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Day #34 of Self-Isolation in Epidemic Central
1. Well, period started - exactly 34 days from the start of the last one. I'm guessing this means they are dwindling? But I don't know. The Headspace Wake Up discussed "uncertainity" as its theme this morning, and how it was important to just accept the fact that you don't know anything and life is basically uncertainty, and just embrace it. I'm not entirely sure uncertainty can be hugged or embraced, but whatever.
It occurs to me today...still alive and still healthy (believe it or not) in Epidemic Central (we've had 14,604 deaths in NYC to date,with 34, 476 cases in Brooklyn, and 2,606 deaths. This isn't really as bad as it sounds, if you consider that's out of about 3 million people. It's still bad, it's just not well...zombie apocalypse bad.) This is all according to Johns Hopkins COVID 19 Tracking Site - which has been tracking the virus since it popped up in China and Asia back in January, and looked like it was going to become a pandemic. While Hopkins figures are admittedly more reliable than most, they aren't updated that fast, and the US Map is behind the world map by quite a bit. The US map has about 749,666 cases in the US and the World Map has 782,159. So someone is not quite up to the task here. Also, I'm thinking the same thing I did in February, when the map didn't show any cases in New York but a lot in California and Washington. Which is -- okay, with all the beaches open in Florida and all those stupid protests, why doesn't Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Washington, Texas and California have more cases? Answer? They haven't tested everyone yet, and it takes about thirty days for anything to pop up. So just wait.
Also, apparently not everyone in NYC is practicing social distancing guidelines. I was validated for choosing not to walk around in Prospect Park on Sunday - apparently, I was right, everyone else was doing that too. Someone on the Kesington Facebook page posted about how people weren't wearing masks, and kind of socializing in the park - he posted it to shut up the anti-semitic nitwits who kept shaming the Chasid community on the FB page. (Boro Park is heavily Chasid (Hasidic Russian Jew) and that community got blamed for spreading the virus with large funerals. To be fair they weren't the only ones doing that - and at least they weren't protesting.)The trick might be to go out there for a walk on a day like today or in the evening, when everyone is busy feeding their kids? Anyhow, I felt validated for just walking up the block and back. I'm not sure if I'm being overly cautious or not. It's the park. It's the open air. As long as I wear a mask and I'm not spending too much time with anyone, I should be fine.
The fact that not everyone is practicing these guidelines certainly explains why we have so many cases. Although the Governor kind of explained that today on his briefing - stating the reason we do is we have areas in which people are crammed together - such as public housing. He used to work for HUD and knows every disaster destroys the poor folks in public housing. I'd agree - I interned for the Legal Aid Association of Western Missouri for a bit, and spent a lot of time in and out, interviewing various public housing complaints in the Kansas City Area. I can still smell that office and those housing complexes. Kind of smelt like a rug that cats urinated on one too many times and no matter what you do, you can't get the stink out. That experienced kind of changed me in ways I can't quite describe.
Uhm, I think I forgot what I was leading up to? I kind of trailed off into a really depressing sub-tangent didn't I? Sorry about that. My mind is attempting to dump all the crap it took in today on my journal.
Anyhow, what occurred to me today, after reading a friend's journal - is that this is kind of a really twisted take on my ideal situation - or a be careful what you wish for scenario. I envied the people who telecommuted. It would be nice to be left alone to do my thing, no boss, no co-workers, no one coming up behind me unannounced, causing me to jump a foot out of my chair. I don't have to deal with people bringing in donuts, cookies, cakes, or candy that I can't eat. There's no one I have to share the kitchen with. If my work kind of slows down - no one notices, and I can go off and write a novel instead, or play on the internet or write in this journal and no one will know. Also, I can binge-watch television on the off-hours with no pressure to socialize. Can interact on social media to my heart's content. I don't have to take the subway or train anywhere - and there's no pressure to do so.
All socializing is via the internet or phone - which I've been kind of doing anyway for the last ten to fifteen years.
It's very weird. OTOH - it would be nice to be able to do laundry without fear. I need to rip that band-aid off. I'm doing that once the stupid period has run it's course so, either Thursday, Friday or sometime on Sat, I'm thinking. I might even hold off until the beginning of next week. I learned my lesson last time - wait until the period has run its course first. Also, I don't have that much laundry. It's just me. No one cares what I have on. And I'm a New Yorker - I have enough underwear to last two-three months. Socks, not so much, but it's not like I'm wearing socks or shoes at the moment. Plus I can wash underwear in the sink and hang to dry - already done that. Also, be nice to be able to get alcohol and get deliveries easier. And to take a walk to the Park. (Although I think I may rip the bandaid off of that particular fear next weekend. Sure it's going to be a bit of a human being obstacle course - but I'm kind of used to human being obstacle courses. Also make a trip to the health food stores at some point - another band-aid to rip off.)
2. Finally skimmed Entertainment Weekly - which is now issued monthly as opposed to weekly. They just rename it Entertainment Monthly. (I think we already discussed this in an early post, long long before COVID-19 raised its ugly head.)
What I realized while reading or rather skimming it, it has tiny print and wasn't that interesting, was that I don't share any of the current pop culture interests or trends. As my mother pointed out, I've never been much of a Lemming, even when it comes to pop culture. The more hyped it is - the less interested I tend to be.
"Tiger King" - the story about the nasty guy who has Tiger's and was murdered, doesn't interest me at all. I'm not quite sure why it fascinates everyone else. But if you are wondering why you are having issues with Netflix at the moment - it's because all these people are binge watching Tiger King - a documentary style series about a guy who owns tigers and was fed to them. (At least I think that's what it is about from a SNL skit and skimming a review here and there.)
Also no interest in Supernatural. I watched six seasons possibly seven, then gave up. There are no women characters - it's basically a bro-romance between three men.
Which was really entertaining up to a point. Also I like urban legends. But then they kind of ran out of story, and I don't like that horror all that much, so gave up.
There's a lot of other rather dark series they list that I just can't get interested in. I want to watch fluffy cartoons on Hulu and Disney at the moment. I might even binge the fourth season of Veronica Mars. I don't want dark stuff or violence right now though, nothing that frustrates or angers me. Nice and fluffy.
It's very odd. I considered taking up Outlander again - but I think it would frustrate me. And I want fluffy, damn it. I can't be the only one out there who wants fluffy?
Although, admittedly, I'm not entirely sure Rosewell, New Mexico counts as fluffy? And I'm enjoying that. I'm moody I admit this.
3. Read a disturbing article in the NY Times... CoronaVirus in America: The Year Ahead.
What disturbed me was this:
Imagine an America divided into two classes: those who have recovered from infection with the coronavirus and presumably have some immunity to it; and those who are still vulnerable.
“It will be a frightening schism,” Dr. David Nabarro, a World Health Organization special envoy on Covid-19, predicted. “Those with antibodies will be able to travel and work, and the rest will be discriminated against.”
Already, people with presumed immunity are very much in demand, asked to donate their blood for antibodies and doing risky medical jobs fearlessly.
Soon the government will have to invent a way to certify who is truly immune. A test for IgG antibodies, which are produced once immunity is established, would make sense, said Dr. Daniel R. Lucey, an expert on pandemics at Georgetown University’s law school. Many companies are working on them.
Dr. Fauci has said the White House was discussing certificates like those proposed in Germany. China uses cellphone QR codes linked to the owner’s personal details so others cannot borrow them.
The California adult-film industry pioneered a similar idea a decade ago. Actors use a cellphone app to prove they have tested H.I.V. negative in the last 14 days, and producers can verify the information on a password-protected website.
As Americans stuck in lockdown see their immune neighbors resuming their lives and perhaps even taking the jobs they lost, it is not hard to imagine the enormous temptation to join them through self-infection, experts predicted. Younger citizens in particular will calculate that risking a serious illness may still be better than impoverishment and isolation.
“My daughter, who is a Harvard economist, keeps telling me her age group needs to have Covid-19 parties to develop immunity and keep the economy going,” said Dr. Michele Barry, who directs the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University.
It has happened before. In the 1980s, Cuba successfully contained its small AIDS epidemic by brutally forcing everyone who tested positive into isolation camps. Inside, however, the residents had their own bungalows, food, medical care, salaries, theater troupes and art classes.
This is to frigging close to a scenario I wrote about in a sci-fi novel that I was working on about five years ago. In it, there were people who had developed immunity to a fatal illness, and those who didn't among them were the protagonist's parents who died horribly. It's granted, a typical trope - in lots of sci-fi pandemic scenarios, including The Stand and Contagion. But it's disturbing and painful and from my perspective the most nightmarish aspects of both.
The scariest thing about pandemic movies is not necessarily being the one killed, but being the ones left alive.
4. Off to watch Zooey's Extraordinary Playlist and possibly more Steven Universe. The plus side of this - is I can get up at 6:30 am instead of 5:45 am, meditate every morning, make breakfast, fix tea, and clock in. It's peaceful. Also I don't have to check the weather or the rail and road report.
I rarely watch the broadcast news any longer. My sources are New York Times and the Governor of NY and the John Hopkins Site.
Also, now that the old period has started, my cravings and moods have stabilized. The depression, irritability, etc were caused by PMS, along with skin outbreaks, hot flashes, flushing, and a sinus headache. Perimenopause kind of makes it worse and makes it last longer.
Being a woman is a pain in the ass. Just saying.
It occurs to me today...still alive and still healthy (believe it or not) in Epidemic Central (we've had 14,604 deaths in NYC to date,with 34, 476 cases in Brooklyn, and 2,606 deaths. This isn't really as bad as it sounds, if you consider that's out of about 3 million people. It's still bad, it's just not well...zombie apocalypse bad.) This is all according to Johns Hopkins COVID 19 Tracking Site - which has been tracking the virus since it popped up in China and Asia back in January, and looked like it was going to become a pandemic. While Hopkins figures are admittedly more reliable than most, they aren't updated that fast, and the US Map is behind the world map by quite a bit. The US map has about 749,666 cases in the US and the World Map has 782,159. So someone is not quite up to the task here. Also, I'm thinking the same thing I did in February, when the map didn't show any cases in New York but a lot in California and Washington. Which is -- okay, with all the beaches open in Florida and all those stupid protests, why doesn't Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Washington, Texas and California have more cases? Answer? They haven't tested everyone yet, and it takes about thirty days for anything to pop up. So just wait.
Also, apparently not everyone in NYC is practicing social distancing guidelines. I was validated for choosing not to walk around in Prospect Park on Sunday - apparently, I was right, everyone else was doing that too. Someone on the Kesington Facebook page posted about how people weren't wearing masks, and kind of socializing in the park - he posted it to shut up the anti-semitic nitwits who kept shaming the Chasid community on the FB page. (Boro Park is heavily Chasid (Hasidic Russian Jew) and that community got blamed for spreading the virus with large funerals. To be fair they weren't the only ones doing that - and at least they weren't protesting.)The trick might be to go out there for a walk on a day like today or in the evening, when everyone is busy feeding their kids? Anyhow, I felt validated for just walking up the block and back. I'm not sure if I'm being overly cautious or not. It's the park. It's the open air. As long as I wear a mask and I'm not spending too much time with anyone, I should be fine.
The fact that not everyone is practicing these guidelines certainly explains why we have so many cases. Although the Governor kind of explained that today on his briefing - stating the reason we do is we have areas in which people are crammed together - such as public housing. He used to work for HUD and knows every disaster destroys the poor folks in public housing. I'd agree - I interned for the Legal Aid Association of Western Missouri for a bit, and spent a lot of time in and out, interviewing various public housing complaints in the Kansas City Area. I can still smell that office and those housing complexes. Kind of smelt like a rug that cats urinated on one too many times and no matter what you do, you can't get the stink out. That experienced kind of changed me in ways I can't quite describe.
Uhm, I think I forgot what I was leading up to? I kind of trailed off into a really depressing sub-tangent didn't I? Sorry about that. My mind is attempting to dump all the crap it took in today on my journal.
Anyhow, what occurred to me today, after reading a friend's journal - is that this is kind of a really twisted take on my ideal situation - or a be careful what you wish for scenario. I envied the people who telecommuted. It would be nice to be left alone to do my thing, no boss, no co-workers, no one coming up behind me unannounced, causing me to jump a foot out of my chair. I don't have to deal with people bringing in donuts, cookies, cakes, or candy that I can't eat. There's no one I have to share the kitchen with. If my work kind of slows down - no one notices, and I can go off and write a novel instead, or play on the internet or write in this journal and no one will know. Also, I can binge-watch television on the off-hours with no pressure to socialize. Can interact on social media to my heart's content. I don't have to take the subway or train anywhere - and there's no pressure to do so.
All socializing is via the internet or phone - which I've been kind of doing anyway for the last ten to fifteen years.
It's very weird. OTOH - it would be nice to be able to do laundry without fear. I need to rip that band-aid off. I'm doing that once the stupid period has run it's course so, either Thursday, Friday or sometime on Sat, I'm thinking. I might even hold off until the beginning of next week. I learned my lesson last time - wait until the period has run its course first. Also, I don't have that much laundry. It's just me. No one cares what I have on. And I'm a New Yorker - I have enough underwear to last two-three months. Socks, not so much, but it's not like I'm wearing socks or shoes at the moment. Plus I can wash underwear in the sink and hang to dry - already done that. Also, be nice to be able to get alcohol and get deliveries easier. And to take a walk to the Park. (Although I think I may rip the bandaid off of that particular fear next weekend. Sure it's going to be a bit of a human being obstacle course - but I'm kind of used to human being obstacle courses. Also make a trip to the health food stores at some point - another band-aid to rip off.)
2. Finally skimmed Entertainment Weekly - which is now issued monthly as opposed to weekly. They just rename it Entertainment Monthly. (I think we already discussed this in an early post, long long before COVID-19 raised its ugly head.)
What I realized while reading or rather skimming it, it has tiny print and wasn't that interesting, was that I don't share any of the current pop culture interests or trends. As my mother pointed out, I've never been much of a Lemming, even when it comes to pop culture. The more hyped it is - the less interested I tend to be.
"Tiger King" - the story about the nasty guy who has Tiger's and was murdered, doesn't interest me at all. I'm not quite sure why it fascinates everyone else. But if you are wondering why you are having issues with Netflix at the moment - it's because all these people are binge watching Tiger King - a documentary style series about a guy who owns tigers and was fed to them. (At least I think that's what it is about from a SNL skit and skimming a review here and there.)
Also no interest in Supernatural. I watched six seasons possibly seven, then gave up. There are no women characters - it's basically a bro-romance between three men.
Which was really entertaining up to a point. Also I like urban legends. But then they kind of ran out of story, and I don't like that horror all that much, so gave up.
There's a lot of other rather dark series they list that I just can't get interested in. I want to watch fluffy cartoons on Hulu and Disney at the moment. I might even binge the fourth season of Veronica Mars. I don't want dark stuff or violence right now though, nothing that frustrates or angers me. Nice and fluffy.
It's very odd. I considered taking up Outlander again - but I think it would frustrate me. And I want fluffy, damn it. I can't be the only one out there who wants fluffy?
Although, admittedly, I'm not entirely sure Rosewell, New Mexico counts as fluffy? And I'm enjoying that. I'm moody I admit this.
3. Read a disturbing article in the NY Times... CoronaVirus in America: The Year Ahead.
What disturbed me was this:
Imagine an America divided into two classes: those who have recovered from infection with the coronavirus and presumably have some immunity to it; and those who are still vulnerable.
“It will be a frightening schism,” Dr. David Nabarro, a World Health Organization special envoy on Covid-19, predicted. “Those with antibodies will be able to travel and work, and the rest will be discriminated against.”
Already, people with presumed immunity are very much in demand, asked to donate their blood for antibodies and doing risky medical jobs fearlessly.
Soon the government will have to invent a way to certify who is truly immune. A test for IgG antibodies, which are produced once immunity is established, would make sense, said Dr. Daniel R. Lucey, an expert on pandemics at Georgetown University’s law school. Many companies are working on them.
Dr. Fauci has said the White House was discussing certificates like those proposed in Germany. China uses cellphone QR codes linked to the owner’s personal details so others cannot borrow them.
The California adult-film industry pioneered a similar idea a decade ago. Actors use a cellphone app to prove they have tested H.I.V. negative in the last 14 days, and producers can verify the information on a password-protected website.
As Americans stuck in lockdown see their immune neighbors resuming their lives and perhaps even taking the jobs they lost, it is not hard to imagine the enormous temptation to join them through self-infection, experts predicted. Younger citizens in particular will calculate that risking a serious illness may still be better than impoverishment and isolation.
“My daughter, who is a Harvard economist, keeps telling me her age group needs to have Covid-19 parties to develop immunity and keep the economy going,” said Dr. Michele Barry, who directs the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University.
It has happened before. In the 1980s, Cuba successfully contained its small AIDS epidemic by brutally forcing everyone who tested positive into isolation camps. Inside, however, the residents had their own bungalows, food, medical care, salaries, theater troupes and art classes.
This is to frigging close to a scenario I wrote about in a sci-fi novel that I was working on about five years ago. In it, there were people who had developed immunity to a fatal illness, and those who didn't among them were the protagonist's parents who died horribly. It's granted, a typical trope - in lots of sci-fi pandemic scenarios, including The Stand and Contagion. But it's disturbing and painful and from my perspective the most nightmarish aspects of both.
The scariest thing about pandemic movies is not necessarily being the one killed, but being the ones left alive.
4. Off to watch Zooey's Extraordinary Playlist and possibly more Steven Universe. The plus side of this - is I can get up at 6:30 am instead of 5:45 am, meditate every morning, make breakfast, fix tea, and clock in. It's peaceful. Also I don't have to check the weather or the rail and road report.
I rarely watch the broadcast news any longer. My sources are New York Times and the Governor of NY and the John Hopkins Site.
Also, now that the old period has started, my cravings and moods have stabilized. The depression, irritability, etc were caused by PMS, along with skin outbreaks, hot flashes, flushing, and a sinus headache. Perimenopause kind of makes it worse and makes it last longer.
Being a woman is a pain in the ass. Just saying.
no subject
Great, a stupid idea by someone who isn't in a medical field. Reported in a serious journal as if it's to be taken seriously. Nobody gives a shit about so-and-so'S daughter's crack pot idea.
And where is this stupid idea of the immune taking jobs from the not-immune come from? We barealy know if antibodies actually mean immunity and if there is an expiration date on that one. I haven't yet seen anyone declare their immunity and just resuming their life as if they don't have to worry about a thing.
no subject
I just read an article this morning in a science/medical journal that explained how much we don't know about this disease. COVID-19 is a scary disease that attacks the human body in a variety of ways. And people who appear to be recovered end up dying from complications in another way. Also it appears to attack people differently. It's not the flu and it's not a respiratory illness - it can attack the brain, the heart, the gut, the lungs...
The media is making this worse in some respects. And there's lots of discrepancies. The problem is that they can only track the hospitalizations and those tested from those - effectively. To date, NY is the only state that have broadly tested, and developed the antibody testing to a broad extent. (According to the data on the Johns Hopkins Site). And what NY is discovering is keeping NY locked down as much as it is possible to lock down a state with Federal support.