NASCAR’s all-star race may not have been a normal event, but it was a step in the right direction, and it serves as a reminder of what our priorities should be in the midst of this pandemic.
NASCAR held the race on Wednesday at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. The race track can hold about 140,000 spectators; NASCAR capped ticket sales at 30,000 and ended up with at least 20,000 fans in attendance, marking the closest thing to a “normal” sporting event since March.
You can debate the specifics of NASCAR’s plan. Fans mostly maintained social distancing, but masks were only required to enter the track, allowing fans to remove them once they were inside. But there is no doubt that they have the right mindset, and it’s one we should all be moving forward with as the discussions about reopening continue.
The phrase “new normal” becomes more grating with each passing day. To put it bluntly, this new normal sucks. Right now, policy decisions and discussions are being made from the assumption that safety is our only priority. While safety is obviously a noble goal, we cannot disregard the need for normalcy. Our goal should be to get back to normal as safely as possible, not to focus on safety to the exclusion of normality.
The discussion on schools best puts this need on display. The American Academy of Pediatrics has said that the goal of school policies should be a return to in-person instruction. Online classes present a litany of problems for students, from being less effective to limiting social interaction. Many parents can’t afford to stay home and assist their children in schooling.
This balance has been tossed aside in much of our discourse. Both President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos have been viciously smeared as wanting children to die by sending them back to school. This isn’t much different from the debate about the economy, where the goal of trying to get as many businesses operating as normally as possible was frequently deemed to be “human sacrifice.” But it cannot be this way. Just as the wearing of masks should not be a political issue, neither should this be.
Some businesses have closed forever amid the pandemic. Others could be forced to close at some point in the future because of the strain, and many people thrown out of work will have a tough time finding employment again. Drug overdoses are rising, and the damage to children’s learning brought on by prolonged online instruction is certain but still unquantifiable.
A NASCAR race with fans in attendance might seem silly compared to these issues, but it’s the attitude behind it that is important. Even a slight return to normalcy would take a lot of the edge off of the hostility we see in these debates. It’s not necessary to sacrifice safety for normalcy, but it’s clear that sacrificing normalcy for safety, as we have been doing, is a failing strategy.
