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Dear Friends:
You may have noticed that I've added a metric to the top of this newsletter: total COVID deaths in Wisconsin in the past week. That number is low, but it's likely to grow over the winter.
It's also probably an underestimate, because it measures deaths directly attributed to COVID. Cases where coronavirus is a contributing factor aren't included here. (To my knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong.)
Even if it is only a handful of deaths, though, it's still a significant number. Each of those ten was somebody's parent, grandparent, child, brother or sister or friend. Each of them was a valuable life, a person who left a hole behind in their community.
More than 15,000 residents of Wisconsin have died from COVID since January 2020. It is overwhelming simply to think about the disruption caused by burial and grief rippling out from each of them. By the current average, our state is on track to lose about 3,300 people to COVID this year. Compare that to around 1,100 flu deaths in 2018 and less than 150 from drunk driving in 2019.
To make matters worse, these deaths are not evenly distributed. They are concentrated first among the elderly and those otherwise vulnerable to infection. And while political polarization seems to increase deaths among White people, African-Americans are still disproportionately at risk of death from COVID.
All of this is not to frighten you or make you sad. It's to say that we must not, we cannot fall into the trap of writing off these deaths as coming from what Beatrice Adler-Bolton calls the "surplus population." We must resist the temptation to shrug off the preventable deaths from COVID as inevitable, just a natural feature of the landscape.
The human body and the life attached to it are worth more than the economic value they can produce, says Adler-Bolton. She writes from a materialist perspective, but we can affirm her insight from the theological point of view.
The life of every person is of infinite value to God, precious and irreplaceable. Every so often, we should reminder ourselves of that truth. Because while God loves all the saints, "he" is not interested welcoming them home too soon.
Wear your masks in worship, get your boosters, and take advantage of the opportunities for help if you need them.
Stay safe and stay together,
Rev. Daniel Schultz
Community Health Program Director
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