I was doing some tidying up today…
…and came across one of those neighborhood freebie papers from about a month ago. You know, the ones that list concerts and meetings, and have ads for restaurants.
Ordinary stuff. Unremarkable.
Except today it seemed like an ancient relic from a lost civilization. Concerts? Meetings? Restaurants where you sit down with people around you, and have a leisurely meal?
I believe all of this will come back. I just don’t know when. And even though it’s only been a few weeks that we’ve been in this isolated state, time’s a funny and elastic thing. It seems longer.
I feel that way even though I know that this is nothing compared to what people have gone through in the past. Hey, tell it to those who endured the Siege of Leningrad, for starters. To them, our current situation would feel like paradise. Internet, cell phones, supermarkets nearly full – what’s the problem?
And yet there is a problem. Part of it is the unknown nature of the wait. Part of it is dealing with cooped up children (I don’t have that problem, but many do). A big part of it is isolation and loneliness, as well as economic stress. Still another part is the fact that it’s self-imposed, and perhaps unnecessary but perhaps necessary and effective – we just don’t know.
And still another part of it is political. I’ve noticed that many of the people I talk to on the phone have increased (or in some cases begun) their casual sniping at Trump; the assumption is that of course he’s stupid and incompetent and perhaps even malevolent. Those of us on the right continue to worry that this will set the stage for more government control in the future, and/or for a loss in 2020. Reading the paper or listening to cable news only fans the flames, so that’s pretty much out (at least for me).
And yet the virtual world is at our fingertips. We can watch concerts and performances online. Movies and TV shows, lectures, documentaries. Take a course. Read the classics. Reread the classics. Watch funny videos about dogs and cats.
It’s not the same as being outside among crowds of people, or traveling. But it’s still a blessing to have.
A great blessing – yet I spend hours and hours a day reading nothing but COVID-19 stuff. I think it started as a way to assuage my anxiety about, not so much the virus itself, but our response… but now it feels as if it’s approaching OCD.
We’re lucky in almost every way – my husband left his job back in December, with a good exit package, so we’ve not been stressed about either money or the challenges of being productive from home. But just starting about yesterday, the days all look too much alike all of a sudden – banal, wearying, nowhere near bad enough to make us glad we’ll still be alive at the end but not good enough to make us glad we’re alive right now. My joie de vivre needs a boost. I was just commenting to my husband today that I need to learn something – something unrelated to all this. To have another topic of conversation if for no other reason.
The thing that bothers me the most is seeing the sad puppy eyes of people at the grocery store hiding behind oversized masks. The media has whipped people into a frenzy. It angers me.
Many of us have lost our touch with one another.
I love you (or at least what you represent!)
It’s the uncertainty. Involving every aspect from medical (do they even know what’s what?) to political (how will it affect elections?) to economics both personal (will my job still be there after this?) and macro (can you really shut down an economy this large and then restart it just like that?).
All the damn open ended shutdowns and irresponsible off the cuff comments about this going 6,12,18 months are very disheartening.
We have plenty of food in our house, we always purchase ahead and now since my wife and I are in our mid 70’s we have a daughter who is local with her husband and they bring us perishables. Our two daughters and our son with their spouses have been doing well and they should be able to weather through this but each of them has their story. One of them is son in Colorado who’s wife is an RN at the hospital in the county which is number 6 in the nation with largest group of people with the virus. She just finished a rotation of 12 hour days and has time off so he spent part the day delivering food to seniors who cannot get out after working at home with a seven year old daughter not leaving since Monday.
This is a completely different world at the start of this month from the start of last month and for better or worse it will be a big change in the way people look at their lives and take things for granted. All of us are writing our stories about the 2020 Virus and I plan to appreciate the little things when this is over.
Clicking through the channels and stumbled across an interesting video interview with the guy who does the “bar rescue” series who made an interesting prediction.
He asked, after the Pandemic passes, “who is going to want to sit as close as you used to in a restaurant”?
He thinks that customers will want to sit further apart, and this he estimated would likely mean that restaurants would have to space tables further apart, and that would result in something like a 30% reduction in “covers” and, thus, a 30% decline in profits.
On a totally different subject, I also ran across a partial (other than simple hoarding) explanation for why toilet paper is in such short supply, and this explanation makes eminent sense.
There are two main product lines—TP for commercial use—businesses, government, restaurants, etc. and TP for home use.
The demand for commercial TP has dropped dramatically, while the demand for TP for home use has had an astronomical rise, and production of that product line has not yet caught up with demand.
Yes, take the opportunity to do something you’ve always had in the back of your mind to do but haven’t gotten to for whatever reason. Down time opens up its own opportunities. For me, it was taking an online course on Shakespeare. I was an English major in college but didn’t get a good course in the Bard. I recently discovered Univ. of Virginia Prof. Paul Cantor’s 25-lecture series on Shakespeare’s Politics, which offers an in-depth look at Cariolanus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. You learn not only Roman politics but Roman philosophy, so necessary to understanding what Shakespeare was doing with these plays. Here’s the link if you think you might be interested: https://thegreatthinkers.org/shakespeare-and-politics/lecture-course/
Snow On Pine,
I saw that toilet paper story also that was very interesting and something I had never thought of before.
The isolation for many seniors is really rough though and not getting better. I saw my mom today for the first time in a month and took her to doctor appt (which they came out to my car to draw blood) and that was the first time she had left her facility since March 2.
They had adjusted the rules a little by letting them walk around a little if they keep a distance from others and had a couple little activities where they were well spaced but they abruptly stopped those after a staff member got too close to a resident.
Physically my mom is good but the mental wear is the thing. The days are all the same and the routines all the same. Easy to just sleep the day away and can tell she’s been asleep when we call and she has what we call her just woke up voice.
And it’s another month of it at least.
But did people buy all that toilet paper because they knew they would be doing all their “business” at home and not at work? A story that makes sense after the fact when some panic may have been part of the behavior at the time?
It was an interesting article. But you can’t use 1s and 0s like pages from the Sears Catalog; wait I have a McMaster-Carr catalog! Problem solved.
We live in Tucson and have had very little inconvenience. If I lived in NYC or Boston or Chicago, I would be worried. When this began, I saw the early report on Hydroxychloroquine and made sure my family had a supply. I’m one of those doctors “hoarding” the drug that was widely mocked because Trump mentioned it might help. My wife takes it for her rheumatoid arthritis. My son is a paramedic and is diabetic ( insulin dependent) so I made sure they had some. I see few masks in Tucson but it is wide open spaces and hot and dry.
I wonder…even before the coronavirus hit, I’d been a little surprised by the eagerness with which people (especially women) have been willing to transition from brick-and-mortar shopping to on-line shopping. With 2 or 3 months of mandatory on-line shopping, how many are going to want to go back to the physical shopping world? How many people are going to want to go to the mall for half a day and wander from store to store?
What about movies? Will people really want to sit right next to each other…or, for that matter, to be closely packed with 200 other people on an airliner?
And there will definitely be a continuation of work-at-home for a nontrivial number of people, I think.
David Foster,
Malls may have received there death blow. How long can Macy’s, JC Penney hang on when they were struggling before? Going to be a lot of empty storefronts I fear.
Movie theaters I don’t know. There is something to be said for a big screen and the shared experience.
Restaurants are the other one. I think they’ll be mostly ok in the long run but the culling will be big there also. Maybe you can do take out if you’re close to home but what if you’re not?
Griffin:
It sounds very hard where your mom is. And I think it’s also harder for the very old (as opposed the kind-of-old, like me) because so many don’t really know how to use the internet. Or they have eye trouble that makes it hard to read.
Then again, maybe the internet would just frighten them. Of course, they can get frightened just by watching CNN or MSNBC.
I think the future depends on how this plays out in the short to mid term. If the doom falls significantly short of predictions, a significant chunk of people will not be happy: “We sat in the house for 1-2 months and destroyed our economy over that?”
For the crowd putting on gloves to go the grocery store, there may well be a lot of room for disillusionment.
neo,
Yep, my mom doesn’t do the internet and her vision isn’t great although she can see to read and has read something like seven books in the last month.
We’ve been discouraging her from watching the news. She watched some ABC special the other night and called and told me not to go out because I was risking my life. Sensationalistic reporting has a price.
Today was the first time I have even been there and they had warnings all over the entrance and I couldn’t go in at all but she was waiting for me at the door. The staff wasn’t even wearing masks until a couple days ago now are all masked up even though we have asked why they weren’t and they said experts say it’s not necessary which was ridiculous. It made no sense that cooks, waiters etc. were going home to kids, roommates etc. and coming back but I couldn’t go in with a mask. Just stupid.
And remember this isn’t a nursing home and virtually all living there are at least somewhat active (or were anyway).
I’m not sure if it made the national news but the Kirkland nursing home that really kicked things off here in WA was fined by the state $660,000 so I’m sure all these facilities are in mortal fear in many ways.
Griffin:
I believe all such facilities are very frightened. Frightened of an outbreak, frightened for residents AND staff, frightened of lawsuits, frightened of fines, frightened of going out of business.
It’s so sad that social life, which is so helpful if you’re old, is off limits for these people and they have fewer resources to deal with it because of their age and situation and health.
Then there’s the story of Sir Isaac Newton. He was 22 in 1665 and he had just received his bachelor’s at Cambridge, when the Great Plague (bubonic) struck London.
Cambridge closed, so Newton toddled off to the family manor in the country, where he stayed for two years, idly inventing calculus and two major theories of optics and gravitation…
So what have you been doing lately? 🙂
I was wondering about the counter-factual, what if the Dowager Empress of Chappaqua had been elected President, where would we be now? First off, the southern border would have been wide open for the last three years with millions of people from who knows where and with a wide range of diseases pouring in. It would have been racist and xenophobic to stop the traffic. Next, the influx from China of people with the virus would not have been stopped until much later, if at all, for the same reason. The spread of the virus would have been pooh-poohed and stupidity like DeBlasio and Pelosi encouraging people to celebrate Chinese New Year in China Town would have been applauded. And lastly, the Clinton Global Initiative would have swelled into the billions from foreign donors, cough, cough, the Chinese, who could and would pull the Empress’ strings in a way that would be damaging to the US and beneficial to them.
huxley:
This, perhaps?
Griffin/neo: My sister works as a senior nurse at a high-end senior living community. She’s late-sixties and has asthma. She is terrified of getting Covid and possibly passing it on to others.
Plus there’s a real shortage of protective gear so her employer is only issuing nurses one mask per week! (I can’t get over that one.)
Anyway, my sister is close to retirement and decided to get a leave of absence for six weeks. She feels bad about leaving her post in such a time, but she felt she just couldn’t do it.
Here’s to the Thin White Line of medical personnel.
neo,
Yes, in my mom’s case the lack of face to face interaction is the most distressing aspect of a bad situation. She was so excited to get out and see the world and she never got out of the car but just seeing different things was a big lift emotionally.
As a family we have been following all these rules strictly as we’ve just decided to go all in but in another month or god forbid two I don’t know.
Tough one all around.
Huxley,
I noticed a couple of the staff I saw through the door today had on the cloth masks with patterns on them which many people are making/wearing.
It’s pretty damn obvious that very high up people like the surgeon general were flat out lying to the public about masks and it never made sense I don’t think.
Questions at the presser today. “Who dropped the ball?” “Why don’t we have enough masks?”
I was livid.
Griffin/anyone: So it seems masks are coming for all of us.
But where do we get them? My sister’s story suggests it won’t be easy if professionals find them in short supply. I can easily imagine wandering into Wal-Mart and finding those shelves bare.
I see people in ABQ wearing bandanas around their lower faces like bank robbers and I read some authorities saying that’s better than nothing.
This seems like a good thread on which to contribute my personal experience during the past three months or so.
At 3:15 am Christmas Day (very early morning) I got The Phone Call from Mayo Clinic in Phoenix that they had a kidney for me, as my existing ones had lost most of their functionality. (I live on the California coast, but on Christmas Day there were almost no autos or policemen on the road, so, after hurriedly packing, we went as much as 90 mph and were in Phoenix with little time to spare. [Hurriedly, because we had *never* imagined they would come up with a good match so soon!])
Part of my post-transplant regimen entails ingesting chemicals that fight rejection of the transplanted kidney. Problem is, they fight rejection of any foreign object — including viruses. Getting the picture?
I finally got released for good on February 5th (long-story-short). But I started in lockdown mode back on December 25th! I was to avoid any places with a lot of people, especially people close by, and no restaurants at all until two months after transplant (February 25th) — anything sounding familiar here?
For January and most of February, my wife did the shopping and all that, while I waited in the car or just stayed home. For maybe ten days beginning near the end of February, things were actually beginning to get back to what seemed a little closer to normal, in spite of my knowing that my immune system was/is seriously compromised, and in spite of the spread of the Xi Jinping virus (my preferred name for it) already dominating the news. And now, voila, it’s quasi- house arrest again, for how long this time, who the h#ll knows?
The kidney they found me has proven to be *super* — a fantastic Christmas present, albeit fraught with much tribulation at first. I’ve been doing very well, with very good lab results, and consequently, I have had the pleasure of having some labs and medical appointments canceled as non-urgent and others satisfied by telephone.
But except for those ten or so days, it’s been quasi- house arrest since Christmas. It can be done!
M J R: Great news! I didn’t realize you were in trouble. Boy, if the timing had been a couple months later, I hate to think.
Just to say I always appreciate your comments.
The Decameron? Oh darn, I once had the chance to watch Boccaccio ’70, a movie based on a few novellas (all based on a woman’s point of view, from Decameron?) by Boccaccio, but I passed on it. The movie chapters were directed by Vittorio De Sica, F. Fellini, Mario Monicelli, and Luchino Visconti.
____
My wife and I have been taking daily 1.5 hour walks. We had been sticking to the more remote walks on the coastline, but yesterday with the very high winds we went towards the previously crowded areas because it’s sheltered. It reminded me of “On the Beach” (1959). There were a few bicycles and a couple people instead of hundreds.
____
My relative holed up in Manhattan had been taking Spanish lessons. Now his teacher is out of work, so my relative decided to pay his teacher for private lessons, via Skype I presume. Both are very happy compared to the alternative.
Huxley,
Yeah, here in western Washington where we just had a March that was colder than January I’m still wearing my winter jacket so when in stores I put the hoodie on zip it all the way to my nose and go for it.
Obviously not perfect but can’t hurt.
Om. Having a McMaster-Carr catalog speaks volumes about you. 🙂
M J R: Congrats.
M J R:
So glad you’re doing better!! Keep healing.
Hang tough MJR,
My wife’s good friend never got her kidney transplant and is no longer with us. The Mayo clinic people are great. I spent a couple days with my father at the Rochester location.
MJ R,
Thanks for sharing your story. It was very uplifting.
Hang in there!
Griffin,
When my daughter was disappointed about having to leave her College I remembered the story of Newton and used it to cheer her up, suggesting she may too make some great discovery during this plague.
Yeah, here in western Washington where we just had a March that was colder than January I’m still wearing my winter jacket so when in stores I put the hoodie on zip it all the way to my nose and go for it.
Obviously not perfect but can’t hurt.
Griffin: So, the “Bazooka Joe” look!
Or rather, as wiki informs me, Joe’s good friend Morty, whose trademark was a red turtleneck that he wore unfurled up to his nose for some reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazooka_Joe
I never understood that strip or why anyone would wear a turtleneck that way. It looked kinda icky to me.
MJR
Great to hear you are on the mend.
Neo–thanks for reminding us of the Seige of Leningrad.
OldTexan wrote,
Wow! They are a blessing!
MJR, Good for you, My wife had a friend with increasing renal failure and I referred her to USC where she has had a transplant and is doing well.
Worth listening to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00jE-KyFOPw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4TIZSbOHlE
https://www.pscp.tv/w/1kvKpXQXVrZKE
Worth reading
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2020/04/statist-responses-to-covid-19-an-interview-with-michael-fumento/
neo on April 3, 2020 at 7:48 pm said:
…
Then again, maybe the internet would just frighten them. Of course, they can get frightened just by watching CNN or MSNBC.
* * *
I have decided that on my 75th birthday I will quit reading the news.
Until then, Neo’s stuck with me.
Yes, it does seem odd the things that we took for granted and seem different now.
I consider myself among the lucky ones in this world. As I still have my job (for how long, who knows?) as I work from home with all the proper equipment I need to remain productive and, therefore, valuable to my company.
Even though I am complaining to friends and family that I think a lot of this is overblown doomsday scenarios, all in all though, no matter what our US government does or doesn’t do, no matter what the news media claims or doesn’t report; I am still grateful that full blow panic hasn’t hit the US to cause scenes like this in India where migrants (workers just trying to get back home) are sprayed with disinfectant like vermin along side a road:
South China Morning Posts reports of migrants in India being sprayed with disinfectant
At least for now I am grateful that this kind of panic and nasty behaviour hasn’t hit us here in the US yet.
I’ve been telling family and friends that I am more scaried of the panic than the virus. I hope that I am being paranoid on this account and this kind of behavior doesn’t get us.
To neo and associated neo-phytes (-philes?) . . .
Thank you *very* much one and all for your well-wishes. I am humbled.
Years ago, I commented here on how the comments at neo’s place were generally a cut (or more) above those at other blogs, and nothing’s changed in that regard.
TommyJay, very sorry about your wife’s friend. No question, the Mayo Clinic people are tops.
Mike K, I know there’s a very long waiting list for a kidney in California (which is why I got myself “listed” in Arizona). I’m pleasantly surprised that USC was able to accommodate your wife’s friend.
huxley, I had not considered that aspect of the timing. [whoa!]
Rufus T., I appreciate your appreciation.
*All* you guys, thank you very much (again)!
Your friend,
M J R
There’s been a change at the Google AI page. The ads are at the bottom, not the top, of a search result, and the formatting has also changed, and the algorithm seems to have gone to pre 2015 Flat Earth theory days.
fghdcp thanks for the tip, Gives me something to look forward to after finishing Robert Harris’ magnificent trilogy on the life of Cicero.
I thought I was going to learn about ancient Rome but it closely resembles today’s political situation.
M J R hang in there. We enjoy your commentaries
MJR,
All the best to you and yours. Prayers for your full recovery.
My husband and I are losing quite a lot due to the quarantine, but your story put everything back in perspective.
I am in a band. All of our gigs out to about 3 months were cancelled about 2 weeks ago. Some of my bandmates are in multiple bands and rely on gig money to pay their bills along with part time, day jobs they string together. Hopefully they qualify for stimulus and unemployment, but the gig money is often “under the table” stuff, except for musicians who bother to form an LLC, or other legal entity.
Morning update: The US active cases continues right along the sigmoid curve; I would hope that the government would announce this as it should become obvious by Tuesday or Wednesday that the curve is flattening, *IF* the data trends the same way. For my own state, despite the small jog two days ago, CT has now gone right back to exponential. NY remains linear which is what is helping to pull the US curve down. My attempt to predict total deaths is now overcounting where it had 8200 total yesterday but the actual was 7400.
The reports in the thread are great; especially MJR. For myself, I remarked to my wife that this has been the worst 3 months I can remember. It started the first week of January when on black ice we almost totaled our car, we were fine. We were on the way to a preop appointment with a surgeon. I’ve had diverticulitis for 10 years and last year it went into “cascade”. I had the colon resection on January 15. That went well but in the process they found 2 polyps in my bladder.
Just prior to my surgery my BIL’s mother died. My other BIL was discovered with prostate cancer and started radiation treatments. 3 weeks after my surgery our wonderful dog of 14 years had to be put down due to cancer taking over his body. We’ve had over 20 pets in our marriage but this was the hardest. Last week my wife’s cousin died, and no one can do anything as all such things as funerals in NYC are shutdown. And 2 days ago I had those bladder polyps removed, now I wait for 2 weeks for good news or bad. And then there’s this damn virus.
Many years ago I held a private pilots license and aviation has always been a second love. The gap between my salary and flying costs stopped me from flying, but I have thousands of hours on computer flight sim, and even 3 very successful hours in a level D 737 sim. Flight simming keeps me sane. When I retired last year I immediately began volunteering at the New England Air Museum where I again get to play with real airplanes; of course that outlet is now shut down. I played guitar a lot back in college, so when I retired the old stratocaster came back out and I’m working my fingers back into shape. So I do the news, read Neo, do a 1-2 hour flight, and then an hour of guitar. IF the weather is decent my wife and I go play 9 holes as the golf courses are still open, they just spread the groups out more. I think it’s their contribution to keeping the public sane. Stay well everyone, especially the mental side of things.
Morning update: The US active cases continues right along the sigmoid curve;
Much appreciate your number crunching. I wish I could do that with the data on deaths and hospitalizations, but I’ve long since forgotten.
The above comments are why neo is my favorite blog. No one posting is panicking and most seem to be doing even better than OK.
I’m glad mjr and physicsguy and others have good health related stories to tell.
SWMBO and I have been retired for a few years so worrying about a job is not an issue.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago my wife is an amateur seamstress. Now she is thinking about making some cotton face masks for us and the kids as social pressure seems to be building so that soon wearing them outside the house will be … um … The Patriotic thing to do.
And thanks again to physicsguy for crunching the numbers for innumerate folks like me.
Stay well and no fighting!
It’s good to hear how (and what) everyone is doing. I assume my household will adjust in time. Even me…
My husband and I used to be mudloggers (if you don’t know what they are, it doesn’t really matter – suffice it to say that where we were working, the shifts were 12 hours on, 12 hours off, until the well we were drilling was finished – a couple of weeks, generally – and then sit around at home until the next well started). Sometimes we were working the same well but opposite shifts and saw one another in the doorway of the job trailer; sometimes we were working wells at about the same time but in different areas, living in hotels; and sometimes we were both sitting around at home. Our time together tended to be either 0% or 100%. And the transitions between these two states were rough. When we’d both been out on wells and came home, it took at least two or three days before I could be around him without wanting to cuss him out (a lot of cursing was another side effect of this job) because I’d become so accustomed to being alone; then, when another well would start, I’d be crushingly lonely for the first two or three days because I’d become so accustomed to being joined at the hip with him.
So I figure I’m just struggling through one of those transitions right now, only with the entire world outside my house instead of just my husband. My own family life has been pretty smooth – I’m enjoying the company of husband and the two kids still at home. When things open up again, I predict that I’m going to go through a period of profound misanthropy, while simultaneously wanting to eat in a restaurant for every meal!
Tuvea, yup, my daughter and I are going to make masks today… to keep Mrs. Grundy off our backs. We’re still going to be Socially Distant. (Bets on whether the phrase “social distancing” makes it into the OED next year?)
We’re lifelong hermits by preference, and both having retired years back, long ago settled into a daily routine that requires very little physical contact with the outside world. My idea of a good day always was one in which I had no obligation to go out. I was always trying to talk people into telephonic meetings to avoid travel.
My concern is for the economy and the usual assault on truth and logic, always ready to erupt. I still believe we’ll find a balance of treatment and social-distancing techniques that will allow most people to get back to work fairly soon. The economic hit will be painful and will require a lot of charity to relieve for a good while. I hope against hope that people will draw sane conclusions about political and social policy going forward.
For those interested in exhaustive data this site is excellent. Though there is no good news yet.
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
Another small update. Thanks to this link from Neo (https://www.thenewneo.com/2020/04/03/if-youre-interested-in-a-site-for-nyc-covid-statistics/) I was able to maybe get a handle on “serious cases” vis-a-vis “deaths”. Assuming “serious” also means hospitalization and using the data from NYC, it looks like about 14% of those serious cases result in death. Which means those docs and nurses are doing an amazing job keeping 86% alive and recovering.
What that new number also means I can answer Mike Bunge’s question a bit more accurately. Yes, the US will reach 100k deaths around May1, but again that assumes no change in the rate of growth of serious cases. If the curve flattens, then that date will extend further out.
I just heard a half hour ago, in the Gov’s briefing, that Andrew Cuomo’s modelers are predicting a probable 5 to 7 more days before NY hits its peak illness from the epidemic. Worst case is 14 days.
The general quality of these models is poor, but a one week projection should be much better than a one or two month projection.
Xylurgos (1:47 am),
Thanks for the good words.
Molly Brown (2:04 am),
God bless; “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous [wo]man availeth much.”
(KJV James 5:16)
physicsguy (8:57 am),
You take care! What a sequence of events! ( sigh . . . )
[Me, I’m a “mathguy”, but whose skills have declined somewhat since my retirement eight years ago (and I suppose even before that).]
M J R
Montage,
That is a very good site. Thanks!
I started to write a comment here an hour and a half ago but I wanted to get my thoughts arranged a bit better so I loaded my old 13 yr. old Brittany dog in the back seat of my truck and drove around our town, light rain about 49 degrees and our county seat, down town, Boerne, Texas, is a ghost town, we are a destination affluent town and on a usual Saturday, even in the rain there would be lots of people shopping and enjoying wonderful local restaurants however, some stores have already closed buildings are empty and for sale/rent signs are up. Running local owned businesses was never easy.
The media seems to be treating this world wide virus event as something else Trump dropped the ball on and they need to make him fess up to his sins so he does not get re-elected and then the United States will be fine again, as long as this is Trump’s fault. As for me in my 7.5 decades of life and some wisdom it will never be what it was, this will not be an unplug and restart and there will have to be so much debt forgiveness to prime the pump that it might take a quarter of a century to get back up to speed again, I do hope I am wrong and no matter who’s WHO’s fault this is,
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
For me the metaphor is that once you have broken something it never goes back the same again, not ever. Sorry for the not anticipating an easy, happy ending to this event but I would rather face up to the facts, stop assigning blame and rebuild with what we actually have to work with.
Yes, the US will reach 100k deaths around May1, but again that assumes no change in the rate of growth of serious cases. If the curve flattens, then that date will extend further out.
The curve is already flattening. From covidtracking.com, new hospitalizations increased by a factor of 7 from 3/21-3/27, and by a factor of 2.1 in the most recent 7-day period. The NYC data show that more strongly, even though one has to stop at around March 30 because of the data lags. But new hospitalizations are basically flat in the 800-900 range daily over 3/23-3/30.
Jamie — I actually do know what a mudlogger is! My dad, a petroleum geologist, drilled a couple of wildcat wells in the Matanuska Valley north of Anchorage in ’69 and ’73. I remember miles of fanfold paper with EKG-type squiggles that smelled like mimeographs. Unfortunately neither well showed at commercial levels, so I didn’t grow up rich, dash it all.