A day to reflect, with no V-C Day ever coming

There will be no V-C Day version of V-E Day or V-J Day, so ACHI is proposing something a little different.

V-E Day, or Victory in Europe Day, was May 8, 1945. V-J Day, or Victory over Japan Day, was August 14 of that same year.

Those were the days when the horrors of World War II ended, when the parades could be planned, and when the boys could come home – if they could. It was when the new normal could begin.

Mankind will not be declaring Victory over Covid. There will be no surrender ceremony or parades. The plague will end, but the enemy will still take shots at us.

Still, with the case numbers way down but the future not completely certain, the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement says the time might be right for a day of reflection and healing.

On April 8, ACHI’S board of directors called for April 27 to be such a day. The board noted that more than 35,000 Arkansans have been hospitalized for covid-19 (or at least tested positive while they were there), and more than 11,000 deaths have been attributed to the disease. It said an estimated nearly 2,000 Arkansas children have lost a parent or caretaker. Many people died alone without their loved ones present.

It notes the other ways Americans have been affected by the pandemic. Those include survivors who continue to struggle against so-called “longcovid,” whose debilitating symptoms can last a long time.

Even those who never got sick and never lost a loved one have been affected. Some young people may never bridge the gaps in their educations caused by the disruptions. Obesity rates increased, and so did drug overdose deaths – by a lot. In 2020, there were almost 92,000 such deaths nationwide, which was 21,000 more than in any previous year.

The board’s statement notes that health care workers are facing post-trauma effects from the pandemic, which would not be surprising. While we on the outside argued endlessly over masks and shots, they’ve been in a war zone. For example, the Arkansas Democrat-gazette reported last month that 223 patients at Jefferson Regional Medical Center in Pine Bluff had died from covid over two years. What a toll those daily battles must have taken on the medical staff.

ACHI’S board has called on community and faith leaders to organize this day of reflection and healing – which probably is not going to happen. After two years of the pandemic’s hardships and division, people are ready to move on, and community leaders are going to know that.

Still, it would be appropriate for us to engage in at least a little reflecting as individuals. For many of us, the past two years have been traumatic on some level, or at least plenty weird.

Too often, what has been sadly missing are public expressions of sorrow and solidarity. We didn’t always handle this right. Mask-related arguments have been far more common on my social media feed than constructive, service-related comments. As I reflect on my own actions and mindset, I regret how much I judged others who approached this unprecedented time differently than I did. What a jerk I was at times.

So too should there be a time of reflection for America’s medical and public health leaders. What could have been done differently to save more lives and reduce the divisions the pandemic caused? Maybe those two goals are mutually exclusive.

Should we have focused on the aged and vulnerable, and let young people go on with their lives? In Arkansas, of the 11,354 deaths attributed to covid so far, 8,384, or almost 74%, have involved people over age 65. For those under age 25, the number of covid-attributed deaths is 31.

Or maybe many more people – particularly the vulnerable – would have died had we done much less, and the numbers had quickly swelled beyond what hospitals could handle.

Either way, maybe this was done about as well as imperfect humans could be expected to do it. V-J Day didn’t come the day after Pearl Harbor, after all.

We’re not going to declare victory this time. But it probably would be good to reflect on what we’ve experienced – if not April 27, then sometime, and try to heal whatever needs healing.