BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY JAN. 20, 2021) — Today’s Inauguration Day. Once upon a time in a galaxy far, far away that day engendered optimism and the belief in a fresh start, a day that welcomed We The People as leaders joined from both sides of the aisle. Today, Inauguration Day in America resembles something between a military encampment and a gulag. Tens of thousands of armed troops, police in riot gear, miles of fencing, countless concrete barriers, and tons of razor wire decorate this day.

But you know all about that, only too well, so THE PLANET turns to a more pressing and local story. We present this guest column.

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BMC Sent Her Home Regardless … She Died Afraid and Alone

By Rinaldo Del Gallo III

There is some news so basic, it should be reported.  Health care providers sending COVID patients home where COVID can kill and are killing vulnerable housemates should be a headliner.

I originally wrote this as a “column,” but realized that it is a pressing health concern and I am now sending it out as a press release.  Simply put, we are testing people for COVID-19, and sending them home when they test positive to vulnerable house members.  As a society, we seem to do no better than say, “Here’s some CDC guidance on how to isolate in your household.”  Unless we have bedrooms, basements, or “man caves” with their own bathrooms, isolation within a household is impractical.

About ten months ago, there was a serious dearth of testing. Now we have plenty of testing, but we are not using that information to prevent the loss of life.

Very recently, an old female friend of mine died, Mai Chung. Mai was from Vietnam, and a refuge from the Vietnam War. We used to date in the early 2000’s, and every couple of weeks or so over the last fifteen years she would bring me Vietnamese soups and other treats. Her sister acquired COVID-19, possibly at work, possibly at Planet Fitness. Though Mai’s sister tested positive, her brother says the Berkshire Medical Center sent her home regardless. Mai acquired it from her sister, and Mai died this morning, as I write this. My phone call to her with the sound of ventilators in the background, with her confiding in me that she was “really afraid” will forever haunt me. She died afraid and alone.

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It amazes me the extent we will go to avoid the spread of COVID-19. We shut down schools even though children are highly unlikely to die from the disease. We shut down the economy to a point of a great depression that rivals the 30’s. I do not write here to impugn or defend those efforts. But while we make massive sacrifices with questionable results, we seem to be incapable of doing the basics that would certainly save lives. The basics include identifying the infected and isolating them so it will not spread.

We are infected with a type of mindless stupidity. Governor Andrew Cuomo placed COVID patients in nursing homes well after it was well known the elderly are the most vulnerable. Governor Cuomo is directly responsible for countless nursing home deaths. The New York Post reports as recently as yesterday that he still refuses to disclose how many elderly died in New York state nursing homes on his watch. What do we do with such deadly incompetence? He was given an Emmy Award for his handling of COVID, an inestimably monstrously tone-deaf insult to those that died.

Obviously—and that is the word to use—obviously, people that still have an active stain of COVID should not be around others, let alone the vulnerable, such as people with weight issues, diabetes, Lyme disease, or advanced in years etcetera. When people test positive for COVID and they are knowingly sent home, inevitably people will die. Hospitals should know better.

Facts are pesky things. They do not care about your feelings. Facts will resolutely get in the way of the soundness of your opinions. It is a fact that Mai’s sister was sent home with COVID. Today, Mai’s sister holds on for her life at BMC. It is a fact that if Mai’s sister was not sent home and was put in a medical isolation unit, Mai would be alive as I type this sentence. It is a fact that it is well-known that COVID is highly contagious, and that if vulnerable people are exposed to it, it will kill. It is a fact that identifying and isolating would save lives, and would have saved Mai’s life. It is a fact that a policy of sending home COVID patients on a massive scale would inevitably result in the loss of life. It is a fact that to a person of ordinary intelligence and ordinary common sense, the natural and foreseeable consequence of sending people home with COVID would be the loss of life of the people they live with.

Now for the opinions. This is not acceptable. We should be doing far better, especially this late in the game. I have seen open parks close due to COVID, where passage of the disease is near nonexistent. And yet while we undertake these pointless exercises, instead of isolating actual COVID patients, we send them to their homes where they will inevitably kill the vulnerable. People shrug their shoulders, say “What are you gonna do?,” and act as if reference to the CDC website to try to safely live with COVID patients in our homes is some type of acceptable alternative to a medical isolation unit.

I have heard plenty of “can’t do” attitudes about how we cannot isolate everyone we know has COVID, along with references to CDC protocols—you know, from the same people that initially told us that there was no benefit to wearing a mask because they didn’t want them flying off of shelves. To people that naysay having hospital isolation units for those that have COVID, you are literally part of the problem, and not the solution. The Chris Cuomo’s of the world have huge basements in a mansion with bathrooms and exercise equipment, where food can be left just outside the door. For the other 99.99% of America, we must use common spaces and bathrooms.

Ideally, we would have isolation units at hospitals for people that contract COVID, and while we can debate whether we want to make this mandatory, it clearly should be an option for those that chose.  But we should be doing everything possible–commandeering hotels, schools, empty buildings–any suitable habitation, for purposes of isolating those with covid.  This should at the very least be available for those that want it.

The other choice is death.

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THE PLANET thanks our contributor for this timely piece. We invite anyone who has something to say to submit columns to this address for possible publication. Keep them timely, original, and well written, and you’ll get published.

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“Growing old’s like being increasingly penalized for a crime you didn’t commit” — Novelist Anthony Powell.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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