This blog is called "The Center of my Plate," and central to my plate, and everybody's plate, right now is COVID-19. For me, it's thrown a spotlight on a lot of conflicting daily realities.

As a journalist, I'm still working and in some ways more now than ever. Crises foster an insatiable demand for information; personally I check the coronavirus tallies several times a day. I know what they're going to say but I feel compelled, and I take some comfort in having access to the information even though the information itself is chilling.

Coupled with the absolute portability of the work — have internet, will travel — and I can socially distance and still collect a paycheck. Lucky me. But there is no joy in chronicling this slow-motion disaster, save for the stories of how individuals and companies are digging deep to donate time, money and goods to keep the social net from fraying. (More on that, below.)

Meanwhile, it seems like nobody across the meat supply chain can do anything that doesn't draw criticism. Food is essential and plants must continue operating if at all possible. But from the ranches and feedlots, where the assets are losing value but still rack up the same costs; to processing lines where workers have to stand uncomfortably close to one another, even with the extra measures companies have taken to protect them; to distributors and, of course, restaurants where the toll is huge, every decision is both gushingly thanked and decried.

The frustration and fear floods Meatingplace's communications channels every day, in press releases, conversations, comments on the website. Another announcement of a plant closed; workers are still being paid but how long can this continue? Plants are still operating; don't they care about their employees? Markets are haywire and suspicions of chicanery are mounting. Retail prices peak, but how dare anybody actually make money in a crisis?

Today the website covid19.healthdata.org is telling me we are three days from peak resource use, which isn't the same as the end of the pandemic by any means, but it's a start. Worldometers.info says the rate of mortality from COVID-19 in the U.S. is now about 39 per 1 million people — not great, especially if one of those 39 is someone close to you. But there are countries that are dealing with far worse, for reasons that have yet to be fully understood.

This, too, shall pass, my grandmother used to say, and having kept it together through two World Wars, the Depression, divorce (preceded by abandonment), her mother's alcoholism, and working three jobs to put her own two daughters through college — when she said it, it wasn't a sop.

I predict that when we get to the other side of this pandemic, which may be in a few weeks or maybe in a few months, what will be remembered are the lengths the meat industry went to to keep the country — and the world — fed and workers as safe as possible. And by then, we'll be dealing with what looks like a monster recession, with all that entails.

At least that's a slow-motion disaster everybody's dealt with before.

Meanwhile, we at Meatingplace are enjoying telling the stories of success, going the extra mile, neighbor helping neighbor — all the ways humanity's better angels come to the fore in trying times. You can find them on social media under #MeatCanBeHeroes, and on our own COVID-19 news page.

Stay home, stay safe, stay the course. This, too, shall pass.

Of rocks and hard places

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