Aidan Clarke

Professor Vincent
ENGL 1210
10/19/20
Us And Them
At the dawn of the pandemic in March, chaos began to swallow the world as the reality of the
situation closed in on us here in the US and abroad. In Queensland, Australia, Kimberly Webb was
working as a nurse helping perform endoscopies, one particularly dangerous practice as it exposed her to
many peoples’ breath and thus, potentially infectious particles. The hospital had begun to look much more
bleak and serious as protections became scarce. They got word another hospital had run completely out of
face protections and other gear, all to the eerie backdrop of a quiet lockdown.
Months later, we find ourselves in October, where, in Queensland, with a population of about 5
million, has been through 1164 cases in total since March, testing 1,188,355 people (​Novel Coronavirus
(COVID-19))​ . Utah, with a population of roughly 3 million, has been through 95,962, with 980,659
people tested (​Case Counts: Coronavirus​).​ ​To put it lightly, our experiences here and there have been
night and day, but I’d like to look at Kim as someone whose experience there can help us with our crisis
here.
Her story lets us see the greener grass of the pandemic, one not tainted by the convoluted political
schemes that now run the COVID-19 response, both public and legislative in Utah. Her experience is one
that lets us see where we are lacking, and where to go from here on out. Kim’s place in the world couldn’t
be further away physically, but her story as a nurse is crucial to our current crisis here. Everywhere,
frontline workers like her, and hundreds more here, are the ones working through the sea of stress and
danger that is the pandemic. They are the ones at the center of it all, and their voices and insight are more
important than ever before.
Much like the US, Australia left much of the response to states, but the similarities mostly end
there. “International and state borders got closed straight away and it was pretty much just essential
services and people coming home that were allowed to go outside.” The difference in response only gets
more drastic from there. Paid sick leave, accessible testing, and restrictions came into play immediately,
but it’s obviously too late to say what should’ve been done here.
While it’s easy to point at things like Utah having the third-fewest COVID restrictions in the US
(Tavss) as the culprit of our crisis, or Governor Herbert still not installing a statewide mask mandate, the
problem begins with who’s in charge of our response, and how those leaders effectively lead us to safety.
Jumping across the pond again, Queensland’s current situation is reflective of what happens when
leaders get straight onto a problem and understand peoples’ lives are at risk. Again and again, Kim’s local
leaders weren’t afraid to restrict things again if they needed to. They, and the people, changed and
adapted. That’s exactly what we need to see here as cases spike yet again. The difference between waiting
weeks to take action when things get bad and acting straight away is night and day, and the results we’ve
seen are telling.
What’s more, that tight response from the government was what helped the community stay
focused on getting back to normal. “It was a community effort to follow those guidelines really closely
and that’s kind of why we got to start up again quickly, everyone was just on board.” It sounds simple but
the more straightforward a response is, the easier it is for everyone to have a clear vision on what to work
towards.
From the perspective of an active community member, the importance of having motivating
leadership was important too. “Everyone kind of needed someone to look at for what to do and I think our
[government] people here did a good job. There were ads on the TV all the time encouraging us to work
as a community so things could get back to normal sooner. It was a lot of small things that reminded us
this wasn’t a forever thing.” We could learn from that and take it here, backing up changes to our
response with people to rally behind.
The essence of that is what is needed in Utah - a sense of togetherness from the community and
the sense that we’re all working towards the same goal, and that there is no time to take chances with
where we are right now. And that should start with our leaders, the local people guiding us through this
crisis, from the Governor and Lieutenant Governor to our mayors and sheriffs.
Good, fast, straightforward leadership is imperative, now more than ever. “I mentioned the ads on
TV already but I think keeping people optimistic was important because it made people want to follow the
rules and guidelines.” That idea ties into a very important chunk of leadership here, that we can only work
together if we see that whatever we’re doing is working. Thus far there hasn’t really been a push that’s
brought down a wave of cases here. It’s not enough to hope people will just, for example, wear a mask
because they love their neighbor.
Kim’s experience models not just what ours could’ve been here, but what it could still be. No, a
total lockdown isn’t feasible, but many, many other things are, and we don’t have to wait for things to get
worse so our leaders will pay attention. Whether through organizing or voting or just caring, people
everywhere can send the message to do something to our local leaders. They should, in turn, listen to
scientists and not cut corners on our response. The government's job should always be to protect and serve
the people, so it’s worth asking right now, is it doing either?
 Works Cited

“Case Counts: Coronavirus.” ​Coronavirus.utah.gov​, Utah Department of Health, 19 Oct. 2020, 8:30 AM,
coronavirus.utah.gov/case-counts/.

“Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).” ​Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) | Queensland Government,​ 19 Oct.

2020, www.covid19.qld.gov.au/.

Tavss, Jeff. “Utah Has 3rd Fewest COVID-19 Restrictions in US, Study Claims.” ​Fox 13 Salt Lake City​,
KSTU, 6 Oct. 2020,
www.fox13now.com/news/coronavirus/local-coronavirus-news/utah-has-3rd-fewest-covid-19-res
trictions-in-us-study-claims.