Covid and the East Coast Split: My Half-Day Drive from MD

I learned in school that Maryland was split down the middle in the Civil War, and that seemed logical because Maryland is that state that is geographically centered on the Eastern seaboard.

Now as a Marylander we are in the middle when it comes to the Covid war. I noticed this from a drive in either direction over the past two weeks showed me polar opposites in the way people were behaving.

My trip to Raleigh, NC was actually two weeks ago, and it was just prior to the recent rise of cases. Now they're shooting up, and its getting harder for people in North Carolina to assume the rising cases are the result of increased testing. Because ICU beds don't fill up just because people get swabbed. They fill up because people get sick. 

North Carolina's current 9% positive rate is alarming. And it's no surprise to me having spent five days there. On my trip, few people were social distancing, most were eating inside restaurants large and small--where the aerosol droplets from voices carrying the virus can hover for hours. Masks were few and far between, and unlike in my home state, there were few signs taped to business windows letting people know they won't be allowed in without a mask. I'm surprised at how well people have complied based on signs in our area.

Along I-95 in VA and NC, there were very few people wearing masks heading at rest stops, and little or no signage referencing the virus in any way except small printed signs on the entrance requesting people to wear coverings that were pretty routinely ignored.

This past weekend, I headed in the other direction, to pick up my daughter, who had just tested negative for the virus and was finally ready for a visit home. My travels took me on I-78 through PA and NJ, and about halfway through the State of Pennsylvania I began seeing signs (literally) of Covid awareness. North of Allentown someone had installed handpainted, red white and blue signs thanking essential workers. And from there the fact that Covid had devastated New Jersey and New York grew more and more evident, with freshly changed out billboards (I guess their installers were conidered essential workers) for healthcare systems referring to Covid services, urging people to social distance.

A stop in a New Jersey gas station had a dramatically different feeling from my trip down South; with everyone (passengers, drivers, those entering the gas station) wearing masks and aware of the 6-foot marks that had been made on the floors of businesses on indicate line-standing instructions. New York and New Jersey radio ads referred in some way or another to the pandemic in every commercial, including a frequent ad from the NYC Transit Director urging people to trust the four-hour nightly shutdown for deepcleaning of the subway system, among other things.

It was a feeling of shell-shock, watching the people on the streets of New York trundle about in the new summer sunshine, as if they were just coming out of a long time in a dark room. Most were masked, long-haired, and giddy in their newfound freedom to move about. New Jersey residents seemed to be signing the same cautious sign of relief. At a delicatessen in a small town in New Jersey the conscientious owner barred the door himself to count and be sure no more than the small number of allowed customers entered the business--understandable in a region that watched many of its hospitals overwhelmed, many of its people die.

This is the main factor I could discern as the difference between the experiences I had in these two directions. Headed north, I drove through states where it was much more likely that the average person knew, or knew of, at least one person who had died or been gravely ill from Covid. North Carolina and states on the southern end of the Eastern Seaboard were much less likely to have experienced this personal loss. A doctor in an article I read recently said, "Until everyone's own personal grandmother is sick from Covid, they won't change their behavior." Or, until their local elected leaders, or governor, mandate masks, and for businesses to require them, the reminders and enforcement is spotty at best--which shows in the numbers.

My life experience has been a strong national government, and only in the past four years has the power of the "bully pulpit" of the presidency waned. It is a shame, because while state's rights may be appropriate for many things, a patchwork of state policies and requirements in a health crisis makes no sense. My two trips and the new Covid numbers these vulnerable states are showing as they reopen bowling alleys and movie theaters make me want to warn them--take it seriously. It's headed your way.

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