Shelterinplace debate raises moral, economic issues
As a CEO, Amira Yahyaoui always strives to be first. First in her industry. First in getting customers. First in finding solutions. But since the pandemic hit, she’s made the decision to be last.
Yahyaoui, who runs the San Francisco financial aid startup Mos, told her employees that even after shelterinplace orders lift, she wants them to wait at least two weeks before coming back to work, to give space to those who need to return to their jobs and take public transportation, to the ones who don’t have a choice.
While Californians argue about the big decisions of getting the economy rolling again, weighed against fears that the coronavirus is not yet conquered, Yahyaoui is in the camp that takes a very long view.
“I think the guiding question here, after a pandemic like this, is: ‘What side of history do you want to be on?’ ” said Yahyaoui, who is 35 and lives in San Francisco. “I’ve had endless debates about this very macabre choice which is: ‘Is the life of hundreds of thousands worth the jobs of tens of millions?’ ”
For her, the best moral contribution she can make is to wait at the end of the line, no matter how frustrating and isolating it is. Yahyaoui has had experience with difficult decisions; she was born into a family of human rights activists, and at 17, she was exiled from Tunisia and ended up homeless in France. Concerned about how other countries are handling the pandemic, she feels the Bay Area has made the right choices. Not everyone feels the same. In the weeks since the Bay Area imposed stayathome rules, and even more so since the extension through May, the discussion surrounding containment has reached beyond the surfacelevel logistics of homeschooling and haircuts and Zoom exhaustion. It’s prompting people to grapple with the more complicated — and unsolvable — moral questions about what it all means, not just for the Bay Area, but for all of humanity. There’s a sense that heeding the order is not a clearcut line anymore, but a complicated swirl of unending ambivalence about what’s at stake.
Despite partial relaxation of some restrictions on employment and outdoor activities beginning Monday, some say the stayathome rules do more harm than good.
“Tens of millions of our citizens are suffering a fate worse than getting sick,” said Barbara Kirk, 52, a technical recruiter in Los Gatos. “People need their jobs back. … Kids and teens especially need their mental health stabilized.”
The debate seems to center on what matters more, people’s finances or their health, but even that’s not a clean distinction. People are worried that longterm sheltering in place could result in even worse health outcomes, from the rise in anxiety to effects of less sunlight and more alcohol, and that it could spur entirely different kinds of deaths than COVID19.
In California, 16.5% of people want the economy opened in two weeks, according to a April 1726 survey by the COVID19 Consortium for Understanding the Public’s Policy Preferences Across States, a project of Northeastern, Harvard and Rutgers universities.
In the Bay Area, where the number of intensive care patients has dropped in recent weeks, some people feel they’ve done their part to flatten the curve on coronavirus cases, and now — as a vaccine could be years away — it’s time to go back to work.
Christian Vasquez, a clinical researcher in Larkspur, is on the fence but feels exhausted from being forced to stay at home. “People all over the Bay Area are in dire need to get back to work,” said Vasquez, 37. “Many things have already been taken away from us for long enough. … To keep extending this brings more frustration.”
Melissa Jenkins, 42, a consultant for community health centers who lives in East Oakland, is particularly worried that the extended shelterinplace order will exacerbate the economic inequality gap.
“I don’t see how this extension will make any changes to communities like East Oakland, the area of the city with the most cases and perhaps the least compliance with the order,” Jenkins said. She fears most people will just bend or ignore the rules as the order wears on and the summer sets in.
Other residents are infuriated by protests against the extension, and feel comforted — and proud of — the actions California has taken to steady the curve. Even though the shelterinplace directive cost Pawel Dlugosz a job, he said he knows it’s the best thing to do. Stephanie Wells, a professor in Oakland, also feels protected by Bay Area leaders — and for her, it’s about saving lives above all else. Wells, 54, recognizes that the economic toll will be difficult and people want to go back to work, but she can’t help but wonder whose lives they’re willing to sacrifice in the process.
Even if the order lifts, life won’t be the same for those who have health conditions and are at high risk. Some, like Oakland resident Nancy Record, 81, have resigned to just stay put out of ultracaution. Until there’s a vaccine, Record, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and a recently discovered heart ailment, has decided she will continue to shelter in place.
Others are resolving to do whatever they can to protect the most vulnerable and are grieving for hardhit places like New York and for what’s about to happen in the states that have reopened.
Karen Zachary, a real estate office manager who lives in Oakland, said she’ll shelter in place for a year if it means protecting the most vulnerable. “It’s the least we can do to save lives,” said Zachary, 46. “I don’t mind giving up inperson hangouts, knowing this is for the greater good. I can cook my own food and pour my own beer as long as it takes.”
Some parts of the internet have turned, as they inevitably do, to a darker place, with growing propagation of conspiracy theories about the virus.
“I personally am freaking out about what this is doing to other people,” said Livermore accountant Brendan McClain. He and his wife were shocked when a woman at his kids’ day care shared a conspiracy video with them that claimed the coronavirus was a hoax created by Bill Gates. “Some people just can’t handle this,” he said. McClain also said his wife, an Xray technician, still has to ask many of her highrisk patients to wear masks, despite signs outside instructing them to do so. She feels anxious going into work.
Mark Hill, a senior analyst who lives in San Francisco, observes the “liberate” protests and the online push by Elon Musk and others to reopen states and says he’s letting history — and the facts — lead the way. He sees Singapore’s recent ground lost to the coronavirus as a cautionary tale for the Bay Area. Looking back further, to the AntiMask League during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic in San Francisco, he doesn’t want history to repeat itself.
“If we feel we did too much in hindsight, then we likely did the right thing at the time,” said Hill, 27. “I think we’re at that point now. To throw it away would be stupid and shortsighted.”