Florida coronavirus statistics don’t tell full story of suffering

COVID-19’s human toll is immeasurable. In places such as Florida’s epicenter, MiamiDade County, the suffering isn’t fully captured in the record number of deaths and infections, and the plight of the unemployed.

There’s the husband in Aventura, never before separated from his wife, who tells you, sobbing, that he hasn’t been allowed to see the elderly woman, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, in five long months. Devoted to her care even after he was forced to place her in a nursing home, he no longer sees the point in living.

There’s the angst-ridden mother worried about her diabetic son serving a short sentence for a white-collar crime in Miami’s COVID-infested Federal Correctional Institution. For him, she says, voice breaking, “a mistake” in an otherwise law-abiding life can turn into a death sentence in the time of the coronavirus.

And, there are all of the family members and friends of people who have died, from COVID-19 and other illnesses, who are left alone to grieve because it’s not safe to get together. Adding to the pain of loss, they also must wait for too many days to bury their loved ones.

There are more bodies to bury or cremate than funeral homes, incinerators and cemeteries can handle.

COVID-19 HERE TO SAY

Worse yet, this human suffering isn’t ending anytime soon. We will only see more of it. The highly infectious disease, now too widespread in the United States and abroad, likely is here to stay, experts say.

Yet, too many people still don’t understand the relation between their actions in moments that may seem ordinary but can turn catastrophic — and the wholesale suffering among us.

What can you expect when not even law enforcement officers follow the mask and social distancing mandates?

Sunday afternoon, I came upon a Florida Highway Patrol officer addressing a driver he had apparently pulled over, or perhaps, was simply assisting on Red Road in northwest Miami-Dade.

It would have been a mere rubber-necking moment if we weren’t in the middle of a raging global pandemic, if the United States weren’t the country leading the world in the numbers of infections and dead, and if Miami-Dade, weren’t the epicenter of human suffering.

But this FHP officer wore no mask — and his face was in direct line with the driver as he was speaking.

No matter how kindly you look at it, the lack of concern for others he displayed is outrageous.

He wasn’t thinking about the health of the driver, the health of his own family or that of fellow officers he comes into contact with every day.

Gov. Ron DeSantis might be refusing to issue a statewide mask mandate, but there is one in place in Miami-Dade — and the officer was in clear violation of it.

“The health and safety of the public and our employees remains our top priority, and the Florida Highway Patrol is following current CDC guidance for law enforcement,” Lt. Derrick Rahming said in an email.

The “what law enforcement needs to know about that coronavirus disease” guidance by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention repeats what we’ve all heard: Stay six feet away from people and wear protective equipment (PPE).

This officer was doing neither. I captured the exchange on my phone not to shame him, but to use his selfish and thoughtless behavior to call attention to the potential for transmission we all face in everyday moments — and to illustrate the connection of lax attitudes to people’s suffering.

This driver went home, or shopping, or wherever after this encounter with the officer. The officer likely went home to his family, too. He may have been in contact with other officers after this encounter. If officer or driver had been exposed to COVID, imagine the community transmission and the potential for devastation unleashed.

We’re never going to make any inroads in containing this disease, never mind sustain any gains, until everyone gets on the same page about prevention.

Wearing a mask is the first line of defense.

None of us is safe until we all understand how easily this disease is transmitted.

None of us is safe until we all practice empathy, protect others and, by doing so, protect ourselves.

We’re all suffering in some way. Accept it, and show some respect to fellow humans.