We should never forget what it was like 4 years ago

Glens Falls, North Warren, Stillwater represent state basketball tourney in Glens Falls

Recent history often has the shortest life in our memory banks.

It was four years ago, when the pandemic took over our lives in the United States. Four years ago Monday, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, the NBA canceled the rest of its season and California residents were told to stay home and quarantine unless you had an essential job.

That would soon apply to all of us.

As the cases grew, hospitals were overwhelmed, there was a nationwide shortage of masks and our families all came together.

And many died.

It would be months until a vaccine arrived. If you were like my family, you may remember scrambling for hard-to-get appointments, then driving to Plattsburgh where the National Guard administered the vaccine.

It was like something out of a horror movie.

My last column before retiring at The Post-Star was about the pandemic. I included it in my first book The Last American Editor after I retired. I remember wondering if I should include that recent column. I wasn't sure it was significant enough at the time.

In a P.S. in the book, I wrote:

By January 2021, nearly 400,000 Americans had died of Covid 19 and hospitalizations were at an all-time high. New York had seen over 1.2 million cases of the virus and over 40,000 deaths.

The Covid-19 death toll as of this week for the United States is over 1.2 million.

Here is a look back at that column from March 29, 2020. It is instructive for those that believe we were better off four years ago.

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Doctor does the right thing

March 29, 2020

You want fearless, this is what it looks like.

You want hope, this will give it to you.

Dr. Colleen Smith, an emergency room doctor at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens where 13 patients died of the coronavirus on one day last week, had seen enough.

Things had been bleak, essential supplies were short, so Dr. Smith did something about it.

She brought two reporters from the New York Times — Robin Stein and Caroline Kim — into the emergency room — The HIPAA privacy law be damned—to not only show them what the conditions were like, but let them shoot video as well.

She broke the rules.

She talked to reporters about things she wasn’t supposed to talk about because the public needed to know.

Her colleagues needed to be protected.

Consider the reporters for a second, too.

They take a lot of guff, especially when you work for the New York Times. But how many of us would visit ground zero of a contagion without a cure?

Not many, but the story Dr. Smith had to tell was critical.

She told the world about her daily reality.

“The frustrating thing about all this is that it feels like it is too little, too late, like we knew, we knew it was coming,” Smith says in the video. “Leaders in various offices (in the New York City medical community) are saying, ‘We’re gonna be fine, everything’s fine.’ And from our perspective, everything is not fine. I don’t have the support that I need. Even the materials I need to physically take care of my patients. This is America and we are supposed to be a first-world country.”

It was a warning to the rest of us that management isn’t always on top of things.

Smith talked about an emergency department that is now seeing 400 patients a day instead of 200.

She talks about the refrigerated tractor trailer that is parked outside, just in case.

She talked about her colleagues who are now becoming ill.

This is important for us to know as well.

I’m hoping the carnage we are seeing in New York City will be a wake-up call for those of us in this community that we need to do more to prepare.

We need to be staying home all the time.

Our contact with outside world needs to be non-existent to slow this virus down.

But this past week, there were plenty of cars on the road. The convenience stores appeared to be doing a brisk business, and I wondered how serious we were taking this.

We’ve heard from local hospital workers that they are concerned about whether they have enough protection while doing their daily jobs.

They don’t understand why some masks are being saved for a later date.

There is justified fear and angst among them Back in Queens, Dr. Smith must make do with one N-95 mask all day.

“The anxiety of this situation is really overwhelming,” Dr. Smith said. “We get exposed over and over again and we don’t have the protective equipment that we should have.

“What is scary now is that the patients we are getting are much sicker,” Dr. Smith said. “Many of the young people who are getting sick don’t smoke, they are healthy. They are just young regular people between the ages of 30 and 50 who you would not expect to get this sick.”

You need to see the video for yourself.

You need to listen to this young doctor and take this more seriously.

“I don’t care if I get in trouble for speaking to the media,” Dr. Smith finally says.

That’s bravery.

That’s a real heroine.

There are so few people who stand up for the greater good. Dr. Smith did that here. That may be what is most inspiring.

“I want people to know this is bad. People are dying,” Dr. Smith says. “We don’t have the tools that we need in the emergency department and in the hospital to take care of them.

“And...,” she says, starting to choke up. “It is really hard.”

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State tourney starts

The New York State Basketball Tournament will be starting a day earlier at the Cool Insuring Arena in Glens Falls this year with action kicking off at 6 p.m. Thursday.

Section II, Class B champion Stillwater (25-1) will square off at 6 p.m. against Woodlands of Section 1.

Stillwater advanced to Glens Falls by beating Canton 64-44 on Saturday.

Of course, the main focus will be on Glens Falls' unbeaten boys team.

Glens Falls (25-0) will be playing Section IV champ Maine-Endwell at 9 a.m. Friday morning. The winner plays the winner of the game between Wayne and Friends Academy on Saturday at 5:15 p.m.

Finally, North Warren advanced to the tourney for the second straight year with a 57-56 last-second win over Schroon Lake. It plays Smithtown Christian on Saturday at 9 a.m. The winner plays on Sunday at 10:45 a.m.

All games are at the Cool Insuring Arena.

I picked up my ticket to the Glens Falls game Monday.

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Oscars and journalism

Last month I recommended the Oscar-nominated documentary about the siege of the Ukrainian port Mariupol. - 20 days in Mariupol.

Mstysla Chernov, an Associated Press journalist, gave a first-person account of the early days of Russian invasion and the atrocities that followed while chronicling civilian casualties, the bombing of a maternity ward and mass graves around the city.

“This is the first Oscar in Ukrainian history, and I’m honored," Chernov said Sunday night at the Oscars. "Probably I will be the first director on this stage to say I wish I’d never made this film, I wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine.”

Chernov arrived with a photographer and producer just an hour before Russia began bombing Mariupol. When they lost internet connection, they were forced to smuggle out their video images.

“I wish for them to release all the hostages, all the soldiers who are protecting their land, all the civilians who are in their jails,” Chernov said about Russia. “We can make sure that the history record is set straight and the truth will prevail, and that the people of Mariupol, and those who have given their lives, will never be forgotten. Because cinema forms memories and memories form history.”

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Another journalism Oscar

Newspaper reporters have continued to fine tune their skills with video over the years and many newspapers have turned out documentary-quality reporting.

The Los Angeles Times is the latest. It won an Oscar Sunday for its documentary short The Last Repair Shop.

Unlike most of these efforts, this reporting was a "good news" story about a group of of master craftsman in the Los Angeles area who have used their skills to repair and refurbish musical instruments for inner-city students. They oversaw repairs for some 80,000 instruments and helped thousands to pursue their musical ambitions.

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MAGA takeover

It was reported Wednesday that Republican National Committee had laid off some 60 long-time or senior members of its staff or asked them to re-apply for their jobs.

It is being reported that the changes in staff at the RNC is to ensure complete support for Donald Trump and his re-election as president which could affect national support for other GOP candidates in the House and Senate.

These are the actions you see from dictators who demand total loyalty.

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GOP investigation

Rep. Elise Stefanik posted the above statement on Monday, saying that the January 6 Committee had covered up details of what it found.

The scandal that Stefanik is referring to is the testimony of former West Wing aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

You may remember she testified that another West Wing employee told her President Trump had demanded to be taken to the Capitol on Jan. 6 and had grabbed the steering wheel of the car. You may also remember at the time, the Secret Service disputed some of the details of the testimony.

The January 6 Committee deposed several Secret Service agents about what happened that day and asked the Secret Service to review the depositions and redact any information that might compromise presidential security. That was not done before the Jan. 6 Committee published its report.

The Secret Service finally did the redactions after pressure from House Republicans investigating the investigators of Jan. 6

Yeah, you can't make this stuff up.

The driver of the car testified that President Trump was irate that day and demanded to be taken to the Capitol but that he never saw him grab at the steering wheel of the car.

That is the cover-up that the Republicans uncovered.

That was the cover-up that Rep. Stefanik is so upset about.

The violence doesn't seem to matter to her anymore.

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Book orders

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