[CT-NFB] FW: COVID article by Nicholas Giudice, my brother

[lfs40 at optonline.net]

That was very well written. I felt the things that had been bothering me put
on papper. Thank you very much.

 

Len Schlenk

 

From: CT-NFB <ct-nfb-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Elizabeth Rival via
CT-NFB
Sent: Thursday, June 25, 2020 11:52 AM
To: 'NFB of Connecticut Mailing List' <ct-nfb at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Elizabeth Rival <erival at comcast.net>
Subject: [CT-NFB] FW: COVID article by Nicholas Giudice, my brother

 

 

 

From: dawgmawm at gmail.com <mailto:dawgmawm at gmail.com>
[mailto:dawgmawm at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 22, 2020 4:01 PM
To: Drea <dawgmawm at gmail.com <mailto:dawgmawm at gmail.com> >
Subject: COVID article by Nicholas Giudice, my brother

 

Hello,

 

You are receiving this because you have recently requested a copy.  It may
have been directly from me via e-mail or during a meeting.

 

This is an amazing article my brother wrote.  It is terrific, and I say that
not just as his sister, but as a blind person!  I have attached it as well
as pasting it into the body of this message.

I encourage you to share with ridiculous abandon!  At the bottom of the
article is the link if you wish to go to Medium, the website where it is
published, and "recommend" or "follow" him and it.

Andrea

 

COVID-19 and blindness: Why the new touchless, physically-distant world
sucks for people with visual impairment

 

Nicholas A. Giudice, Ph.D.

 

As a congenitally blind person, it has become obvious to me that my reliance
on touch as a primary mode of experiencing the world puts me at odds with
current best practices for avoiding the coronavirus. The principle guidance
for safeguarding against COVID-19 is to (1) curtail physical contact with
those around us (or the things they touch), (2) limit touching of our body
(especially of the face), and (3) maintain a minimum proximity bubble during
social interactions (ideally of 6-feet or more). In this essay, I discuss
how an unanticipated consequence of following this tri-part guidance for
staying 'safe' is the effective demonization of touch, which has led to many
unforeseen challenges for more than 12 million people in the U.S. (and over
285 million people worldwide) who are blind or visually impaired (BVI). 

 

When you cannot see the world, touch picks up the slack for vision by taking
on a dominant role in how it is explored, understood, and interacted with.
For BVI people, perception inherently involves touch, either with the hands
or the long cane. This physical contact provides critical knowledge about
all matter of things: monitoring if one's hair is a mess, identifying what
is in the immediate vicinity, orienting to people or objects in the
surrounding environment, etc. 

 

Indeed, touch and vision communicate much of the same information about the
world. Feeling or seeing the curve of my coffee mug, the 90-degree edge of
my desk, the relation of my computer to my phone, and many other spatial
attributes can all be perceived similarly from both sensory inputs. This
sensory equivalence helps explain why touch fills many of the same 'shoes'
as vision for blind folks, albeit at a much closer distance. Thus, in many
ways, asking a blind person to curtail touching is analogous to asking a
sighted person to go about their day wearing a blindfold. 

 

In the remainder of this essay, I will discuss my perspective on the
relation of touch to each of the three pillars of COVID-19 protection.  

 

1.  Touch and Physical Contact:

The guidance to limit physical contact with any public-facing surfaces and
to not touch those around us is incredibly difficult for BVI people. Part of
the challenge is logistical, when your hands take on much of the work of
your eyes for apprehending the world, it is simply not possible to not touch
doorknobs, railings, tables, and the like. This is concerning, as it is
precisely these common-use surfaces that are most likely to be vectors of
COVID-19. 

 

The best advice for anybody exposed to such things is to immediately wash
their hands, for at least 20 seconds each time. Unfortunately, I have found
that an unexpected outcome of this frequent hand washing regimen is that the
prolonged exposure to water desensitizes my fingers, resulting in me
becoming functionally illiterate after the process. Reading braille
inherently involves high resolution touch and the endeavor is rendered
useless when done with prune-like fingers. 

 

My friends keep telling me to wear gloves when I go out in order to reduce
the need for hand-washing. This represents a reasonable suggestion for most
people but turns out that donning gloves is a poor solution for BVI
individuals, as any barrier between the skin receptors and the surface, even
if thin, desensitizes the fingers and greatly masks what is being felt. The
result is roughly analogous to a sighted person wearing blur glasses as they
go about their daily activities. 

 

For BVI people, physical contact plays many roles. Sometimes, it is purely
functional. For instance, many BVI individuals hold on to the elbow or
shoulder of a 'sighted guide' during navigation. Whether it be because they
have left their dog at home for an evening out at a concert, are not using
their cane on a romantic walk with a partner, or that they simply prefer
this mode of guidance, the process inherently involves physical contact. 

 

In the BVI community, touch also represents an important component of
building rapport and developing inter-personal connections. Similar to how a
sighted person may feel they are not fully engaged or clearly communicating
if they don't make eye contact when talking, BVI people often derive the
same sense of connection by touching the arm or shoulder when communicating.


 

This contact conveys emotional engagement, but it also provides the BVI
communicator with a sense of physical presence and immersion that is
important for directing attention and staying focused. The fact that so much
communication is happening remotely nowadays has definitely limited my
ability to fully engage. I hear the relief of my sighted peers when their
video kicks in and they can see the other video-equipped participants in a
Zoom meeting, but I have no way to experience a similar remote replacement
for physical contact.  

 

The fear and distrust of touch has crept into even the most mundane of my
daily activities. In the past, a friend or colleague might touch my arm to
get my attention, guide my hand to check out some interesting thing we are
walking past, touch my shoulder to direct me to move one way or another, or
even draw the shape of something on my arm as part of an explanation. These
subtle forms of physical contact, often done unconsciously, are important to
BVI individuals for supporting efficient communication of information and
navigation of their world. The loss of these small but significant forms of
contact because of pandemic-related concerns often leaves me feeling adrift,
unfocused, and less connected to those around me. 

 

We all use touch as a mode of inter-personal communication and emotional
expression (handshakes, fist bumps, hugs, etc.). This physical contact
during social interactions has other benefits for blind people that may not
be immediately obvious to their sighted peers. 

 

For instance, shaking a person's hand confers information about exactly
where they are in relation to me, which is extremely helpful for
self-orientation. This is important for promoting natural social
interactions (realizing I am looking in the wrong direction when talking to
somebody because I didn't know that they had moved is incredibly awkward). 

 

A hand shake also provides important knowledge about the other person that
is readily perceived through sight. For instance, hand size and structure
tells me something about general body type and weight, the elevation of the
hand, in conjunction with voice, provides me with information about height,
the texture of the skin, feel of the finger nails, and presence/nature of
rings imparts information about style and self-grooming practices, intensity
of the grip provides information about physical strength and confidence,
etc. 

 

When you cannot see the person you are interacting with, a battery of other
sensory cues substitute for vision in building up an image of them. These
subtle handshake cues are just one example of how nonvisual information
(often through touch) conveys relevant information about the physical
characteristics of a person that is both informative and interesting. I find
that the new touchless modes of meeting and social interaction have left me
more 'blind' to the world than vision loss, which I have learned to
compensate for. 

 

There are some less obvious aspects of touchless communication for BVI
people that are worth considering. Of note, the pandemic-induced increase of
handshake-free greeting by waving and nodding, touchless hugs, and air pats
on the back are largely meaningless when done without vision. Not only is it
hard for me to tell if I am gesturing in the right place, I cannot
appreciate or benefit from these gestural interactions by others toward me
(I have never understood why people still flip me the bird). 

 

The move toward other types of non-hand contact can even be dangerous. In a
recent elbow bump accident, I missed my friend's elbow and caught her on the
chin (she is significantly shorter than me). This has led me to curtail all
elbow and fist bumping activities. I cut out high fiving years ago due to a
similar experience where a particularly exuberant hand-slap went amiss, and
I almost broke a buddy's nose. 

 

Often, physical contact occurs unintentionally, such as accidentally bumping
into somebody when navigating a busy area or inadvertently touching the
barista's hand when reaching for the change. These commonplace instances of
accidental touch are normally trivial, resulting in an "excuse me" and then
moving on. 

 

However, when the same inadvertent contact has occurred over the past couple
months, people respond with fear and panic. Although I cognitively know that
this response is about a fear of the coronavirus and not about me or the
accidental contact, the result is that I feel shamed by my affiliation with
touch and my need to rely on this modality.

 

2. Face Touching:

The guidance to limit body contact, and to especially not touch one's face,
represents a specific example of the above point posing particular
challenges for BVI people that many sighted folks may not have considered.
In many ways, a blind person uses exploration with their hands for
self-monitoring much like a sighted person might use a mirror. 

 

My hand(s) are the surrogate mirror each morning when I want to check
whether my beard is trimmed in a straight line, or if I have bed head, or to
ensure that I don't have a smidge of toothpaste on my lip, or something
gross crusted in the corner of my eye, or some nastiness around my nose from
my allergy drip, and a myriad of other self-care activities that we all do
but rarely talk about. This basic self-monitoring, whether performed using
touch with the hand or using vision with the mirror, is important for daily
grooming and for maintaining one's hygiene. In the COVID-19 reality, these
normal, unassuming activities of daily life, when performed using touch, now
represent heightened risks. 

 

Can touching of one's face expose you to the coronavirus, absolutely.
But.should I stop engaging in self-monitoring and information-gathering
tasks by means of touching my face, mouth, eyes, and nose, absolutely not.
Regardless of one's visual status, everybody will have the occasion of doing
such things and blindly reducing our hands, and our use of touch, as little
more than conveyance agents of the coronavirus is neither helpful nor
scientifically accurate. 

 

If we are to act (and react) realistically, face touching will inevitably
happen in the course of daily life. This is okay, it represents a normal
activity that does not inherently increase the risk of COVID-19 infection
when done prudently. The point is that rather than fearing a normal action
and the sensory mode that supports that action, we should focus on the virus
itself and how we can be best protected. With respect to face touching, this
can be easily done by limiting contact to instances of information gathering
rather than habit and being vigilant about washing our hands (even if they
become shriveled and prune-like).

3.  Social Distancing: 

Beyond direct physical contact, the key safeguard for avoiding COVID-19
infection is to maintain good social distancing behavior. Following these
guidelines, which involve keeping a 6-foot radius between yourself and
anybody around you, is trivial when performed using sight but if you try
doing so with eyes closed, you will quickly find it is extremely difficult. 

 

I generally only become aware of another person in my vicinity when I hear
them talk, when I touch them with my hand, or perhaps if close enough, when
I smell their presence (yes, most people have a distinct "smell" which is
agnostic to being bad or good but that most people immediately assume is
bad). The breadth and depth of what can be perceived from these nonvisual
modalities is much less than vision and as a consequence, the experience of
the perceived world for BVI folks occurs at closer range than for their
sighted peers. 

 

Touch occurs within arm's length, which can be extended out a yard or more
if using a cane but still violates the magic 6-foot corona bubble. Hearing
can occur at much greater distances but in reality, recognizing someone's
voice and talking to them at normal conversational levels also occurs within
a 6-foot radius. Importantly, if anybody in the surrounding environment is
silent, they essentially do not exist to a BVI person. 

 

The challenge of maintaining appropriate social distancing behavior without
vision is two-fold: (1) difficulty in gauging the distance of nearby people
(assuming they are detected at all) and (2) challenges in maintaining this
distance during movement. 

 

I find myself frequently violating the 6-foot corona bubble as I have no
easy means to monitor its boundary, which is elastic and constantly changes
in real-time with my movement and the movement of those around me. While I
can imagine technological solutions for addressing this social distancing
problem, the standard tools of long canes and guide dogs are not up to the
task as canes are too short and guide dog training is not consistent with
following social distancing procedures. 

 

For instance, my dog guide, Bernie, was trained in New York and as was
normal until the pandemic, was taught to operate in crowded situations by
maximizing use of any available space. This includes going through any gap
big enough for him and me to fit through, meaning that we often get very
close to people as we navigate. Although I am trying to re-train him to
'appreciate' accepted social distancing behavior, maintaining lots of empty
space around us makes little sense to Bernie and he is loath to do so. 

 

This is increasingly problematic. As I approached an intersection on a
recent walk, I heard this obviously freaked out person start yelling at me
to "watch out" and "to not get any closer or I'll kick your ass". Besides
the logical incongruity of inviting a blind guy to watch out for who is
around them, their threat to physically attack me would seem to be a blatant
violation of the 'no contact' rule of social distancing that they so
vehemently want to uphold. 

 

I understand that this incident, like so much associated with COVID-19
responses, is based on fear rather than logic but.it doesn't make dealing
with the problem any easier. However, I have found that people exhibit less
concern if bubble violations occur when I am verbally instructing the dog. 

 

So, if I am aware of people around me when walking I tell Bernie to "stay
left/right" as I pass. This doesn't generally result in any actual change in
his behavior or creation of additional distance, but it seems to put people
at ease. It can backfire though, as sometimes people dart one way or another
to pre-emptively create space and Bernie interprets this odd, fast moving
behavior as encouraging of play, which sometimes induces him to veer toward
the person, causing additional angst (and renewed hurling of invective). 

 

With respect to touch, two things strike me when thinking back over the past
three months of living in the COVID-19 world. First, although I knew that I
relied heavily on touch, I didn't realize its true magnitude in supporting
my own self-monitoring behaviors, its role in how I interact with others and
engage with the surrounding environment, and its impact on my emotional and
social wellbeing until these interactions became associated with negative
consequences. 

 

Second, while I appreciate the value of the safety guidance being advocated,
and understand people's concerns around physical contact, I cannot
comprehend why people are not more troubled about the growing fear and
distrust of one of our primary sensory channels-that of touch. If the
sensory tables were turned and the primary safety precaution from the CDC
involved significant limitations on use of visual perception; for instance,
use of blindfolds in public, the result would be very different. 

 

Rather than apathy, as is the case with touch, there would be an outcry
about the 'cure being worse than the problem'. The majority of people would
inevitably ignore this guidance, preferring to risk infection over safety. 

 

The reality is that most people have a deep-seated, visceral fear of losing
their vision but as is obvious from the gee-wiz response to COVID-19, they
possess little concern about giving up their access to the richness of
touch. As a blind guy, I do not share this fear of vision loss, but I'm
petrified about losing any of my other senses. The realization that touch,
the closest sense to vision and a primary means of how I perceive the world,
is now something to be feared and distrusted, is existentially disturbing to
me. 

 

What has been lost in the pandemic panic is that following good safety
practices and appreciating touch are not mutually exclusive. This seems
obvious to me but at the end of the day, logic has very little to do with
people's responses to the coronavirus. 

 

Unlike the standard flu, there is currently no vaccination and there is a
much higher risk of dying. However, what I argue is most threatening, we are
under attack via an invisible disease vector that may be on anything we
touch or that could emanate from anybody around us. The issue is of classic
transference. We cannot see the COVID-19 coronavirus, but we can certainly
see people who may have it. We have been told (and have internalized) that
our greatest risk of contracting the virus is through close proximity or
physical contact with these people, so our fear is erroneously transferred
from being afraid of COVID-19 to being afraid of touch. 

 

This transference is dangerous as rather than focusing on virus risk
mitigation, people's attention is misdirected toward castigating a sensory
modality as a proxy for disease. The outcome, albeit unintended, is
stigmatization of an entire sensory modality and fear of anybody who still
dares to use it rather than simply adopting healthy practices around touch. 

 

Touch is not the culprit here. Physical contact should not be villainized;
the virus is the problem but unless we figure out a better way to
disentangle the two, I worry that touch as we know it will be the first
candidate for inclusion on the Endangered Senses list. 

 

Given the transmission characteristics of COVID-19, there is no simple fix
for saving touch in the court of public opinion. I do believe there is a
solution, but it is more about changing our mindset than our behavior. 

 

Put most simply, we need to stop conflating touch with disease. Doing so is
not only inaccurate, it perpetuates an irrational fear of a general method
of perceiving the world rather than a healthy concern for avoiding
contracting a specific virus. 

 

Touch may be a path of conveyance but as with many other correlated
action/response pairings, the result is contingent on many factors, most of
which are imminently under our control. We don't villainize the sun because
it can give us skin cancer (we simply put on sun block) or distrust welding
because the bright flashes can damage our eyes (we wear protective glasses),
or avoid rock concerts because they can damage our hearing (we don ear
plugs), or fear skiing in winter as we might get frost bite (we put on
gloves). There is no need to throw the baby out with the bath water
regarding our sense of touch and COVID-19 protection. As with our use of sun
block, protective glasses, ear plugs, and gloves, we can best protect
ourselves by understanding the real risks associated with this pandemic and
not becoming blinded by perceived proxy threats. 

 

The best approach is to be mindful of minimizing touching of people
(especially those we do not know or feel safe around) and to limit contact
with public surfaces. When these physical interactions occur, there is no
surrogate for prudent use of sanitizer, thorough disinfection of frequently
touched areas, and assiduous hand washing (braille reading and literacy be
damned). 

 

However, it is important to keep these things in perspective. Simply
touching your face to scratch an itch, shaking hands with a colleague,
hugging a family member, or coming within six feet of a friend is not
synonymous with contracting the coronavirus. If you interact with a BVI
person, don't freak out if there is physical contact, accidental or
deliberate, don't avoid assisting an older person who has tripped and needs
a stabilizing arm, or shy away from helping a child up who has fallen. These
actions are what makes us human and what supports a civilized society. 

 

Such behaviors should not be conflated with disease or increased health
risks. Touch is not bad, being physically close to others is not bad.
Experiencing these things and being safe are not mutually exclusive and can
absolutely exist harmoniously in our COVID-19 culture when we follow
appropriate safety procedures. Fear-driven responses and mindless adherence
to guidelines is neither healthy for one's psyche nor for promoting
meaningful social interactions. 

 

While I can make this point until the cows come home, the reality is that
the best practices for reducing the risk of COVID-19 contamination are
contrary to many of the ways that BVI people experience and interact with
their world. If you cannot see, you touch, but if you cannot see and you
cannot touch, the world quickly becomes impoverished and wanting (the
current situation is even more dire for my deaf-blind friends). 

 

This is not to say that specific COVID-19 accommodations should be made for
BVI people but since this demographic is not going to stop touching their
world, it does raise the specter of their potential alienation living as
part of the new touchless normal. I know I am not alone in increasingly
feeling like a pariah when in public, keenly aware that my way of
experiencing the world is now fundamentally at odds with the majority of
those around me. 

 

I usually embrace the notion of being unique, of diversity through
difference, and of opposing points of view. But.the growing aversion to
touch is very different than if I were to be disliked for having contrary
political views than somebody else, or were judged for what I am wearing. 

 

It is unrelated to my conscious decisions; the fears and avoidance I am
experiencing are based on my fundamental method of perceiving and
interacting with my surroundings, which I cannot change. In some ways, and
this is admittedly irrational, the growing societal rejection of touch feels
like an aggregate rejection of Me. 

 

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter if the negative touch
response (or its impact on me/others) is an unintended consequence, or due
to transference, or over reaction-the COVID-19-induced backlash against
touch is real. Troublingly, this response is likely to escalate as the
economy starts to open, more people go outside, and social interactions
(planned or otherwise) become the norm as people return to living their
lives, albeit in a socially distanced, touch-minimized manner. The result
for BVI people is that many of the issues discussed here will persist and
even increase, meaning that the new touchless normal is going to continue as
the awkward abnormal for the BVI community. 

 

I am accustomed to a world that minimizes the role of touch, as it will
always be the underappreciated younger sibling to vision, but a touchless
future where we no longer shake hands, hug, or express physical affection is
not a future I feel excited about. Unfortunately, I worry this trajectory
will continue unless we accept the mindset that safe and healthy behavior is
possible without catastrophizing physical contact and bastardizing the sense
of touch by equating it with disease. Until then, I mourn the loss of the
world's feel around me. 

 

 

Here is the URL in case you want to find it on the web and share it:

 
<https://medium.com/@nicholas.giudice/covid-19-and-blindness-why-the-new-tou
chless-physically-distant-world-sucks-for-people-with-2c8dbd21de63?sk=9c81fb
c6d5f29d0cc600b4d5b5f06dbe>
https://medium.com/@nicholas.giudice/covid-19-and-blindness-why-the-new-touc
hless-physically-distant-world-sucks-for-people-with-2c8dbd21de63?sk=9c81fbc
6d5f29d0cc600b4d5b5f06dbe

 

 

 

 

Andrea Leigh Giudice

President, Connecticut Council of the Blind (CTCB), an affiliate of the
American Council of the Blind (ACB)

2020 GDUI Convention Coordinator, Guide Dog Users, Inc. (GDUI)

(860) 573-2198

dawgmawm at gmail.com <mailto:dawgmawm at gmail.com> 

 

"It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision." - Helen Keller

"You're braver than you believe and stronger and smarter than you think." -
Winnie-the-Pooh   

"Kindness is something that the deaf can hear and the blind can see." - Mark
Twain

 

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