Penn Pandemic Diary Penn Pandemic Diary, Entry #9: Facing The Coronavirus

Mohammed A. Salih is a Perry World House Graduate Associate and a Ph.D. candidate at the Annenberg School for Communication.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s spread to the United States coincided, more or less, with the anniversary of the Iraq War 17 years ago. Although a war and a pandemic are different experiences, one thing brought back a strong sense of déjà vu for me: the panic in anticipation of a looming “disaster”.

I was a junior college student in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan, in 2003 when the United States and its allies prepared to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime. There was a sense of optimism about a post-Saddam world among the Kurds, but also a widespread concern about the actual war.

Days before it became apparent the war was going to happen, schools, colleges, businesses and government offices across Kurdistan were shut down. Life came to a standstill. Streets were eerily deserted. Many people in major cities like Erbil left their homes and headed to the mountainous areas near the borders with Iran and Turkey. Most were worried that because the Kurds were allied with the Americans, Hussein might use the cover of war to launch a chemical weapons attack against them as he had done in 1988.

So, how do you actually prepare for a possible chemical attack? There was no protective gear, such as special suites or masks. So, people got creative. Everyone rushed to the bazaar to get plastic sheets to cover the windows from outside. For masks, one prevalent method was to put pounded charcoal and some white powder, the name of which I can’t remember, inside two layers of cloth in the hope that it would prevent the infiltration of gasses into one’s body through breathing. With such basic means we waited for the three-week duration of the war and thought we were somehow prepared for it. Luckily for us all, Hussein never used gas for whatever reasons.

Now, back to the present moment reality. Because COVID-19 is an invisible “enemy,”  that creates a certain anxiety that makes it different from a war, and, in a way, more stressful. Even worse, there is nowhere to escape to as this is a global phenomenon. Now residing in the United States, my wife and I were particularly taken aback by the initial relaxed attitude about the outbreak among government officials and the general public. Our friends mostly downplayed it. When we were thinking of whether to go on a trip to Florida, that we had booked in November last year, most friends suggested we should go. 

But having closely followed the spread of COVID-19 in the Middle East through social media, particularly in places such as Iran and Kurdistan, we were far more concerned.  And that helped to mentally prepare us for what was about to happen. We also had seen videos from Iran, which painted the picture of some sort of an apocalyptic, out-of-control disaster, and heard reports from Kurdistan, where the government resorted to extreme measures early on such as enforcing a gradual complete lockdown of entire cities and towns, and curfews to prevent the movement of people.

Based on those two pictures, we had a good sense of how badly coronavirus could spread if it were not seriously tackled early on. We ended up cancelling the Florida trip when the U.S. cases were still under 100. And as soon as the City of Philadelphia announced the first case of COVID-19, we took initiative and pulled our son out of preschool before local authorities suspended schools. We also did some early stocking up of groceries and basic needs days before the national emergency—and we’ve got some experience with making masks.

Home confinement is not easy. I teach my Kurdish-language course through Zoom now. And as much as my two kids and other domestic tasks and errands allow, I try to revise some papers for submitting to journals, although I must confess my productivity is far less than desirable. But again, when one looks at the greater picture and the grave risks of this situation, we are healthy and surviving.

With the disease spreading far and wide here in Philadelphia, we are far more cautious than the earlier days of the crisis in mid-March. Being on a top floor of a large apartment building, getting in the elevator is itself considerable risk. Hence, we have decided to limit our daily evening walks to once or twice a week. We go out only for absolutely necessary shopping. Even then, we wear gloves and masks. We now even plan to use disposable nurse caps when inside elevators or at stores. Frankly, we don’t know how many of these measures are necessary, but our motto is: Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

A pandemic is not just a health question. It is an issue that touches on all aspects of our lives. As far as communication scholars go, this pandemic will make for a rich body of data for research. Whether it is probing the disinformation and misinformation surrounding COVID-19 on social media, governments’ communication strategies and propaganda campaigns, individuals’ perceptions and reactions to the pandemic, or the media’s coverage of this reality, there will be much work to do to make sense of our unprecedented new reality.

The views expressed in the Penn Pandemic Diary are solely the author’s and not those of Penn or Perry World House.