Dialysis Diaries 22: Fear and Covid-19 by Ron Steinman

Dialysis Diaries 22 Fear and Covid-19 by Ron Steinman

I consider myself first a conflict journalist. Covering the Vietnam War over six years and the Troubles in Northern Ireland for four years were the best years of my life as a journalist. Another highlight was in Manila when, as bureau chief, I covered the fall of Ferdinand Marcos when massive street demonstrations by civilians and the military forced him out of office. A cousin recently called me a war correspondent, a term once used regularly before we became conflict reporters. He is right. I like war correspondent better. It has a more romantic ring to it. War correspondent looks like the trench coats worn by reporters in movies from Hollywood in the 1940s. However this is not about titles. It is about the reality of fear. 

Fear often makes a person hide, freeze, run for cover. It is irrational except to the psyche. To the individual it is real, profound, even institutionalized. Existentially it can be very strong. Fear is an emotion and a condition that a person cannot control. It is impossible to tie it in a box and hide it under the bed.

Because of my age and my health issues I am among the most vulnerable fighting to stay alive during the Covid-19 pandemic, I struggle with fear because coronavirus, that powerful killer rampaging through our lives, seems to be unstoppable, at least for now. In war the possibility of death or an injury hovers over those engaged in the fighting or covering the action. In a demonstration that sometimes morphs into a dangerous and bloody riot, the unknown also plays a big role. The danger is in front of you, behind you, surrounding you. It is easier to deal with an enemy that is a person, that has form that you can see and, in time, touch or even eliminate. I fear CS gas, riot police wearing shields and helmets wielding lead filled batons, water cannon, the pop and sucking sound from falling mortars, rubber bullets coming my way, angry police and soldiers. As long as I can run and find a place to hide that is safe, I have a chance to control my destiny. The problem with coronavirus is that it is silent and there is no place to hide. 

In war sound helps better define what you see or even have the time to more fully observe. Sound can and does come from all sides. Sometimes it is so vivid it makes your heart pause and pop simultaneously. It envelops you amidst the action, whether from a rifle, a machine gun, a hand grenade, a mortar or a field gun. Whether by women banging on metal garbage cans or by demonstrators shouting, screaming and yelling with excitement, or from exploding home-made Molotov Cocktails. The virus is different. It creates a momentum that destroys at will and is consequently more dangerous.

I did not understand or experience fear as a youngster. None of my friends knew anything about fear. We were lower and middle-income kids who wandered the streets of Brooklyn getting into a bit of trouble but always without fear or retribution by the neighbors, older watchdogs, and our parents. We feared the cops on the beat because they occasionally slapped our backsides with their weighted nightsticks, and were tough on us, as they sometimes had to be. As a kid I rode foolishly between cars on the subway. We played in the streets and dodged incoming cars, mostly defying them to hit us. Fortunately for us, they never did. We believed we were invincible. Doubt and a sense of sanity would come to many, but not all of us when we became adults. 

When older I walked freely into situations that should have created fear but did not. As a young news editor I covered street demonstrations in Harlem led by Malcolm X. Detained by police in Baton Rouge for civil rights documentary was a highlight during a mostly benign project. There were mortar attacks in Saigon and under fire in the field. There was acrid CS tear gas in Saigon during street demonstrations by Buddhist monks. I flew in low flying helicopters in South Vietnam. The unforgettable one time helicopter flight under Tower Bridge over the Thames in London. In the time of the Troubles, I dodged rubber bullets, paving stones and homemade Molotov cocktails in Londonderry and Belfast. More and much more should have activated my fear but did not. I should have been frightened but I was not. All in a day’s work.Now I indulge in personal and necessary lockdown to protect myself from infection. I am in self-quarantine behind closed doors to protect others and myself from becoming infected. I only venture out for groceries or when I travel by foot for almost one mile three days a week to the dialysis center where I have my life giving treatment. Doing what I can to stay alive — all in a day’s work.