pandemic diary 2020 day 16

April 2
Global cases = 952,000
USA = 216,000
Sacramento = 314E

the pandemic is ripping through the charts. approaching one million cases in the world which we all by now should know is many times higher due to scarcity of testing. i fear for the densely populated areas in the world, Tokyo, Paris, LA, the entire country of India. i find it unbelievable that 20 governors in this great union still have not heeded the warnings, and their citizens are freely mingling in restaurants, at church, work, in parks and recreation together. stop and listen already! florida (often late to lunch) finally demanded people stay home yesterday. there are a tremendous number of retired Americans in Florida, including my parents, in the age group at greatest risk to covid19. the governor of New York has been seen crying on air, his constituents dying, refrigerated freight trucks rolling in for use as morgues. his own brother, CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, has contracted the virus. the death care industry is booming. the stock market is tumbling. museums have been closed indefinitely which created an opportunity for art thieves. they stole an 1889 self-portrait by Van Gogh when he was admitted into a psychiatric institution in France. the painting was titled: The Parsonage Garden at Nuenen in Spring 1884. i guess we are all going a little crazy now.

pandemic diary 2020 day 15

April 1
Global cases = 882,000
USA = 189,000
Sacramento = 224E


One way or another we will get through this. whenever I go outdoors I am comforted by the beauty of the sun, the sky, the signs of springtime, the birds and flowers have arrived! we will see the other side. i am very concerned about the economic fallout. my guy keeps thinking we should stay home from work but i disagree. we may get the damn covid19 even if we stay home, because u still gotta go to the grocery store, etc. i am an essential worker so they want me there and yes, practicing social distancing with colleagues and still able to get in a little fix of social contact is beneficial to my state of mind! its a gamble who gets this thing. the vast majority will be able to ride it out at home with mild symptoms. the 3% will unfortunately end up with their lives hanging in the balance. could be any of us of course. i need my damn job. i need to stay solvent as long as possible. the Great Depression after the stock market crash in 1929 and the banks failing, left people out of work and suffering poverty and starvation for years. nobody wants to believe it could happen in today's USA of economic prosperity but it could and very well may. so i'm hoping to follow the best medical advice, the CDC guidelines, and also protect my livelihood. okay, enough out of me. thank you my friends. may we stay hopeful and productive and may we survive!

pandemic 2020 day 12

March 29
Global cases = 679,000
USA = 125,000
Sacramento = 164E (3.27)

I realized yesterday not all of California's counties are updating numbers daily. Sacramento and Los Angeles are only providing accurate infection numbers every 3 days. The covid19 transmits through saliva so those little paper masks people wear apparently are useless, as they attract and absorb saliva droplets. I also realize that in grocery stores (where the aisles are not very wide and the goods are essential) people are almost accidentally disobeying the CDC recommendations. Example would be acquaintances running into one another within one aisle and trying to cognitively assess the exact distance between them while simultaneously being fully present and compassionate with a fellow human being they may not have seen in a while. We have a natural inclination (which we must now fight) to abide by our life long training in social standards! So it takes a real conscious effort to distance ourselves at ALL times from others by 6 feet or more. The best way to make this happen is spontaneous communication. Listen, we care about one another so let's be sure: are we six feet away right now? Find your own chosen words and start using them. The two navy hospital ships have now situated themselves on the respective coasts. Mercy on the Pacific (Los Angeles) and Comfort on the Atlantic (NYC). Governor Cuomo is fighting Trump to keep his state from being quarantined, and has described this in language which hearkens back to the Civil War! This would be a declaration of war against the state of New York. As of this morning, Trump has backed off the quarantine. They say such an order would only cause pandemonium as residents of New York would likely start to flee the state. Once again, Democracy as a political system is a funny thing. Any leader has to take into account peoples mobility and, like the stock market, has to take the pulse of public sentiment, which is often a far cry from fact. You have to legislate with people's feelings in mind, because you only have so much influence over them. Personally, I wouldn't want it any other way. 

pandemic 2020 day 11

March 28
Global cases = 597,000
USA = 104,000
Sacramento = 164E

Xenophobia can become a real problem when a nation's leaders are labeling a global epidemic by the region of its apparent origin. There have already been cases of Asians and Asian-Americans being mistreated and assaulted since the onset of covid19. We need to all unite and do what we can to defeat this enemy. Ignorant people will react to ignorant statements made by powerful people. This is an equal opportunity illness! It has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. To those who are authority figures, I urge you: use your words carefully, compassionately! I was happy to learn that both my colleague and the client who went to the ER this week tested negative for the novel coronavirus. It took 4 days to get test results! Abbott Laboratories has developed a 5-12 minute rapid test. Today the FDA approved it. I don't know how long it will take to roll out, but this is great news. American automakers, including General Motors, are supposed to start producing ventilators. Again the timeline is fuzzy for how quickly these can go to market. Vaccines may as well be light years away. Survivors have reported a feeling like 'drowning on dry land' and  'six days all alone' in isolation wards. The saddest thing is how people must die alone, family and friends unable to be by their side to comfort them. In Berkeley the students set up a socially approved distance from one another and gathered together to sing songs. We are social beings! The longer we are forced to go without one another, the greater impact this may have on our mental health. I am fortunate I have my colleagues at work whom I see face to face. Teachers and musicians and artists and therapists are using the internet to stay connected. Any creative way we can find to be together is most welcome! 

pandemic 2020 day 10

March 27
Global cases = 529,000
USA = 83,000
Sacramento = 120e

Los Angeles is getting press, New Orleans is getting press. I haven't heard much from Chicago or Atlanta or Houston or Boston or San Francisco or Miami. The largest cities are projected to go through what NYC is going through now, triple cases every day into an exponential nightmare. India is a country of a billion plus. As the largest democracy in the world it is expected to experience possibly the greatest loss of life of all nations. Democracy is proving to have less defense against the virus, because citizens typically have more freedom and mobility. Today the FBI busted a two bit actor in Hollywood who tried to sell some pills to an undercover agent and who has been banging his own drum to a 2.5 million Instagram following about his purported 'cure for covid19', seeking million dollar investors at 'the ground floor'. He may serve up to 20 years in the federal pen for being a dunce. Meanwhile a friend of mine was waiting in line with seniors early morning at Costco when a woman in front of her fell back with her shopping cart, unconscious. Call 911. It's Friday and I'm burned out by a stressful week and looking forward to a mostly isolated weekend with my cats. Working on my novella. Reading Eileen. Watching Netflix, jogging and cooking. Maybe I will file my taxes so I can hopefully get a refund before the US Government runs out of money.

pandemic 2020 day 9

March 26
Global cases = 463,000
USA = 64,000
Sacramento = 100e

The Sacramento County jail is releasing 400 prisoners to the streets so they can make room for potentially infected new inmates. The reported number of citizens infected cannot be accurate as only people who are symptomatic and have been exposed to others who have tested positive, and have underlying medical conditions, can make an appointment to test. We should but do not have the capability yet to test everyone who is symptomatic. Once we can, we will surely see a spike in the numbers. I am very busy at the mental health clinic because 2 other managers are sidelined, and lately I'm helping to develop telework plans so my team can work from home. These plans were approved today and everyone was cheering. They can work from home for up to 24 hours a week. It still feels like the calm before the storm at our clinic and in our region. The way I figure, the medical crisis will happen first and the mental health crisis will be fast on its heels.

pandemic 2020 day 7

March 24. The reported total 384,000 have covid19. 16,000 have died. The more i learn, these numbers cannot be trusted due to the limited availability of testing. And, even in places where tests for covid19 are available there are so many more who either are asymptomatic (therefore would not yet seek out testing) or whom are experiencing the virus as something akin to a common cold or flu. Cases range from mild to fatal. So how many are truly infected and carrying the novel coronavirus? Likely 100x the existing data. That's what i have heard. So that would be 38 million and project out to 1.6 million fatalities. And certainly not peaked on most continents. They say there's not a single case on Antarctica. If the last pandemic took 50 million lives and the global population in 1918 was 1.8 billion then covid19 could be expected to take 200 million with population currently around 8 billion. This ratio (and i'm no math genius) approaches 1 out of every 36 people dying. Or approximately a 2.8% mortality rate, which is consistent with the data thus far. i know all this seems morbid and depressing, and i'm not trying to fan the flames of hysteria, i swear! i actually find the math comforting. imagine we are standing in a row of 36 randomly selected people, and god or the universe tells us one of us will be chosen to leave the earth?

pandemic 2020 day 6

March 23. Truth is indeed as strange as fiction. It's ironic how taken the USA was by the zombie apocalypse movies in recent years. Watch out! They look like us, they walk among us; if they touch you, life as you know it is over and you become a zombie, too. Some better known celebrities and figures have been testing positive without realizing they were exposed, including a US Senator from Kentucky, several sports stars, a renowned opera singer, and the doctor of the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, who recently administered her a pneumonia vaccine. Germany has now banned socializing in groups of more than 2 people. The next mandate will have you bumping up against yourself and your reflection in the mirror. You will only have your multiple personalities to embrace. None of this is funny but we need a sense of humor. Someone who's infected need only breathe on you, cough or sneeze toward you, and you've caught it. And you may not know for days. Yesterday I hit the local Raley's and got 100 caps of tylenol, nasal spray, more canned soups, chili, and multivitamins. In 5 days I have been unable to locate eggs, tp, or a damn thermometer to check myself in the event of a fever. I went online and Amazon appears to have a backlog of orders for thermometers. Last night I had some crazy dreams which reflected my greatest underlying subconscious fears like the world falling into complete disarray. I am about to put my face on and go to work. We shall see if my company has developed a solid telehealth plan over the weekend. I'm more than happy to stay busy and I can basically isolate myself in my office unless there's an urgent walk-in. I feel I have come somewhat to terms that 40% or more of the population will be infected. The 1918-19 pandemic came in waves and killed off 50 or more million people. They say it sourced in Alaska among an Inuit tribe, and was easily spread through the military ranks in the first World War. Clearly people were not as interconnected 100 years ago as they are today, and the 'wave' concept spells doomsday for the global economy. The Great Depression may not have been caused by the pandemic, but it sure timed perfectly, coinciding with a stock market crash and the industrial agricultural movement which was to blame for the Dust Bowl in the west. We are guaranteed a recession, they say, and if there's a second wave of COVID-19 in the late summer or fall, we may see a second Great Depression. I have a few things keeping me steady in a time of greatest uncertainty. My family. My work. My cats Bunny and Mouse. Running out on the river. Cooking. Reading. And working on my #WIP : Trouble'99.

pandemic 2020 day 5

March 22, 2020. USA has jumped up in infection cases to become the 3rd highest behind China and Italy. Northern Italy is having a hell of a time. NYC looks to be in trouble going forward. China has been successful in containment, which I have learned relates to the infrastructure they have in place to contain people. So there are some hidden benefits of a Communist system! Today I will be going to the store in search for some of the items that I looked for last week and could not find. Mind you, I could have searched harder and probably found them but given that we are not supposed to move around a whole lot, I did not. A thermometer, tylenol (fever reducer), pasta, nasal spray, garlic, frozen vegetables, vitamins. I have been watching youtube videos of covid-19 survivors. It appears the virus can come on quickly with fever and cough, tightness in the chest, body aches, headache, and within 24 hours of onset of symptoms one may need to go the ER due to cardiovascular issues (racing heart and/or difficulty breathing). Call first if possible to alert them you are symptomatic! This will limit the potential to spread the virus unintentionally. We have to be unselfish no matter how panicked we may feel! Once quarantined, this 48 year old woman in Ohio testified (a year older than me), they gave her antibiotics and tylenol for 3 days than was good to go home and self-quarantine. She had no underlying health conditions. A younger woman reported how she got sick after going to a weekend party last weekend, and she was able to recover at home. She did not experience any cardiovascular sxs. Only through Facebook did she discover that several of her friends who were at the party got sick, too, and had tested positive for covid-19. So you can see how we can be conduits of the virus without ever realizing that we had it! For some it can come and go like any seemingly innocuous experience of cold and flu season. I want to continue to urge everyone to consider 'facts over fear' and stay calm. The only point of terror that resides in me, is the idea of having to go for medical help at some point in the future, and requiring a respirator and treatment for pneumonia, and not able to get one due to lack of supplies. I am excited to learn that the Governor of California is putting together a team of brilliant people including Elon Musk (founder of Tesla and SpaceX) to help shift our economy toward producing the equipment we will need in the coming days.