COLUMBUS (WCMH) – Hope.
This was Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton’s closing message during the coronavirus briefing at the statehouse Tuesday.
However, Acton warned that hope alone is not going to see Ohioans through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Using Holocaust Remembrance Day as a starting point, Acton recognized the efforts of Ohioans as they fight the “war” against the COVID-19 virus.
“There has been so much done by Ohio citizens to help each other and to be good to each other through this crisis,” she said.
Acton added the pandemic does more than just take lives.
“What a pandemic does is far more than kill people,” she said. “The real threat of a global pandemic is so much more extensive because it basically disrupts civil society. It disrupts supply chains, it shows the chinks in all our armor.”
Most of all, Acton said, the pandemic can turn us against each other.
“It’s very, very important… I’m very optimistic that we have the grit and resiliency to weather a war, especially given the outstanding leadership that we have. But it takes just that. It’s going to take us digging very deep and having good days and bad days and digging deep again, and I tell you, I, myself, refight that battle every day.”
Acton cited Vikor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search For Meaning,” a book about hope during the Holocaust. Acton said to endure awful events – a horrible childhood, the Holocaust, Syrian refugee camps – survivors need more than just hope.
“What he (Frankl) learned as a psychiatrist was that it was dealing with reality,” she said. “You have hope, but first you have to know the reality of the ground you stand on and you have to accept it. You can’t wish it away, you can’t push it away. The people who survive can balance understanding the reality, but still having that optimism and hope.”
Acton added that people don’t survive on hope alone, as wave after wave of disappointment knocks the wind out of them.
“Our resiliency is marrying those,” she said. “I think the reality is we have this tough road ahead. It’s not the world we knew for any of us. Together, we’ll build a resilient, strong path forward.”