03 The Peak

Times of Coronavirus: Life in Spain

Yesterday was an important day. The Minister of Health appeared on the television with the habitual deer-in-the-headlights look on his face, and announced that we had (at long last) reached the PEAK of the exponential curve. This statement, of course, was couched in phrases like “it is still early…”, “with due caution”, and “better to be prudent”, in an effort not to sound unduly optimistic. It is no wonder that about half of the population no longer watches the news. And the other half, who continues to watch in a kind of masochistic bedazzlement, is convinced that the government (and the media) are lying.

In this case, however, the government is not lying, at least not consciously. The situation is even worse. They simply do not know because they lack sufficient data or interpretive power to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Each region in Spain submits their data about hospitalizations, intensive-care occupancy, and deaths when convenient, and often these data do not even refer to exactly the same time period. The central government has to collate it as best they can, which evidently is not very well.

Based on their abysmal logistics and ineffective distribution of surgical masks and protective equipment, the government could learn a thing or two from my eight-year-old grandson, who organizes all of the tiny pieces of his multiple Lego constructions with mathematical precision, and has perfect control over which piece belongs to which set. In contrast, the Spanish government, though generally well-meaning, has little or no control over anything.

This morning, when I went downstairs to buy milk, yoghourt, and, of course, wine, I announced the good news about the PEAK to my grocery-line social group. Most of them were not aware that we had reached the PEAK, and their faces eloquently reflected their disbelief. Since they know that I work in the university (and thus am supposed to be knowledgeable), they asked me what “reaching the PEAK” meant and how it would affect them. I said that I was hardly the Oracle of Delphi, but even if the government were telling the truth, I doubted that it would make a great deal of difference to us, at least in the short-term. I could only tell them what “reaching the PEAK” yesterday had meant for my son, who works in one of the coronavirus hospitals in Madrid.

Yesterday, “the peak” meant that hospitalizations continued at the same rate, but at least did not spike. It also meant that even more patients than usual died. A few more protection suits and masks trickled in for the lucky few. My son, who is a psychiatrist, was briefly called out of intensive care to treat an 89-year-old man, who had unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide. Since the man is now hospitalized in one of the few beds reserved for non-coronavirus patients, his death wish might be satisfied because the hospital is the best place to catch the disease and die.

Back in the coronavirus ward, my son has volunteered for the unenviable task of calling the families of the patients who have died to tell them the sad news…and often to grieve with them. As a psychiatrist, it is something that he does well. When patients are near death, he tries to communicate with them in some meaningful way so that he can tell the family about one small personal detail …. their last words, a name uttered, someone that they loved…. one last memory for the family to hold onto. He wants them to know that their family member was not just a body in a numbered bed. He wants them to know that their loved one did not die alone…. and that someone cared.

Yesterday a husband and wife (in their 60s) were hospitalized, both with coronavirus. The husband was near death but the wife had a fair chance of recovery. They were in different wings of the hospital. My son bribed someone to give him a protection suit, went running to the wing where the wife was hospitalized, and rolled her bed to the ward where her husband was. They were able to hold hands for about seven minutes….and say good-bye to each other. Six hours later he died. They had been married for 43 years.

This is what reaching the PEAK meant yesterday in Spain….a sad trail of personal tragedy triggered by a conspiracy of dunces.