Cognitive Dissonance

About midway through the national lockdown, I saw an article saying “prepare for the gas lighting.” Soon, the article said, we’d start hearing minimizing of Covid-19, being told we are overly concerned and overreacting and that really it is no big deal. I knew the article was a fair predictor of what was to come, but still it didn’t seem possible. Every business and school had shut down (except for essential businesses), no one had resisted, and people were staying at home to starve the virus. The news from New York, where the New York Times has reported about 1 in 370 people have died from the virus, is that closing down crushed the virus, and the measures taken were absolutely required to get a hold on the situation and turn it around. In fact, the Northeast is opening more safely than anywhere else, and having the same positive results as European countries. And no, they don’t have “herd immunity.”

Of course, the president and some of his most loyal followers had been minimizing the disease from the beginning. But we knew that it was worse than the flu, and we had Dr. Anthony Fauci at the podium continuing to give us the scientific perspective, the scientific truth about pandemics and what we needed to do to stay safe and “flatten the curve.” Science offered a clear way forward and told us what was needed: testing on a massive scale, masks as it became clear that “droplets” are the way the virus is spreading, and continued frequent hand washing and disinfecting. Testing! So we can tell who has the virus and isolate them, not isolate everyone because we don’t know who has it.

Many people seem to no longer believe testing is important. And yet yesterday Janet Malcom, commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Health, said that the only way the state got control of cases in congregate care facilities (nursing homes) was by widespread testing. Because people were asymptomatic and spreading the virus, both employees and residents, who were not getting tested because they didn’t show symptoms. But testing now feels like old news. It’s happening, there’s more of it, and states continue to try to ramp up and maintain high levels of testing. They are doing it with little to no procurement support or financial support from the federal government.

Masks became political. And though we’re told it’s about “freedom,” I think it’s actually about cognitive dissonance and denial. People who really want to believe that the disease is not so bad, that we’ve “done enough” and can go on with our normal lives now, are angry at those who are still in pandemic mode and doing something as simple as wearing a mask. The local meat market requires customers wear masks with large signs in the window, have marked off 6 ft distanced places to stand at the counter and registers, have plexiglass shields for cashiers, and have roped off an entrance so people circulate the store in one direction. However, on my last visit six butchers stood “shoulder to shoulder” preparing people’s orders, none of them wearing masks. It was such a sight. These men have expanded their community to include their coworkers and everyone their coworkers come in contact with, which might be many given the anti-mask attitude. So do I go back to the meat market?

And elsewhere I’ve read two long email posts that argue the virus just has to be allowed to run its course, that numbers will peak and come down naturally– even saying that New York’s numbers would have followed the same trajectory even without the measures they had in place to prevent spread. These emails are full of statistics, and claim that more people have died of cancer and heart attacks and other diseases than from the virus. One in 370 New Yorkers died of the virus in the span of three months. How is that not alarming? How does that not result in people taking the virus seriously?

Cognitive dissonance occurs when someone is committed to a narrative or set of facts that is contradicted by experience (reality). Depending on the level of commitment to their version, people will find science, find studies, find support in any form they can find it, to back up their position. I keep thinking about cognitive dissonance because I felt it so acutely during the drowning on the 4th of July. It was just impossible for me to think a young man had, in the midst of so many others swimming and floating on rafts, just gone under and not come up, and that other young men diving down couldn’t see him. As minutes ticked by, I found myself convinced he’d actually just gone to the restroom or somewhere else and would emerge yelling that he was okay. For a minute I was convinced, before reality sunk back in. No, someone has drowned. No flailing or gasping, just silently going under and not coming back up.

And so, without a clear national plan– or even messaging!– and with people convinced and arguing their various theories about the virus, I spend a lot of energy holding onto my truth. I look at the New York Times reporting of national cases and hot spots. The number of cases are going up, up, up, and the number of deaths will follow. Tuesday a nine-month-old baby in Minnesota died of Covid-19. There are people arguing that these numbers, particularly the death numbers, are overblown because people are dying of other things, dying “with Covid,” not “of Covid,” and being counted. Other people are saying that the actual number of cases is probably 10 times what is being recorded, because so many people are able to transmit the disease but are themselves asymptomatic. As for the deaths, it is a fact that for a long time only deaths in hospitals were counted, only deaths of those who had been tested and found positive, while people were dying at home, and in facilities where they were untested. Covid, which triggers organ failure in some people, meant that people were dying of heart failure– both with and of Covid, which does not affect all people in the same way.

Last week I received a mailer from a local state politician running for reelection this fall. We’re a very red district, and the postcard reflected that. It began by touting what a great job the state legislature, cooperating with the governor, had done to limit the outbreak. This despite the state Republicans constantly complaining about the governor’s decision-making and urging early reopening. At the top of the card, the candidate recommended three steps for staying safe. I just LOVE three-step instructions. What I want more than anything is clarity. His were: social distance, cover your cough, and keep up hand washing. I wrote to him, because covering your cough is not what I’m after. Wear a mask was the appropriate second step. In my opinion. Which I hope reflects science and reality.

I have also been thinking about March. When I was trying to decide when the virus would be here, and require me, a cancer patient whose lungs are compromised, to shelter in place. A reporter for Minnesota Public Radio talked to me about it. And he basically convinced me that it was here in Minnesota, here in my college town, where the students had just returned from Spring Break, and that was the day I stopped grocery shopping, stopped going off the farm, and started sheltering. Now I have ventured out, with my mask and hand sanitizer, not touching my face and washing my hands as soon as I get home. Now I have had one socially distant visit with friends, on our screened porch and sitting upwind of them, and have another planned for Saturday. We will sit six feet apart or more and eat the lunches we brought ourselves. We attended a funeral, masked and sitting in the back, and will attend another in a couple weeks. We’re still watching Mass online, though we might start going to the Abbey Church, a large church with few attendees as it’s not a parish church (the monks sit in their own section in the sanctuary). I’ve gotten used to (and somewhat dependent on) virtual yoga and zoom. I bought a kayak last week and have been going out by myself for recreation on nearby lakes. No mask required. I still think before I go into any business, which I do about once a week running errands and grocery shopping, “Is this necessary?” I’ve taken a few risks– at a local ice cream shop, eating on a restaurant patio when we were stuck for options away from home. Like everyone, I want things to return to normal. But those events were not worth the anxiety.

And I’m finding this stage of the pandemic really difficult, as I try to hold on and see the numbers and follow trustworthy advice, and seek leadership where I can find it. I am so grateful that I am not a teacher and not a parent, on whom the pressure for cognitive dissonance to relieve the stress and strain of living in a pandemic is so great. I am not judging those who are finding ways to support their own “freedom.” I just am not going to follow them. Because what I need now more than anything is a clear head.