The un-great divide

“Can you just step away from the dumpster for me?”

That’s what the man asked me while I stood in a parking lot outside my doctor’s office. I was tucked in against the building next door, trying to stay out of the cold wind.

With COVID-19 protocols, there’s no waiting in the doctor’s waiting room right now — no, you’re supposed to wait in your car until the office calls you on your cellphone and tells you come in.

I have a car, but I walked to the office anyway, because I like walking.

But what if you don’t have a car? Or what if you don’t even have a cellphone? Interesting question, right? Back to moving away from the dumpster.

The man needed me to move because he’d had his doctor’s appointment, but the clinic’s bathrooms were COVID-closed. The big green dumpster was the only close cover where he could get a bit of relief.

And holding it until he got home? Well, it wasn’t that easy. He couldn’t just drive home. “Still got to wait for the bus.” So I went for a stroll.

There were a handful of other people there without cars, tucked in anywhere there was a bit of shelter. The wait was pretty close to three quarters of an hour.

And it was cold.

It’s just one example of the fact that, as we build work-arounds for COVID-19, we often fail to notice that they simply don’t work for everybody.

Take drive-through testing for COVID-19. If you’ve got to take a test, waiting in your nice warm car might be inconvenient and dull. What if you’ve got an appointment for testing and you don’t actually have a car? Let’s just say your options narrow. It doesn’t really seem like someone who’s been told that they might have COVID should, say, take a cab and wait in it for an hour or so. Public transportation doesn’t seem like much of an option, either. Everything we’re trying to do to restrict the spread of COVID-19 also has to be looked at through the lens of economic disparity — as well as downright obvious accessibility. Why?

Because the virus doesn’t care if you’re rich, middle-class or poor. Viral spread, especially of more infectious variants, needs to be met by a cohesive plan that allows everyone to take part.

Some people can self-isolate from others, even taking over a part of their home completely separated from their families. Some pretty clearly can’t do that as effectively, especially if they are sharing a bathroom.

There are disparities, often driven by a difference in income. For example, online resources are great for those who have readily available online access. But that’s not everyone.

There have always been marginalized people in our society. The pandemic is just drawing the lines on the margin that much more clearly.

And sure, these are unique times.

But it also shows that those who make the rules tend to make them based on their own worlds, on their own resources and economic circumstances, and fail to see — at least at the outset — that others can’t do the same thing.

Often, those who are left out have to start making noise before their needs — which are, actually, just versions of everyone’s needs for access to services — are properly addressed. You shouldn’t have to make a stink just to get the same access to services that everyone else is already getting.

There are things that work for the many, but leave the few out in the cold.

Behind a dumpster, for example.

And if you think that’s only happening during the pandemic, you’re wrong.