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Covid creates a chasm among friends

When those we know fail to act to protect community safety

By Jeremy GosnellPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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I don’t want to be at war with my community or my friends. Here in Western Maryland tourism is the primary source of income. It fuels Wisp Resort, and a network of luxury vacation homes. It fuels the many shops and services that surround Deep Creek Lake. Many of those businesses owners I personally know, some are even my friends. They rely on tens of thousands of people

pouring into our community over Christmas. It’s their life blood, their profit margin. As I scan Facebook, I see business owning friends celebrating the opening of the ski resort. I scan down farther, and people are losing their mother, their uncle, their daughter. Garrett County Maryland currently has the second highest Covid positivity rate in the state. The last thing we need is thousands of people packed into a ski-lodge, many likely to shun wearing masks.

This is my community, and I don’t want to see business owners suffer. Yet, I don’t want to see innocent people maimed or killed by this ruthless virus either. Our local hospital is already at capacity with Covid patients. I’ve already seen a friend die of Covid, shortly before learning one of my high school teachers died of the virus the same day. I don’t want to burn bridges and make enemies by calling out local incompetence, suggesting people stay home, or sharing the stories of the many Western Maryland families that are losing a battle to Covid-19. I hate taking sides, especially when I have friends on both.

In the darkness of this pandemic’s grip on Western Maryland, I see my support like triage. Who needs it the most? When I think critically about that question, the answer becomes clear. My friends celebrating the opening of a ski resort or renting their multi-million dollar house only have money to lose. Most of them have received ample stimulus from the state and federal government. They’re established and can weather the storm. Those friends and neighbors lying in a hospital alone, connected to a host of machinery, not sure that they will see tomorrow, they can’t. Those local families making funeral arrangements while their deceased loved one is packed onto a refrigerated truck, they can’t weather the storm either. Families staring down tens of thousands in new medical debt, unemployed, Covid long-haulers, this pandemic will have broken them. They need my support, now more than ever. It’s not celebrations about ski resorts and winter sales that need shared, it’s the voices of the broken and dying.

Quite frankly these businesses know better. Their owners live here, they’re watching the toll this pandemic is taking. I have to think they know someone who has gotten sick, someone who has died. Yet, they remain open. They share and celebrate activities they know will lead to more sickness and they do it all in pursuit of the dollar. It isn’t right, it isn’t fair, and by supporting only their own interests, they’re turning their back on everyone else’s. Why aren’t they taking initiative, closing, suggesting a moratorium on winter events until this surge passes. A vaccine is around the corner, it’s highly unlikely next winter will be like this. Why aren’t they standing up for the local people that support them when vacationers go home?

So what does it mean? It means I won’t share their sales, or shop their wares. It means I won’t go out of my way to buy something from them, when I can get it for much less on Amazon. It means I can’t in good conscience suggest their businesses to friends, or colleagues and clients. I won’t vote for them if they run for local office, or edit their advertisements and write a blog at their behest. Most importantly, I won’t forget. I won’t forget that when their community needed them to sacrifice for the greater good, they only saw opportunity. We know corporations are greedy and their actions amid the pandemic were predictable. But our community members, our friends, that we didn’t see coming. Lines have to be drawn in the sand, or else we’ve surrendered to this disaster.

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