Will We Ever Get Back To "The Before Time"?

As of April 17, about 20M Americans were filing for unemployment.  As Stephen Colbert said, too bad Donald Trump isn't one of them.

Trevor:  "Wash your hands.....before you pick your nose."
Trevor again:  "Remember that you can save toilet paper by peeing in the shower."

A new verb:  "Smize" - Smile with your eyes (necessary because of people using masks in public)

Today (April 20) is the beginning of week 6 of shelter-in-place around here.  Being retired, there is plenty of opportunity to get into a rhythm of my own and not be impacted by what's happening outside.  But this is different.  There isn't much going on anywhere to allow distinction of days.  It's pretty much the same without work at home or online school for me.  But now, there's literally nothing to distinguish one day from another.  I'm still riding most days.  We shop once a week.  Caryn is home and either does some work or reads if not doing at home exercise.  I don't see her going off to crew or karate, which helps define a day of the week.  Maybe garbage pickup?  That is on Friday and hasn't changed.  We can't even look forward to a short trip or visitors or a happy hour.  So it's a bit weird not being able to say where or when we are in this undefined continuum of COVID time.

More observations:

- Masks are now required for everyone outside (except when exercising).  A whole new fashion sense is growing up around them.

- Businesses are still hanging on, but many have taken to asking for financial help.  GoFundMe is pretty common.

- Public parks and trails continue to be crowded on weekends (and other times).  People need to get out.  Some people are protesting to open up their cities or states and trump is encouraging them, even though this could lead to more deaths.  Smart, eh?  Georgia says it's going to open some businesses and then trump says that's irresponsible.  Which is it, Donald?

- There will be books written on more administration fuckups.  There are some glimmers of hope, but the man has been using the daily press conferences as rallying events.  It's all about him, even as people die.  One press conference lasted over 2 hours.  He showed a video to the press corps showing how many good things he's done since this started.  It's all about me......

- Only Trump could take a moment in history when it should be "us" (the world, not just the country) vs. a common enemy (coronavirus? aliens?) and make it him vs. everyone else.  He's found that this is the right time to be fighting against other countries, his scientific advisors, state governors, the WHO, Congress, Democrats (politicians and voters) and likely many more.  As the April 21st NYTimes headline accurately said "How Abortion, Guns, and Church Closings Made Coronavirus a Culture War".  Amazing.  Just fucking amazing.  Ughhh.

- As of April 24th, the US has passed 890,000 people infected with COVID 19 and 50,000 deaths.  And what does Trump do?  He repeats some incorrect and possibly deadly news about a remedy, as espoused by some wing nut evangelical, that says people should inject and/or swallow bleach and disinfectant.  WTF????  Is this for real??  This is for real.  We're at a new low in many ways and he's leading us there.  Un-fucking-believable.

- On a better note, the roads are still pretty quiet, so we now sometimes see people riding bikes who rarely or never ride.  Including little kids with their parents.  On the road, not just on trails.  I hope this opportunity keeps them interested and it sticks.  It really does prove that people want to ride, but are typically scared off by traffic.  If we can just keep some of the safety after we return to "normal times", maybe these folks will continue to ride.  (Side note:  gas (oil) use is so low that the bottom is falling out of the value of oil on the stock market.  It hit -$37/barrel.  Yes, a negative value.  Even with cheap gas, people are riding their bikes!)  A few cities are closing streets to through traffic (residents can drive there) to allow for more bike and pedestrian space with social distancing.  74 miles in Oakland.  ~10 miles in San Francisco.  Minneapolis and Denver too.  And then there was a nice article in the SF Chron by John King explaining that Berkeley has had a similar system in place for close to 50 years by virtue of the bollards on certain streets.  Seems this could be an unintentional, but useful model for other cities!

What will the next couple of weeks bring?  Stay tuned.

Anther 10 Days....Another World

Masks were not necessary unless you were sick for the better part of 3 weeks.  Now masks are suggested for anyone leaving their house.  But not the N95 masks....save those for medical workers.  Make your own, they say.  This was suggested by trump, who wasn't wearing a mask, while standing next to members of his COVID 19 Task Force.  Idiot.

California is currently looking better than NYC for infections and deaths.  But is that because we haven't tested as many?  Or because of early SIP?  It'll take time to know why.

It's very hard to keep up with the daily changes.  News abounds.  Or should I say, information abounds.  But is it all real???

One big story is the relieving of the CO of the aircraft carrier Teddy Roosevelt (Brett Crozier from Santa Rosa), for writing a letter (that got out to the papers) notifying the Navy that there were 100+ sailors on board with the virus.  He was protecting his crew and gets dumped.  Hmmm.  Fallout is just starting.  By the next day (April 4), he had 90,000 people supporting him online.  Book deal?  Movie?  Egg on your face, SecNav??  (Well, the next day, the SecNav resigned.  And the CO is now infected.  Oops.)

I'm constantly daydreaming about the changes happening as I write this blog.  I don't think there's really anything that has NOT changed.  Many institutions, whether local, state, federal, private.  Schools from K-PhD.  The stock market.  Restaurants.  Small independent stores, large big box stores, malls.  Performance spaces.  Nightclubs.  Literally ALL sporting events, from kids to the pros are cancelled.  Public offices - closed.  Parks, all the way up to National Parks.  Even tolls (just pass thru....we'll mail the bill to you.)  Any family related event from dinners to funerals (lockdown).  Many, many jobs, especially hourly jobs.  Gig jobs - gone.  The ability to work from home doesn't count you out.  If there's no customers to sell goods to, there is no need to manufacture stock.   The essential jobs include medical, police, fire, grocery stores, post offices, liquor stores (I think), bike shops (!), public transit and gas stations.  Speaking of public transit, because so few are working or traveling, public transit is getting into a fiscal bind with 90% or so of it revenue stream down.  So, schedule cuts are happening.  Regardless, it's unfathomable the breadth of impacts this thing has wrought throughout the world.  Yes, the world.  There's no escaping it for the foreseeable future.

Today, I heard a story about a 51 year old healthy NYC guy who had run 83 marathons over the past 20 years who was infected and died, just days later.  This is unusual, as it typically infects older, compromised people (many smokers).  But it's certainly not exclusive to that demographic.  The sign of the times remains "Stay home and if you cannot, than stay at least 6 feet apart."

PS  April 9 news.  Now we're at 16.6M people nationally claiming unemployment.  Up from 10M just a few days ago.  Yikes.

Adding to new words/phrases for this "special time", we obviously have "zoom" for video chatting.  But it's also become a verb.  And how about "contact tracing", which is the process of collecting peoples' location info using their cell phones.  Actually it's not location, but with bluetooth, they can see track if one person was (past tense) near someone who was later infected.  And then they can notify each other.  In other countries, I think they actually tracked people with their GPS, which could be more nefarious.  But don't forget "contact tracing".....I think we'll all know about it soon.

The Administration keeps pulling stuff out of its ass during this pandemic.  It seems to be all about getting the economy going again, regardless of whether people will die.  "Let's get back to work!  Let's have sports!  It's a tradeoff we need to take!"  For a tally of all the BS, it's best to check this webpage out.  (In fact, it's a good to catch up any questions about the whole presidential term.)  https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/

Risk.  It's something we in the US use a lot in finance, environmental cleanups and I'm sure many other disciplines.  In cleanups, the world I worked in for 24 years, the policy was particularly strict in that a very small cancer risk from a spilled compound would dictate how a cleanup was triggered.  Sometimes it seemed like overkill (a teaspoon of TCE in an Olympic sized swimming pool was too much.)  But I also understood the concept behind it, that these cancer causing compounds shouldn't be in water delivered to people who had no choice.  It was not voluntary, so yes, it had to be cleaned up no matter how low the levels seemed.  I believe the same concept is being applied to COVID 19.  The world has shut down because governments have pretty much agreed that the estimated infections and resulting death tolls without intervention would be beyond acceptable.  Other viruses cause deaths.  Cigarettes cause deaths.  Car crashes cause death.  But many of those are either by choice (smoking) or not high enough.  It was estimated that COVID 19 would cross a threshold of unacceptability.  So here we are, in week 5 of shelter in place, at least in California, with no real end in sight.  Deaths have happened here in California.  But NYC, where SIP didn't happen early enough, the death toll is much much worse.  So maybe it's actually working here.  Do we open the society, economy, venues soon?  Not so soon.  If the curve is flattened, that's great.  But the asymptote takes awhile to get low enough to avoid a recurrence (that happened with the Spanish Flu in 1918).  So, we are still in the world of unknowns, fighting against those who only worry about money.

Cycling?  Oh, cycling!  We're still doing ok here with cycling.  Luckily, since that's our medicine.  I've been refraining from riding with too many people, taking most rides solo or with Caryn or just one other person.  It's not a hard and fast rule or even required.  I don't know.....I just worry about perception more than actual risk.  Seems like a slap in the face of so many people stuck inside.  (Even if they are allowed outside.)  So, while I continue to ride, but hopefully in an acceptable manner.

Wow. That was only 10 days?

Ok, so I posted back about 10 days ago, giving you my take on the state of things as affected by the coronavirus.  The world is different.  Again.  Because 10 days have passed.  Here are more random thoughts and observations.

- 51,000 people have died in 181 countries.
- Over 1M people are infected.
- The rise in both is exponential in many locations and is just arriving in 3rd world countries, where health care is minimal.
- 10M people in the US have filed for unemployment, more than anytime since the Great Depression.
- The Shelter-in-Place is getting more serious here in the US, especially in Calif.
- Even though our clueless, ratings driven president seems to be finally getting the seriousness of this pandemic, many of his followers (and enablers) continue to believe this is a hoax, which will lead to more infections and deaths.  Fucking amazing.
- The definition of what is "essential business" is shrinking.
- The 6' rule continues.
- Few people are working (well, unless you can work at home)
- Exercise is still permitted here, but in some countries (Spain, Italy), you cannot leave your house except to get food.  Dogs cannot even be walked in some places.
- The stock market is acting in whipsaw fashion, rising and falling by up to 2000 points in a day.
- It's current level is still about 30% down from its peak, which was just weeks ago.
- Roads are very quiet.
- Air pollution is down.
- Crime is down (even criminals are stuck home).  At least for now.
- Concern about domestic violence is rising.
- Shopping is a challenge, with lines to keep the crowds down in the stores and there's still a run on paper products (especially TP).  Unbelievable.
- Assisted living homes are off limits to visitors or people getting out to avoid potentially infecting those who are highest risk.
- Internet sensations are being created, as people have lots of free time on their hands to make crazy videos, etc.
- Neighbors are more friendly with meetups at 6pm, bear searches for kids, and singing at various hours.
- People are thanking those who continue to work (medical, grocery stores, police and fire, mail, etc.)
- No end is in sight, except to say its at least going to be in effect in California until May 3rd.
- Our trips to Paso Robles (April) and DC (May) are cancelled.  Europe in July is officially still on, but we're having our doubts.
- We can still ride bikes, but just today, San Mateo county has asked that people ride no more than 5 miles from home.  Solo riding is encouraged to help with social distancing.
- The biggest concern about cycling seems to be the concern that if you crash, you'll be taking a hospital spot and that means you'd perhaps be exposing yourself to Covid (and taking a bed).
- What's next?  Who knows?  We'll do our best to do our part to be safe.  We continue to ride outside and exercise inside as well.  For now.
- Be well.