of the meds he received. In many places like Texas or Southern California, you might have trouble even getting into the emergency room. As Atul Gawande has implied, we are not ignorant, we are inept. It is a marvelous thing to be able to produce several new vaccines in a matter of months. It is a lamentable thing to have not worked out the efficient production and distribution of the vaccine. The good news is that we have vaccines. The bad news is that it will be several months before all those who want it will have an opportunity to get it. 

It is ironic, or perhaps just a function of the fact that all he really cares about is himself, that as soon as Mr. Trump announced that he wanted every American to get the vaccine he seemed to lose interest in the pandemic. Between October and the election, his focus was not on the pandemic and making sure that everyone got what he got. His focus was on getting elected by blocking votes or denying legitimate votes. After the election, his focus has not been on overseeing the efficient distribution of the vaccine or recognizing with any sympathy the horrendous increase in cases and deaths, it’s been on denying that he lost and trying to overturn the election that he lost. We have deserved more even from a narcissistic loser. 

I was among those who hoped that “unprecedented” would fade from our daily usage in 2021. I hoped that we would be so busy “building back better” that the word of the year for 2021 might turn out to be “harmony” or “bipartisanship.” I am a Pollyanna–silly me. I thought that when Biden and Harris won the focus would shift, the air would clear, and we would all see that there is much that we could do together for our collective benefit. 

For four years I had cringed every time I heard the president describe “the wall” or claim credit for the stock market. It has been easier for me to understand the dynamics of the pandemic than for me to understand his popularity.  His fantasies about his greatness gall me. I almost lose my lunch when I hear him describe his accomplishments as amazing, or when he riffs on with phrases like “people can’t believe it,” or “like nothing we have ever seen before!”  I was ready to discard the phrase “like nothing we have ever seen before” as well as the president and all my animosity for 2020.  I was ready for relief or at least some reprieve from Donald Trump and his language at least until the elections of 2022. I was ready for progress in 2021. Silly me, less than one week into 2021 we have seen something that is both “unprecedented” and “like nothing we have ever seen before.” 

With each day that passes, we see more and more footage from the attack on the Capitol that reveals that what the rioters that the president sicced on us did was more horrendous than we even dreamed the day before. From the minute the Capital was cleared of the mob what has been more disturbing than the event itself has been the response of the enablers of the president.  A few have responded appropriately. Most have continued to look the other way or worse like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Jim Jordan, and Kevin McCarthy have continued to spout the lies that suggest that there is some modicum of possibility of truth in the lies that Trump tells. They say that we should hold everything while we convince millions that he did not win the election or that it was not rigged in some states. They add credence to his claims and stir the fury of the crowd when they suggest by their actions that maybe his lies could be true or at least should be considered just because several tens of millions of Trump fanatics want to believe his assertion that they as enablers don’t really deny, that he won. 

I do not know what the next nine days will bring, but I fear that “unprecedented” is likely to become a cliché. I have no doubt that I will also hear these nine days and perhaps the rest of 2021 described as “like nothing we have seen before.” We long to take off our masks and hug everyone we see, but there is much that must happen before those days come again. I am again reminded of a marathon. They say that a marathon really begins at mile 20 or whenever you “hit the wall” because those last few miles are harder than the ones that have already made you feel exhausted. In your fatigue, you discover that you are in conflict with yourself. Part of you wants to sit down on the nearest curb and cry, another part of you keeps trying to imagine the sense of accomplishment you will feel if you can ever get across the finish line. 

Back in the early 80s, I was running the New York Marathon for the third or fourth time and as I came across the small bridge that connects the Bronx with the upper part of Manhattan near the Marcus Garvey Park, I was ready to quit. I was toast. The day had been warmer than I hoped. I felt dehydrated and discouraged because I knew that the remainder of the run would be agony, yet I knew that I would regret not finishing the run the moment I began to recover. 

Just as I was about to stop another runner pulled up beside me and said, “We can do this. We can get to the finish line together.” The next hour was delightful as we jogged along and exchanged stories. He was from Texas. He told me that he played as a defensive back for theTexas Longhorns. I told him that I had once lived in Waco and had been a confirmed second-stringer for the South Carolina Gamecocks. He told me that he knew a girl from Waco named Johnnie Bob. I said that I knew Johnnie Bob. She was in my class. We agreed that it was a small world. 

We were connected and we crossed the finish line together. In the crowd after the race, we lost sight of one another before establishing a future contact. I was very tired and just happy to have made it. Later as I analyzed the day I was stunned to discovered that my time over the last six miles was faster than the previous six miles. It is amazing what we can accomplish when we have a common purpose and stay together. 

I hope that over the next nine days we can find a common purpose and pull more and more people into the group that tries to stay together. I pray that the events of January 6 were a one-time aberration that will truly remain unprecedented and that years from now we can say that we had never seen anything like it before, and we never saw anything like it again. We have too much work to do just to improve the health of the nation and address the inequities in our communities to let a mob get in the way. We need to do the work necessary to understand why it happened and address the root cause issues that made it possible.