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I have done very little writing of late; not even to talk to friends on Discord or Wandering Shop or Twitter. I feel as if my mind has very few thoughts worth either sharing or keeping for my own reference later. At best, I am a sounding board, reflecting other's ideas back at them with some bonus encouraging noises.
But the world is undergoing a pandemic, and maybe it is worth preserving what this is like for me.
In many ways, the word "pandemic" is much more terrifying than the current disease. There have been other pandemics in my lifetime; ones that were never taken as seriously as this one. Swine flu. Avian flu. AIDS. Okay, AIDS got taken pretty seriously, eventually.
The colloquial use of the term "pandemic" is less "global outbreak of the same illness" and more "a disease with a high death rate that a huge percentage of the population has caught." That hasn't happened yet. If we are lucky and cautious, it won't happen.
My sense is that, despite the chaotic ineptitude of the US federal government, as a people -- perhaps even as a species, though the world is too big for me to have a feel for the whole -- we are being cautious. Businesses are allowing or ordering people to work from home, if their job duties permit. People are cutting back on travel. Cities and countries are cancelling and prohibiting large events. My city has not yet had a confirmed case of COVID-19, but our mayor proclaimed a state of emergency on Thursday, and prohibited any event of over 1000 people.
The city's advice is otherwise low key: wash your hands, don't shake hands, avoid/consider avoiding large events if you're in the high-risk pool (weak immune system, older people, etc.) Nothing more radical has been suggested, like "avoid restaurants".
Some countries -- most with a lot more confirmed cases, granted -- are being much more cautious. Closing all restaurants. Restricting the number of people in grocery stores. Customers keeping their distance in lines, and letting the cashier clean the register station between each customer.
The line of "the US has few confirmed cases" does very little to reassure me, because so far we're not really testing for it to speak of. It looks like 16,000 people so far have been tested? And there have been 1600 cases. That was on Friday; it will have changed by now.
But there have been sick people everywhere. There have been cases found in all 50 states. It's like -- if you find a cockroach in your house, you never think "surely that's the only one."
Hordes of twitter bots swarm in to comment disparagingly about "overreactions" whenever any preventative measure is announced. And of course, we'll never know whether or not a given measure was unnecessary. We'll only know if it turns out to have been insufficient. Being cautious feels like a win/win to me: either things get worse anyway and it's obvious that caution mitigated the harm, or things don't get worse in which case OH THANK GOODNESS.
I mean, given a choice between "a bunch of twitter trolls gloat that they were 'right' because the pandemic disappeared" and "thousands more people die" I WILL TAKE THE GLOATING SURE THAT'S FINE BRING IT ON.
My bank sent out a letter on COVID-19, and one of the lines was "most of us have never been through anything like this". I haven't, either, in the sense of "doing social distancing while everyone else was worried and also doing it".
But when the doctors were trying, for the final time, to collect stem cells from Lut, I did something kind of like this. For three weeks, I only left the house to take Lut to the doctor's office. I might have gone for groceries a couple of times? But I didn't go to work, or to a restaurant, or a theater, or a coffee shop. It was a lot of time at home.
I remember finding it more relaxing than I had expected. It was difficult -- there was a lot of driving to the doctor's, for one. But staying home all the time didn't bother me that much.
Lut and I have not yet made a formal decision of "let's just not go anywhere or do anything." But Lut is a cancer patient with a weakened immune system: squarely in the high-risk pool. I have been taking more precautions than I would otherwise: I haven't gone to the Plaza to play Pokemon GO since the Team Rocket event last weekend. I haven't gone to a coffee shop, or to the mall to walk. I did go to the polls to vote on Tuesday, but I brought my own pen, did not sit down, and disinfected everything afterwards.
I have been going outside to walk sometimes, but I've walked either around the neighborhood, or along a low-traffic trail. When I walk in the neighborhood, I often skip the hotel pokestop because there are usually a few people hanging out around the hotel entrance -- smoking, waiting for a shuttle, loading or unloading, etc.
On Friday, I was almost out of milk, so I went to Costco to get more. I didn't really want to, because Costco never has enough cashiers and there's a long wait to check out and leave the store even on weekdays. But I figured I'd go early and it wouldn't be too bad.
I arrived at 10:20AM, about twenty minutes after opening.
The parking lot was full.
I have never seen the parking lot full at Costco, not even on a Saturday in December. On a typical weekday in March, it's not even 20% full. I drove past rows of parked cars on my way through and out of the lot, stunned. I parked at a mostly-empty lot in an office park across the street, and went for a walk on the nearby trail. I did not go to Costco; whatever that mob of shoppers was panicked about, it definitely was not "catching an infectious disease via casual contact". My decision was part "I don't want to be in a store with 500 other shoppers" and part "I don't want to spend an hour and a half getting milk."
I went to HyVee instead; their lot was unusually full but not packed, and as usual, there was a register with no line when I went to check out. The local HyVee is the sort of place that inspires confidence, as if management has it together and has staffed to ensure that both their employees and customers will have a good experience.
I bought another 5-pack of mac & cheese while I was there; the crowds made me wonder if I didn't have enough food at home (I did) and maybe I should get some more. It's fine. I like mac & cheese and it will keep.
Saturday morning, I went for another walk in the neighborhood, partly because I was pacing while I talked on the phone anyway, and partly so I could do some battles in the Pokemon GO battle league. I discovered while I was out walking that I had an unexpected battle available to me, and wondered if Niantic had changed the qualifications. They had; they'd removed the need to walk before doing a battle at all.
Niantic had already made other changes to make the game easier to play at home. Every pokestop spin gets you a gift (to a max of 10) now, instead of every third spin or so. This helps in two ways: you don't have to spin as many stops in order to send gifts to your friends, and your friends can send you gifts more easily. Since receiving gifts gives you stuff, you don't have to go to stops as much for it. They also halved the distance to hatch eggs, increased the spawn rate of pokemons in all areas, doubled the length of time that incense (which attracts pokemon) lasts when you use it, and made an almost-free one-time purchase of a 30-pack of incense available to all players.
Today, Lut wanted to go out to eat. We settled on me picking up food to go instead. The CDC says that surface-to-person transmission is possible, but person-to-person transmission is believed the primary method. So takeout is not "no risk" but it does appear to be "less risk".
I hear friends online report "I've got a cold, but the online doc/phone call to clinic says it's not COVID-19" and I think "we're not testing." Statistically, a cold or the flu is much more likely than COVID-19, and it's not that I don't think a health professional can make a good educated guess about it. But it bothers me that the testing shortage remains acute in the US, weeks after China rolled out widespread testing.
My electric company announced that they will not be turning off service regardless of nonpayment. A couple of hours later, the water company announced the same thing. AMCTheaters announced that they are capping all theaters at a max of 250 suits or 50% of capacity, whichever is lower, so that people can spread out easily within the theater. Most theater chains are doing likewise. That sounds like self-preservation as well as consideration; ticket sales are down anyway. The collateral damage is enormous.
There are hundreds of changes like these taking place, little steps being taken to help people through the crisis and to mitigate the risks. It gives me hope. We'll get through this.
But the world is undergoing a pandemic, and maybe it is worth preserving what this is like for me.
In many ways, the word "pandemic" is much more terrifying than the current disease. There have been other pandemics in my lifetime; ones that were never taken as seriously as this one. Swine flu. Avian flu. AIDS. Okay, AIDS got taken pretty seriously, eventually.
The colloquial use of the term "pandemic" is less "global outbreak of the same illness" and more "a disease with a high death rate that a huge percentage of the population has caught." That hasn't happened yet. If we are lucky and cautious, it won't happen.
My sense is that, despite the chaotic ineptitude of the US federal government, as a people -- perhaps even as a species, though the world is too big for me to have a feel for the whole -- we are being cautious. Businesses are allowing or ordering people to work from home, if their job duties permit. People are cutting back on travel. Cities and countries are cancelling and prohibiting large events. My city has not yet had a confirmed case of COVID-19, but our mayor proclaimed a state of emergency on Thursday, and prohibited any event of over 1000 people.
The city's advice is otherwise low key: wash your hands, don't shake hands, avoid/consider avoiding large events if you're in the high-risk pool (weak immune system, older people, etc.) Nothing more radical has been suggested, like "avoid restaurants".
Some countries -- most with a lot more confirmed cases, granted -- are being much more cautious. Closing all restaurants. Restricting the number of people in grocery stores. Customers keeping their distance in lines, and letting the cashier clean the register station between each customer.
The line of "the US has few confirmed cases" does very little to reassure me, because so far we're not really testing for it to speak of. It looks like 16,000 people so far have been tested? And there have been 1600 cases. That was on Friday; it will have changed by now.
But there have been sick people everywhere. There have been cases found in all 50 states. It's like -- if you find a cockroach in your house, you never think "surely that's the only one."
Hordes of twitter bots swarm in to comment disparagingly about "overreactions" whenever any preventative measure is announced. And of course, we'll never know whether or not a given measure was unnecessary. We'll only know if it turns out to have been insufficient. Being cautious feels like a win/win to me: either things get worse anyway and it's obvious that caution mitigated the harm, or things don't get worse in which case OH THANK GOODNESS.
I mean, given a choice between "a bunch of twitter trolls gloat that they were 'right' because the pandemic disappeared" and "thousands more people die" I WILL TAKE THE GLOATING SURE THAT'S FINE BRING IT ON.
My bank sent out a letter on COVID-19, and one of the lines was "most of us have never been through anything like this". I haven't, either, in the sense of "doing social distancing while everyone else was worried and also doing it".
But when the doctors were trying, for the final time, to collect stem cells from Lut, I did something kind of like this. For three weeks, I only left the house to take Lut to the doctor's office. I might have gone for groceries a couple of times? But I didn't go to work, or to a restaurant, or a theater, or a coffee shop. It was a lot of time at home.
I remember finding it more relaxing than I had expected. It was difficult -- there was a lot of driving to the doctor's, for one. But staying home all the time didn't bother me that much.
Lut and I have not yet made a formal decision of "let's just not go anywhere or do anything." But Lut is a cancer patient with a weakened immune system: squarely in the high-risk pool. I have been taking more precautions than I would otherwise: I haven't gone to the Plaza to play Pokemon GO since the Team Rocket event last weekend. I haven't gone to a coffee shop, or to the mall to walk. I did go to the polls to vote on Tuesday, but I brought my own pen, did not sit down, and disinfected everything afterwards.
I have been going outside to walk sometimes, but I've walked either around the neighborhood, or along a low-traffic trail. When I walk in the neighborhood, I often skip the hotel pokestop because there are usually a few people hanging out around the hotel entrance -- smoking, waiting for a shuttle, loading or unloading, etc.
On Friday, I was almost out of milk, so I went to Costco to get more. I didn't really want to, because Costco never has enough cashiers and there's a long wait to check out and leave the store even on weekdays. But I figured I'd go early and it wouldn't be too bad.
I arrived at 10:20AM, about twenty minutes after opening.
The parking lot was full.
I have never seen the parking lot full at Costco, not even on a Saturday in December. On a typical weekday in March, it's not even 20% full. I drove past rows of parked cars on my way through and out of the lot, stunned. I parked at a mostly-empty lot in an office park across the street, and went for a walk on the nearby trail. I did not go to Costco; whatever that mob of shoppers was panicked about, it definitely was not "catching an infectious disease via casual contact". My decision was part "I don't want to be in a store with 500 other shoppers" and part "I don't want to spend an hour and a half getting milk."
I went to HyVee instead; their lot was unusually full but not packed, and as usual, there was a register with no line when I went to check out. The local HyVee is the sort of place that inspires confidence, as if management has it together and has staffed to ensure that both their employees and customers will have a good experience.
I bought another 5-pack of mac & cheese while I was there; the crowds made me wonder if I didn't have enough food at home (I did) and maybe I should get some more. It's fine. I like mac & cheese and it will keep.
Saturday morning, I went for another walk in the neighborhood, partly because I was pacing while I talked on the phone anyway, and partly so I could do some battles in the Pokemon GO battle league. I discovered while I was out walking that I had an unexpected battle available to me, and wondered if Niantic had changed the qualifications. They had; they'd removed the need to walk before doing a battle at all.
Niantic had already made other changes to make the game easier to play at home. Every pokestop spin gets you a gift (to a max of 10) now, instead of every third spin or so. This helps in two ways: you don't have to spin as many stops in order to send gifts to your friends, and your friends can send you gifts more easily. Since receiving gifts gives you stuff, you don't have to go to stops as much for it. They also halved the distance to hatch eggs, increased the spawn rate of pokemons in all areas, doubled the length of time that incense (which attracts pokemon) lasts when you use it, and made an almost-free one-time purchase of a 30-pack of incense available to all players.
Today, Lut wanted to go out to eat. We settled on me picking up food to go instead. The CDC says that surface-to-person transmission is possible, but person-to-person transmission is believed the primary method. So takeout is not "no risk" but it does appear to be "less risk".
I hear friends online report "I've got a cold, but the online doc/phone call to clinic says it's not COVID-19" and I think "we're not testing." Statistically, a cold or the flu is much more likely than COVID-19, and it's not that I don't think a health professional can make a good educated guess about it. But it bothers me that the testing shortage remains acute in the US, weeks after China rolled out widespread testing.
My electric company announced that they will not be turning off service regardless of nonpayment. A couple of hours later, the water company announced the same thing. AMCTheaters announced that they are capping all theaters at a max of 250 suits or 50% of capacity, whichever is lower, so that people can spread out easily within the theater. Most theater chains are doing likewise. That sounds like self-preservation as well as consideration; ticket sales are down anyway. The collateral damage is enormous.
There are hundreds of changes like these taking place, little steps being taken to help people through the crisis and to mitigate the risks. It gives me hope. We'll get through this.
