Can COVID-19 destroy our civility?

Back in 1998, a computer glitch concerning the use of two digits to signify the year in a date, i.e. 06-27-98 rather than four digits, i.e., 06-27-1998, created a panic about the “what if’s” on the stroke of midnight as 12-31-99 turned to 01-01-2000.

What if the banks failed? Would airplanes fall from the sky? Would money as we knew it be worthless? How long would cities be without power? Would stores continue to be supplied? Would life, as we knew it, continue?

Even with knowledgeable experts reassuring the necessary and vital programs would be fixed before the turn of the century, the seeds had been planted by numerous sources. 

TIME magazine, for example, put the fears of the nation on its January 1999 cover with the headline, “The End of the World!?! (although the story concludes the end was unlikely to come.)

But it was too late -- Y2K lawsuits were already being filed. Wilderness survival bootcamps flourished. Survival supplies, generators, clothing and dehydrated foods were front-and-center in stores.

 In the fall of 1999, I attended a family wedding with a dinner-dance afterwards. I sat at a table with my 75-year-old uncle and his wife. During the dinner, my uncle regaled us with his preparation activities for Y2K. Three generators, traveling to Abilene to buy bulk foods at Sam’s, his rain-barrel system for water reclamation and his armory of guns and ammo.

He ended his saga by saying his 50-year-old son -- my cousin -- had done no preparation. “And if he comes looking for food and water at our place, he’ll be out of luck,” my uncle announced.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You mean you wouldn’t help him if he needed it?” I asked.

“If he comes too close, I’ll treat him like any other beggar,” my uncle replied. “I’ll shoot first and ask questions later. That’s what you do in survival mode,” he explained. “It’s every man for himself -- we’ve all had time to prepare for whatever comes.” (Secretly we weren’t prepared -- only the usual in our pantry.

Luckily, Y2K was much ado about nothing…and the hard-core preppers were left with a lot of dehydrated food, water, multiple generators and enough Spam for a year. At the stroke of midnight, comput1ers turned the date, no airplanes fell from the skies and the U.S. dollar retained its value.

Whew!

So, today, we’re faced with a life-threatening virus (especially for little kids and seniors) and a contagious element that is sweeping our nation called COVID-19 or Coronavirus. Unlike Y2K, it’s not a “what if?” It’s now.

Here’s the puzzling part: people are in a frenzy -- maybe because they are afraid of getting the virus -- but they’re shopping like it’s the end times…and it’s happening everywhere. A friend in Washington, D.C., went to the grocery store last Thursday and found many shelves bare as well as the butcher’s case.

Another friend who lives in a Philadelphia suburb said the story was the same at her local market, bare shelves, little meat and no toilet paper in sight.

Growing up in Dallas, I remember stories about people fighting over certain items in a downtown department store sale -- not just once but almost every time there was a tremendous sale. Sometimes the determination of the sparring shoppers was so intense, they tore the item they were fighting about. Now, whatever the price, the item was of no use to neither.

Would it surprise you to know this same scene took place at a local grocery store -- two people -- neighbors fighting over an item, probably worth less than $10.

Apparently, there was quite a ruckus. The police were called. Next day, the grocery chain began limiting quantities on items such as ground meat, toilet paper, eggs, pasta, pasta sauce, etc.  Lastly, the store on Saturday limited the number of people shopping in the store at one time…which explained why people were standing outside when we arrived.

That whole scenario made me wonder. Do we, as a society, lose our civility because we fear the unknown caused by this virus, or are we simply moving away from the time where neighbors shared, rather than hoarded what they had, lifted up each other, supported each other and cared about each other?

Are we really at a point where we’d shoot someone, rather than share what we have?

COVID-19 will definitely be a test -- for us, our city’s leaders, our state and national lawmakers. But, the most important test will be how we treat each other as we work through this crisis. 

Will we make it as the close community we’ve always been? Only time will tell!

Stay safe, everyone…and remember to wash your hands.