The Covid shark is still lurking, and it's hungry

One aspect of the last 18-plus months that has struck me is how life can sometimes imitate art.

Specifically, for me, how some events with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic correlate to the Steven Spielberg summer blockbuster “Jaws.”

In the movie, a woman is killed while swimming. The movie’s unwilling hero, Sheriff Martin Brody, gets a report from the medical examiner that the death was caused by a shark attack.

But under pressure from the mayor and city council of the island town of Amity, the examiner backtracks, saying “yes, I think a boat propeller could do that” when asked about the wounds on what’s left of the woman’s body. Mayor Larry Vaughn goes even further with Brody, explaining to him what could happen (i.e. it could wreck our economy) should he continue saying it’s a shark and closes the beaches for public safety.

Brody relents, taking what measures he can and very quickly, there’s another shark attack — this time on a beach in front of swimmers including the sheriff and his family, killing a young boy. Now, people are beginning to get afraid, not just for their livelihood but also their lives.

But the leaders of Amity still don’t take it seriously. Brody orders the beaches closed; Mayor Vaughn again overrides him (“Only 24 hours. Only for 24 hours.”).

Brody brings in an expert (calling on science), an oceanographer who specializes in sharks, Matt Hooper. After examining the evidence, the first victim’s remains, the carcass of a tiger shark caught by fishermen everyone hopes is the killer and a tooth pulled from the wrecked hull of a dead fisherman’s boat, the two men explain to Vaughn what he’s dealing with — and Vaughn ignores it.

The result is another attack, this one at a beach packed with people that had reluctantly entered the water at Vaughn’s insistence (“Please, get in the water.”), and involves more children — a point that finally impacts everyone, including the mayor, enough to take action.

There’s more to the movie, obviously, but watch it for yourself, if you haven’t. It’s pretty darn good.

Don’t get me wrong, though, I’m not implying life exactly imitates art. At least not in this sense, as there are many aspects of the movie not reflected in the Covid-19 scenario, and vice versa.

But from day one, this virus has struggled with achieving credibility among a portion of the populace.

When Covid-19 first appeared in China, U.S. leadership began downplaying it, never taking it seriously and refusing to embrace the impacts should it become widespread. Remember: “It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control.”

The former president admitted to making light of the virus, even as it was beginning a rampage (escalating shark attacks) through this country late last summer. Remember: “I always like downplaying it. I still like downplaying it.”

Science has been doubted to some degree. While science struggled at first in understanding and responding to what was happening, eventually — as good scientific research does — the experts learned and tried to pass along this knowledge with recommendations for protections, including eventual vaccines.

But leadership in government and the media continued to downplay the virus, fighting health safety measures by first, in some cases, reluctantly agreeing to it and then outright battling them. The economic and “personal rights” costs were always worse than the death toll — how that can be I have no idea because you can recover from the former.

It’s pretty tough to come back from the dead. So far, only two people have done that and under special circumstances.

Like Amity, our death toll mounts from insufficient response to a threat, even when that threat is attacking children. While children continue to be at relatively lower risk, even with the new, more contagious Delta variant which is sickening and killing children more than the original, as one writer recently put it “lower risk is not no risk.”

And like Amity, will we need to see more children get sick, impacted perhaps for a lifetime, and die before we finally take action — action that comes with a high cost? When did we become so callous, so self-centered?.

There is plenty of evidence masks and the vaccines provide effective protection against the virus. While children under 12 can’t get vaccinated yet, we can protect our future generations through masks, and we have evidence this works from the experience of the 2020-2021 school year.

I’m hopeful more people will realize this and take those precautions.

Unfortunately, many others aren’t going to believe Covid-19 is real and far more deadly than other viruses until it swims up and bites them in the ass!

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].