Day 257...of Corona Virus Lockdown
Dec. 3rd, 2020 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatYears ago, I wrote a short story based on letters that my brother had been writing me from San Francisco Art Institute. My brother has my nutty off-beat sense of humor, which we both inherited from our parents and extended family. I'd state..."day such and such from the Entella" and everyone but a close friend in the creative writing course was convinced I was writing about a nuclear apocalypse or some dystopian future. I wasn't at the time.
Now...
New York vs. the Corona Virus
The Governor came on and gave a really good briefing at 3PM, where he unpacked one of the vaccine boxes and showed the press what was inside it. Declaring the vaccine as the weapon that will win the war against the virus. This, he told the reporters and over a million viewers, is how we will win the war against the virus, because this is a war.
He explained how it worked, what was involved, and provide factual information. I've decided the man is a frustrated college professor. He'd have made a great professor - he's skilled at presentation - possibly the litigation background. Good litigation attorneys are highly skilled presenters - mainly because that's how you win court cases - it's all in the presentation.
He explained in detail how the vaccine would be administered. That each box came with a specific number of vials, that in turn came in a tray, and each vial had about ten doses each. You'd get two shots or doses - about twenty-one days apart. This is the Pfzier vaccine that was also recently approved in the UK. The Moderna is coming soon. There's about 170,000 doses of the vaccine that were delivered to New York State and arrived today. The 170,000 doses according to the Governor's team are enough to cover all the nursing homes and healthcare workers in the state - who fit within the first tier.
I am one of those neurotic souls who finds this sort of information comforting. Also I'm fascinated by it - I read Virus Hunters, Hot Zone, and various pandemic and virus non-fiction books way back in the 20th Century. And I love sci-fi novels that deal with pandemics and how to resolve them.
I remember listening intently to my Aunt K about H1N1. I like seeing how people solve complicated problems and puzzles. Games and competitions - on the other hand - I find boring and don't see the point of.
The Governor, at any rate, is at his best when he's in "information" or "educator" mode. And he's very good with the fussy and headache inducing NY press corps.
And..admittedly he won me over when he addressed one of the annoying reporters statements about crazy workplace. The reporter (who I'm willing to bet works for either Newsday or the New York Post, most likely Newday out on Long Island), asked what he thought about the seven idiots who got arrested for claiming 100s of thousands of dollars in overtime. The Governor looked her in the eye and said, "So we have what seven people who got caught trying to defraud the system? Out of how many employees? 70,000? There's always going to be a few bad apples trying cheat the system. No matter what profession we're in. I know I used to prosecute these cases as Attorney General. The way you fight it is you put something in place that will catch them in the act - so they won't try it again. There's a saying, locks on doors, keep people honest. We just had a few bad apples and they got caught. Next question?" He's used to this idiotic reporter - she's the same one who keeps asking the same dumb questions about the nursing homes, after he's told her repeatedly that the private nursing homes - the state can regulate but not do much about.
During COVID, my respect for the journalistic profession has gone downhill.
There's too many marketing folks in that field. They ask dumb questions. Misunderstand and misinterpret stuff. And piss me off. Don't get me wrong, the Governor is far from perfect - I've a love/hate relationship with my Governor (actually I think everyone in NY probably does, mother says that his father was kind of the same) - but the reporters are often idiotic. I like the Times reporters best - they ask better questions, which is why I'm subscribing to the NY Times and not the others. NY has a lot of newspapers by the way.
Per his email, tonight:
Hospitalizations due to COVID continue to increase throughout the State. The total number of hospital beds in NY is about 53,000—currently 35,000 of those beds are occupied by patients, about 4,000 of whom are COVID patients. For context, at the height of the pandemic in the spring, we had about 19,000 people hospitalized with COVID.
The next stage of the battle with COVID is going to be vaccine distribution and vaccine acceptance. The vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel. We just have to get there, and we have to get there with as little loss of life as possible. We must do our best to keep the virus from spreading any further. Wear a mask, avoid gatherings (both indoor AND outdoor), social distance and wash your hands.
Here's what else you need to know tonight:
1. The statewide positivity rate ticked up to 4.84 percent yesterday. There were 9,855 positive cases from 203,440 tests reported yesterday. The positivity rate in the micro-cluster focus areas was 5.91 percent. Excluding these areas, it was 4.49 percent.
2. Total hospitalizations rose to 4,063. There were 783 patients in ICU yesterday, up 41 from the previous day. Of them, 377 are intubated. Sadly, we lost 61 New Yorkers to the virus.
3. The State is launching 150 new rapid testing sites in partnership with Prescryptive Health. The partnership will help expand testing capacity in areas across the State where testing access is limited. Residents can find participating sites, schedule a test, receive results and follow-up with licenses clinicians directly from their mobile device. All testing sites will be searchable on the State's COVID test website and appointments for these sites will also be available at www.prescryptive.com.
4. I will sign an Executive Order expanding eligibility for New York State's COVID Rent Relief Program and reopening the application window. This Executive Order will expand the program's eligibility so more rent relief can be provided to New Yorkers and additional details will be available in the coming days. "
We're all closely watching the hospitalizations. According to the NY Times over 323,000 people died this year of either COVID or COVID related issues, or because of COVID. According to the Johns Hopkins database, it's 276,148 deaths. How much you want to bet we're at over 300,000 by the end of this year?
The NY Times has a cool little interactive guide to show you when you could receive the test or how many people come before.
This was my result:
" Based on your risk profile, we believe you’re in line behind 23.0 million people across the United States.
When it comes to New York, we think you’re behind 1.8 million others who are at higher risk in your state.
And in Kings County, you’re behind 271,000 others."
Personally, I'm willing to go last. I don't need it as badly as the families and others in my building.
Enuf on that.
The next few months are going to be tough. It's always hardest at the end. All those dumb platitudes make sense: "It's always darkest before the dawn", or "things have to get worse before they get better".
Crazy Workplace
Not a lot going on. That's going to be the hard part about the weeks and months ahead. A lot of my work is dependent on and generated by Federal and State funding.
Oh well, it's easier to be bored at home than at work. And I can always come up with stuff. Also I've two on-call release contracts that will keep me busy, plus change orders. And I can organize electronic filings. Plus sign up for computer courses.
I don't think they'll cut jobs.
Chidi thanked me for answering one of his questions quickly and in a useful and informative manner. He said I should be a manager.
Me: Eh, no. I'd have to attend meetings and do reports. I'm happy just helping folks and doing my job.
Chidi: You're like Mayo, and great helping people - it's a good way to be, and makes you a great asset to the team.
Family
Mother told me that niece tested negative for COVID. Thank you, Universe.
Yes, it's an odd world we live in that we're all thankful she has mono. That'll teach her to make out with a cute boy at a movie theater. It could have been worse - could have gotten COVID.
Other odds and ends
1. Apparently the NFL is not being as successful completing their season as everyone else. I discussed with mother (who actually watches Football) and she agreed. The Denver Broncos played without any of their quarterbacks with disasterous results - it went down in history as the worst game ever. (Not being a huge football fan, and having built up a dislike of the Broncos over the years - this amused me to no end.) Honestly? I don't know why they thought playing football during COVID was a good idea. Basketball - I wondered about - but it was at least done in a bubble, which you can kind of do with Basketball. Football not so much. And Football unlike Baseball is a full-on contact sport. There's no way you can play that sport successfully during a pandemic, come on.
2. New York has been having problems with huge house parties. Over the weekend some nitwit rented a house out on Long Island and had a huge party with over 400 people. The neighbors and the owner of the house called the cops and reported it. They'd rented it on AirBNB, and the owner saw them partying via his security cameras and called the cops on them.
3. Trump wants to pre-emptively pardon his family members and lawyer, Giuliani or is considering it. Which begs the question - if you pre-emptively pardon people - doesn't that mean they are guilty of something? I think they should let the States go after Trump and his family. He can't pardon himself on the State level just the Federal level. This basically means that while he can escape Federal Prison, not necessarily State prison. And trust me, the States are gearing up to do just that. The States hate him - regardless of which party they happen to be associated with. New York, California, New Jersey, Michigan, Washington, Oregon, Georgia, Mass, and a few others may battle it out on who gets to throw the book at him. I'm guessing New York will win - their Attorney General has been building her case against him and his family for the last four years.
I think he knows this - it's why he's contesting the election, and orchestrating a scam on his supporters to obtain enough money for his legal fund.
According to mother, Ivanka spent hours in a deposition regarding the inaugration fraud. Apparently they stole money from the 2016 inaugration bank. So he has a reason to want to pardon them.
Me
In order to get the newest Citrix update - to access remote computer, I had to update my Mac's operating system again. Which I'd been procrastinating, mainly because I was happy with the current operating system. I didn't need any upgrades. Plus Apple Software Upgrades take forever. You have to download the damn thing, then install it. The installation took forever and I worried during it - that my computer would crash. I had a panic attack when the computer refused to come back on for about an hour. It came on. It didn't crash. It worked. Thank the universe and then some.
I hate software updates.
Also, did laundry - 4-4:15 pm on Thursdays is turning out to be a great time to do laundry. No one was done there. And I didn't see anyone until I was almost done with the dryer - some lady and her kid came down at 5:30 to do theirs.
Plus side of working remotely - is no commute. And I can do laundry at 4 pm or right after work. As opposed to when I get in the door at 5- 5:30.
I'm going off chocolate bars, let's see how long I last. I started craving them today and its only been a day.
While doing laundry, and working, and making up my bed clean...I was listening to the audibook version of Ibrahm Kendi's How to be an Anti-Racist, which the author reads himself. I'm impressed by it and pleasantly surprised. While I have a few minor quibbles, for the most part I agree with him and what he is saying resonates. He states that anyone can be racist. The problem is that we racialize behavior and don't treat people as individuals as opposed to members of some preconcieved racial group. And how he had to get past his own racism to see this. And how gender, transgender phobia, homophobia, etc were all versions of this.
That we needed to attack the societal definitions of racism, the racial policies that negatively impacted all people, and to not define people solely based upon race, which is at best a construct with no biological basis.
I've also discovered that audio books are working for me at the moment. This surprised mother - since I have issues with podcasts and audiobooks, and a kind of listening dyslexia. But oddly it's not bothering me that much. While I am struggling more with visual dyslexia. The mind is a funny thing - it's not always consistent.
Now...
New York vs. the Corona Virus
The Governor came on and gave a really good briefing at 3PM, where he unpacked one of the vaccine boxes and showed the press what was inside it. Declaring the vaccine as the weapon that will win the war against the virus. This, he told the reporters and over a million viewers, is how we will win the war against the virus, because this is a war.
He explained how it worked, what was involved, and provide factual information. I've decided the man is a frustrated college professor. He'd have made a great professor - he's skilled at presentation - possibly the litigation background. Good litigation attorneys are highly skilled presenters - mainly because that's how you win court cases - it's all in the presentation.
He explained in detail how the vaccine would be administered. That each box came with a specific number of vials, that in turn came in a tray, and each vial had about ten doses each. You'd get two shots or doses - about twenty-one days apart. This is the Pfzier vaccine that was also recently approved in the UK. The Moderna is coming soon. There's about 170,000 doses of the vaccine that were delivered to New York State and arrived today. The 170,000 doses according to the Governor's team are enough to cover all the nursing homes and healthcare workers in the state - who fit within the first tier.
I am one of those neurotic souls who finds this sort of information comforting. Also I'm fascinated by it - I read Virus Hunters, Hot Zone, and various pandemic and virus non-fiction books way back in the 20th Century. And I love sci-fi novels that deal with pandemics and how to resolve them.
I remember listening intently to my Aunt K about H1N1. I like seeing how people solve complicated problems and puzzles. Games and competitions - on the other hand - I find boring and don't see the point of.
The Governor, at any rate, is at his best when he's in "information" or "educator" mode. And he's very good with the fussy and headache inducing NY press corps.
And..admittedly he won me over when he addressed one of the annoying reporters statements about crazy workplace. The reporter (who I'm willing to bet works for either Newsday or the New York Post, most likely Newday out on Long Island), asked what he thought about the seven idiots who got arrested for claiming 100s of thousands of dollars in overtime. The Governor looked her in the eye and said, "So we have what seven people who got caught trying to defraud the system? Out of how many employees? 70,000? There's always going to be a few bad apples trying cheat the system. No matter what profession we're in. I know I used to prosecute these cases as Attorney General. The way you fight it is you put something in place that will catch them in the act - so they won't try it again. There's a saying, locks on doors, keep people honest. We just had a few bad apples and they got caught. Next question?" He's used to this idiotic reporter - she's the same one who keeps asking the same dumb questions about the nursing homes, after he's told her repeatedly that the private nursing homes - the state can regulate but not do much about.
During COVID, my respect for the journalistic profession has gone downhill.
There's too many marketing folks in that field. They ask dumb questions. Misunderstand and misinterpret stuff. And piss me off. Don't get me wrong, the Governor is far from perfect - I've a love/hate relationship with my Governor (actually I think everyone in NY probably does, mother says that his father was kind of the same) - but the reporters are often idiotic. I like the Times reporters best - they ask better questions, which is why I'm subscribing to the NY Times and not the others. NY has a lot of newspapers by the way.
Per his email, tonight:
Hospitalizations due to COVID continue to increase throughout the State. The total number of hospital beds in NY is about 53,000—currently 35,000 of those beds are occupied by patients, about 4,000 of whom are COVID patients. For context, at the height of the pandemic in the spring, we had about 19,000 people hospitalized with COVID.
The next stage of the battle with COVID is going to be vaccine distribution and vaccine acceptance. The vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel. We just have to get there, and we have to get there with as little loss of life as possible. We must do our best to keep the virus from spreading any further. Wear a mask, avoid gatherings (both indoor AND outdoor), social distance and wash your hands.
Here's what else you need to know tonight:
1. The statewide positivity rate ticked up to 4.84 percent yesterday. There were 9,855 positive cases from 203,440 tests reported yesterday. The positivity rate in the micro-cluster focus areas was 5.91 percent. Excluding these areas, it was 4.49 percent.
2. Total hospitalizations rose to 4,063. There were 783 patients in ICU yesterday, up 41 from the previous day. Of them, 377 are intubated. Sadly, we lost 61 New Yorkers to the virus.
3. The State is launching 150 new rapid testing sites in partnership with Prescryptive Health. The partnership will help expand testing capacity in areas across the State where testing access is limited. Residents can find participating sites, schedule a test, receive results and follow-up with licenses clinicians directly from their mobile device. All testing sites will be searchable on the State's COVID test website and appointments for these sites will also be available at www.prescryptive.com.
4. I will sign an Executive Order expanding eligibility for New York State's COVID Rent Relief Program and reopening the application window. This Executive Order will expand the program's eligibility so more rent relief can be provided to New Yorkers and additional details will be available in the coming days. "
We're all closely watching the hospitalizations. According to the NY Times over 323,000 people died this year of either COVID or COVID related issues, or because of COVID. According to the Johns Hopkins database, it's 276,148 deaths. How much you want to bet we're at over 300,000 by the end of this year?
The NY Times has a cool little interactive guide to show you when you could receive the test or how many people come before.
This was my result:
" Based on your risk profile, we believe you’re in line behind 23.0 million people across the United States.
When it comes to New York, we think you’re behind 1.8 million others who are at higher risk in your state.
And in Kings County, you’re behind 271,000 others."
Personally, I'm willing to go last. I don't need it as badly as the families and others in my building.
Enuf on that.
The next few months are going to be tough. It's always hardest at the end. All those dumb platitudes make sense: "It's always darkest before the dawn", or "things have to get worse before they get better".
Crazy Workplace
Not a lot going on. That's going to be the hard part about the weeks and months ahead. A lot of my work is dependent on and generated by Federal and State funding.
Oh well, it's easier to be bored at home than at work. And I can always come up with stuff. Also I've two on-call release contracts that will keep me busy, plus change orders. And I can organize electronic filings. Plus sign up for computer courses.
I don't think they'll cut jobs.
Chidi thanked me for answering one of his questions quickly and in a useful and informative manner. He said I should be a manager.
Me: Eh, no. I'd have to attend meetings and do reports. I'm happy just helping folks and doing my job.
Chidi: You're like Mayo, and great helping people - it's a good way to be, and makes you a great asset to the team.
Family
Mother told me that niece tested negative for COVID. Thank you, Universe.
Yes, it's an odd world we live in that we're all thankful she has mono. That'll teach her to make out with a cute boy at a movie theater. It could have been worse - could have gotten COVID.
Other odds and ends
1. Apparently the NFL is not being as successful completing their season as everyone else. I discussed with mother (who actually watches Football) and she agreed. The Denver Broncos played without any of their quarterbacks with disasterous results - it went down in history as the worst game ever. (Not being a huge football fan, and having built up a dislike of the Broncos over the years - this amused me to no end.) Honestly? I don't know why they thought playing football during COVID was a good idea. Basketball - I wondered about - but it was at least done in a bubble, which you can kind of do with Basketball. Football not so much. And Football unlike Baseball is a full-on contact sport. There's no way you can play that sport successfully during a pandemic, come on.
2. New York has been having problems with huge house parties. Over the weekend some nitwit rented a house out on Long Island and had a huge party with over 400 people. The neighbors and the owner of the house called the cops and reported it. They'd rented it on AirBNB, and the owner saw them partying via his security cameras and called the cops on them.
3. Trump wants to pre-emptively pardon his family members and lawyer, Giuliani or is considering it. Which begs the question - if you pre-emptively pardon people - doesn't that mean they are guilty of something? I think they should let the States go after Trump and his family. He can't pardon himself on the State level just the Federal level. This basically means that while he can escape Federal Prison, not necessarily State prison. And trust me, the States are gearing up to do just that. The States hate him - regardless of which party they happen to be associated with. New York, California, New Jersey, Michigan, Washington, Oregon, Georgia, Mass, and a few others may battle it out on who gets to throw the book at him. I'm guessing New York will win - their Attorney General has been building her case against him and his family for the last four years.
I think he knows this - it's why he's contesting the election, and orchestrating a scam on his supporters to obtain enough money for his legal fund.
According to mother, Ivanka spent hours in a deposition regarding the inaugration fraud. Apparently they stole money from the 2016 inaugration bank. So he has a reason to want to pardon them.
Me
In order to get the newest Citrix update - to access remote computer, I had to update my Mac's operating system again. Which I'd been procrastinating, mainly because I was happy with the current operating system. I didn't need any upgrades. Plus Apple Software Upgrades take forever. You have to download the damn thing, then install it. The installation took forever and I worried during it - that my computer would crash. I had a panic attack when the computer refused to come back on for about an hour. It came on. It didn't crash. It worked. Thank the universe and then some.
I hate software updates.
Also, did laundry - 4-4:15 pm on Thursdays is turning out to be a great time to do laundry. No one was done there. And I didn't see anyone until I was almost done with the dryer - some lady and her kid came down at 5:30 to do theirs.
Plus side of working remotely - is no commute. And I can do laundry at 4 pm or right after work. As opposed to when I get in the door at 5- 5:30.
I'm going off chocolate bars, let's see how long I last. I started craving them today and its only been a day.
While doing laundry, and working, and making up my bed clean...I was listening to the audibook version of Ibrahm Kendi's How to be an Anti-Racist, which the author reads himself. I'm impressed by it and pleasantly surprised. While I have a few minor quibbles, for the most part I agree with him and what he is saying resonates. He states that anyone can be racist. The problem is that we racialize behavior and don't treat people as individuals as opposed to members of some preconcieved racial group. And how he had to get past his own racism to see this. And how gender, transgender phobia, homophobia, etc were all versions of this.
That we needed to attack the societal definitions of racism, the racial policies that negatively impacted all people, and to not define people solely based upon race, which is at best a construct with no biological basis.
I've also discovered that audio books are working for me at the moment. This surprised mother - since I have issues with podcasts and audiobooks, and a kind of listening dyslexia. But oddly it's not bothering me that much. While I am struggling more with visual dyslexia. The mind is a funny thing - it's not always consistent.
no subject
Date: 2020-12-04 06:45 pm (UTC)I really don't understand this need to have orgies, conferences and social gatherings. Some days I think COVID is tailor made to take out crazy extroverts.