3.20.20
Well, here we are. I have always thought in apocalyptic terms, but have tried to temper my thoughts with reality. For instance, when events like Hurricane Katrina and the Fukishima fiasco happened, I got over it pretty quickly. Arab Spring, not so much.
Now, there is something loose in society that we haven’t defined – Covid-19. What is it and where is it are the pivotal questions in the world right now. Leaders need to be very clued in and in communication with each other.
So, where am I? I started chronicling my situation a few days ago, but that file has disappeared, so I’m starting over.
Whoo boy, what a time. What the actual f is going on? On the one hand we hear apocalypse, on the other, salvation is right around the corner. I live in a very rural part of Tennessee. I drive 1.25 hours each way to work, where we see every sector and manner of human.
I feel like shit…aches, sore throat, temperature all over the map, diarrhea…cough and runny nose. I’m very confused as each of these complaints could be attributed to another cause – allergies, a bachelor cooking for himself for 4 days…
But, we will soldier on. I’m not going to work, for sure, for the foreseeable future. That is thanks to my company’s great president and his foresight. For the time being, getting paid is not a concern. I can do my bit by sitting on the couch.
I’m game to do anything I can for my company, but my job is entirely based on handling stuff physically. I check documents to be sure they meet the requirements for recording with the courthouse. I also run all over town to pick up and deliver documents or bank deposits, maybe get a signature…This means #1) handling hundreds of pieces of paper on a given day, #2) going to the courthouse to physically hand off the documents for recording (think several doors to open, elevator buttons, a flood of humanity), and #3 running all over town, in and out of every bank…
One of those banks announced a quarantine this week. One of their employees had a positive test. Specific branch, shut down, a block from our office. I’ve been in and out of there no telling how many times in the past 3 weeks. (Update 4/02 – No one in that branch tested positive, but someone in the building did).
About Tuesday, 3/17, I started feeling weird – sore throat, diarrhea, just off. Wednesday, I bought a thermometer. Thursday AM, I recorded a temperature of 96.3. At 11:00, my temp was 98.9 That is a difference of 2.6 degrees. If one had an average temperature of 98.6, and it was up 2.6 degrees, it would be 101.2.
Now, it’s runny nose, aches and pains, cough, fever, diarrhea, chills, sweats, etc. But, there is no opportunity to be tested. Chinese virus – Fuck you, Mr president. This is no time to take cheap shots.
Today, 3/23, dizziness has entered the repertoire of potential symptoms. Last night, while on the phone with a coworker, I had a substantial bout of shortness of breath. My pulse was pounding in my head. This went on for about ½ an hour. Tried calling a telemedicine provider associated with my insurance, was on hold for a long time then took the option for a call back. By the time the call came, I was in bed and missed it.
Here we are…3:45 pm on 3/23/2020. There is a pandemic going on. The statistics aren’t monumental, yet, but are forecast to be so.
I’ve thought a lot about apocalyptic events, probably more than most, definitively more than is healthy. Doomsday Preppers – yeah, that caught my attention. 2011 brought disaster and change in greater volume than had been seen in a while, on top of the under recognized damage from the 2008 meltdown.
Now, we are in a weird position – Leadership is compromised, if not questionable. Finances are totally up in the air. And, lots of people may get very sick. Is this the one? The event that resets the clock of civilization’s advance?
This seems different, far surpassing 9/11 in its ability to produce chaos. 9/11 was a big deal, the most devastating event of my life if I’m honest, and this is far, far worse. The current situation reintroduces the element of the unknown. 9/11 created a huge cloud of unknown, but it passed quickly, within a couple of weeks before ground was found.
This shit, not so much. We have no idea where bottom is. I have no doubt all efforts are being spent in producing vaccine, testing, treatment options, but this is spooky to say the least.
The hundred year flood, which has often ballooned into the 500 year flood in recent events (Houston), is cause for pause here. Imagine that diseases run on similar timelines. What was the killer 100 years ago? How has life changed since then? Might it reemerge as some weird variant? Strapped in? Ready for what may or may not be coming down the pike? 500 years ago? What was going on then?
My rough calculation is the flu of 1918 and the plague. Not very promising. Our moment is a chance to be incredibly aware of what’s going on around our persons, and how to both protect ourselves and help our neighbors. That is the balance which must be struck.
The president isn’t going to do it. Your senator, representative, state legislator isn’t going to do it. You are going to do it. You will do what you do, and yell at the next rung up the ladder to do better. Eventually, that will reach our local government, who are incredibly tuned in and on the ball here in Franklin Co, Tn.
I’ve been wrestling with a phrase which I’ve long since forgotten. Instead, a statistic: First 100,000 cases of coronavirus took 67 days. The second 100,000 took 11. The third 100,000 took FOUR days. Let that sink in.
As we begin dying, I want to be fully apprised of your preferred means of disposal – concrete containers within containers, laden with chemicals? Clean sheet, buried in the woods? Cremation- backyard or licensed business?
We are all poised with these questions now. Add to this the daily processing of what surfaces I’ve touched, when have I been close to someone? How are my fellow humans my downfall?
Sweet Jeebus, this is getting tiresome. Every wave of everything (news, social media, music, random thougts) feeds immediately into my mental maelstrom of rapid fire thoughts, beginning with, is this the end. For those short of sight, I said my primary thought is “IS THIS THE END”?
That means, in relative order:
What is the local response? What are my options for the next 24 hrs? Who do I talk to about my health?
What is the reporting on the disease in my town, county, state? Hamilton Co, Tn reported 8 cases in the media, 3 days ago, only showed up on the state page yesterday. Where is the intense local testing?
Head explodes.
My friends, please stay safe. If not safe, find out how to be comfortable, this could last a while.
A few days later…3.26.2020
Healthwise, I have been through a trough but feeling much better. This, as with everything right now, triggers secondary and tertiary questions. Had a teleconference with my insurance company provided service. My complaints were: fever (relatively speaking), chills, sweats, sore throat, fuzzy head…they went on.
And, there were a couple episodes of breathing stress – In other words, I struggled for breath. This was not a first. I am a smoker. In my most paranoid moments, is this some sort of anaphylactic reaction, as it has happened before. Is the sore throat, low grade fever, simply allergies?
Who on earth knows.
So, Monday, after things got weird (weirder than I felt comfortable with without outside medical input). I had been in contact with county health department, who referred me to personal doctor, who referred me to local ER, by phone. The ER said I did not meet criteria for a Covid-19 test and advised me to stay put.
Couple days later, more symptoms, related or not, manifested. Called a telemedicine consultant thru my insurance who said go to the ER. So, I did.
Thankfully, there were not many folks there, in the waiting room. I expected a line of some sort. Hamilton County (Chattanooga) had registered 15 cases by then, with one death. I work there. One case was purported to come from a bank where I go frequently. This proved not to be the case after several days.
So, I’m in the ER, fitted with a mask, and run thru the typical ER stuff. After which, I was ushered into a room, also expected. There, a nurse took my vitals, asked the same questions the last nurse had, and left. The first nurse swabbed me for flu and strep, both negative. Second nurse said I would be swabbed for the virus, and given a chest xray.
This was the only environment where I felt I could get the priority care I felt was needed. Upon leaving, I was informed that my ER visit copay would be $350, which I should have known. Also, outside providers would independently bill me. So, xray, 3 nurses, covid test, flu / strep test…what’s that going to cost for a working guy trying to be socially responsible?
We’ll see. The economic stimulus check might cover my medical costs – of getting checked out. There was no treatment here. What if there is a week long hospitalization, or a loss of income? Fuck, folks, this aught to be a blank check for anyone to go to the hospital to get checked out if you’re off.
I honestly don’t know what the current “stay at home status” is relative to local municipalities. I find great comfort in the ER nurse telling me to isolate for two weeks. Concrete direction eliminates a lot of guess work and anxiety.
One place we as a society made a mistake, fucked up royally to be honest, was not locking down populations earlier. My logic is this: once the shit shows up, locking down only promotes infections within that area. Prisons, aircraft carriers – people in ridiculously close contact now with positives. Guaranteed contact and infection…
But, it’s spring, a time when we, as Southerners come out of our hovels to celebrate whatever comes by with community gatherings. Kudos to the churches who are not having dinner on the grounds, holding off on services. Nothing could be worse right now than sharing a cup of the blood of our savior.
So, I’ve been trying to reorient this last week.. What to do, what to feel, what to think. Do: a concise run-through of the news in the morning with coffee. What’s going on in the world. Milestones? Avoid presidential press conferences – no solid information, potential for extreme thinking, either panic or panacea.
The challenge is tearing myself away from information, be it Facebook (valid input vs nonsense), cable outlets, state mouthpieces…The Chattanooga Times Free Press is one of my go tos in the morning. Their count for infections in the county vs the state’s are dramatically different. This morning, the state site reported 8. The Times reported 26, with two deaths.
I can manage a crisis with good information. Weather? There is usually some form of heads up, even if just a few minutes, enough to save your life or get your head in the place to deal with it. Obviously, this is impossible often, even with every technological extravagance imaginable.
Next, we have to look at where our world is now. We are in a place we have never been. I listened to a very well argued bit this morning about how we got here, why the US’s hotspots are where and what they are.
They had good answers, all dialed into myopic, academic targets. My answer: They are all on the coasts, huge hubs of travel and population. We’re hearing a lot of “Never before” and “Historic” what not. Well, we aren’t the planet we were 20 years ago.
We travel more. Our cities are bigger. Our medical system is different. IT’S SIMPLE PEOPLE: WE’VE NEVER BEEN HERE BEFORE. But, it was inevitable. Something biological was going to rear its ugly head and take a bite out of our communal asses. That’s the way it works.
In the past decade, we have had more than our fair share of societal interruptions: Fukishima and the surrounding horror, Arab Spring, Occuppy, you name it, instability is the headline right under the headline.
The environmental whirlwind is beginning to wreak its havoc. What is the missing factor in this as yet undefined equation? Economic freefall. Well, here we are.
In my humble opinion, the only solution to the global mess circa November 2019 is a huge dose of social equality. Will we finally learn that we are only as safe as the least safe among us? When this shit hits refugee camps, which we are largely responsible for, what will our answer be? Sorry, no gloves, no masks, no doctors…
My interpretation of Teddy Roosevelt’s pronouncements includes a quotation close to “If you have a complaint, and not a solution, you are just whining.” Ok, Teddy, a figure I respect, here’s my solution: Shut down the banks.
Bottom line – everything I have read says the best solution is to shut down society for a few weeks. Few is not a definitive term, one, two, three, but a summation of whatever is needed. This won’t happen if banks continue to do business as usual, which is keep doing business. Keep plugging those loans, keep making investments, keep making money, racking up profits.
No. Stop. Service individual customers . Deposits, withdrawals, business as usual. Corporate loans, expansions, etc, etc, STOP. If banks shut down, that is the beginning of a tree that forces so much interaction, businesses that have no reason to be open for a couple weeks. Yes, this will hurt. The alternative will also hurt.
Despite all the bad news right now, there is a lot of money to be made in areas like loan refinancing. Individuals and businesses can save big bucks. The banks see this, keep pushing. Close, close, close, damn the people at the table, swapping germs and exchanging paper. Keep pumping people into the courthouse, into the branch, to the closing table.
When a bank says we aren’t going to send our people to a closing, but we expect you to carry out said closing, there is a problem.
Stop.
I thank god that I work for a company, and a man, who think my well being is more important than all this mess. We shall see if all these rosy talks hold water, but I have nothing but confidence they will. I am the low man on the totem pole – courier, checker of documents, taker out of trash…
If I were a food service worker, helping support a family, I would be terrified. Nashville has been decimated with tornado + virus… If you work in a restaurant or any hospitality venue, play music, drive tourists around, my prayers are with you.
Right now, I don’t know what else to say. We are in a world of hurt. God be with you, stay safe and well, look out for those with less than you. More later.
3.27.2020 Just after midnight.
If Dylan chimes in, you know you are in trouble.
I have many faults, two of the most prevalent are thus:
1: Humor as self defense – I will, by default, make light of or be glib about a situation rather than deeply accept the fact of the matter. This may come in the form of cheeky comments or pop culture comments. Therapists have called me out on it.
2: Catastrophizing – constructing worst case scenarios in my own mind, which may or may not have any relation to reality, but put my mind on a one way track somewhere unknown.
Put these two together, and one can see a joke a minute and scratch just beneath the surface to see true terror. Right now, terror is the enemy, but it is bubbling to the surface in my world. We aren’t all going to die, there is no need to run around with our heads of fire.
But, our situation is not looking good for the near term. Whatever happens, the world will be a different place on the other side. Whether that world is unrecognizable or just different is yet to be determined, that difference will largely be determined by our (by this I mean our humanity’s, our global community’s) response to this dark cloud.
In the last few hours, I have felt a seismic shift within my self from the ability to make light of/be the least bit funny about the situation to giving it its due. This is now serious shit.
The first place my mind went on this bent is gratitude…I started a new job on March 21, 2019 and it saved my life financially. The people there saved my soul.
The office is a mélange of personalities. One coworker quickly offered her husband’s hand me down clothes, whether this was a comment on my wardrobe or not, I was grateful. She has since helped me stock up on food and offered to get more groceries and drive them the hour plus to my house. I don’t really know how to repay or even recognize that.
The one thing I know is these folks appreciate me, and I them. But what are we to do? I now worry for them as much as myself. They live in an urban situation, with increasing numbers of infections. The one thing increasing numbers of infections means is decreasing confidence in life as usual.
Decreasing confidence in life as usual is the first step in the bottom falling out of social control. That is a bit of a leap, but not much. What does this decrease mean? First, lack of confidence in the supply chain, will there be food? For now, yes.
3.27.20 3:30 pm
Thus far, this has been a rambling, stream of consciousness brain dump. Now, I’m going to try to get a little more analytical.
TN has crested 1000 cases. The US will breach 100,000 cases by the end of the day (I’m wagering). And, from the CDC’s website, just now, deaths are at 1246. We have no idea where this will go.
The economy has cratered. Unemployment applications are at historic levels. Available bailout funds are at historic levels (pending the President’s approval). This means more poor folks, more folks who can’t do what they need to do to be healthy.
States are beginning to separate from the union in their means of dealing with this thing. Florida is saying no more travelers, banning their most profitable demographic from the terrain and economy of the state. Louisiana is contemplating that Mardi Gras might not have been a good idea. New York is, rightly, flipping out.
It blows my mind that some analyses have not been made. For instance, what are the greatest vectors for spread? I would wager it is affluence. The global spread of this, I believe, could be hung on the necks of international business and pleasure travelers. By this, I level no judgement, I’m just looking at maps.
Think about it- the first hot spots outside China, in the US, were major travel centers on the west coast, then NYC. Major population centers are obviously more susceptible due to density. So now, density becomes the vector.
What does this bring to mind? Thousands of returning US citizens clogging airports on news of travel bans. International travelers rushing home with no controls, jamming public spaces in close contact. Bad.
The affluent are the most able to isolate themselves, get health care. They are also the most able to spend hospitality dollars – circulating in high density environments like restaurants, theaters. Then, the bug finds the wait staff, who quickly lose their jobs.
These people go into the population, now out of work, unable to attend to the financial requirements for health care. Soon, other populations get infected – prisons, refugee camps, the homeless. That is where the catastrophe begins, among the least of us who have absolutely zero protections, not even hand washing, forget about social distancing.
3.28.2020
We have crested crisis point, and now we will ride it out whatever it and out mean. I still don’t think total pandemonium is right around the corner, but it ain’t far away. Things could turn dramatically at any point for either good or ill, but right now, hold the course.
Staggering statistics are starting to emerge – 40% increase in NYC hospitalizations yesterday, Ireland nationalizing its healthcare system, prison releases for the most vulnerable. I don’t know where we are going, but the ride isn’t going to be pleasant.
A rough road is a rough road, it still gets you where you’re going. Your truck, your back take more of a beating than you would opt for, but you get there – the store, the hospital, the 2am booty call – you reach the destination.
Beaten up, we will look back on this and hopefully make some new decisions. I won’t go into specifics as most are pretty obvious, but our base line for how we treat each other has to change. Something, somewhere, in the mechanization of our common world has to change, dramatically.
The Call to take care of the least of these has been forgotten. Judge not has been forgotten. Father, why has thou forsaken me has been forgotten. We are headed full speed into a trial we have never experienced. What we as individuals, and as a community, country or world is a total unknown.
Our leaders are stressed, and stretched. The virus has now moved beyond affluent, coastal cities to the heartland – Detroit and Chicago. Nashville and Atlanta aren’t far behind.
3.31.20
So, we are rapidly approaching 1,000,000 cases of the disease. We have reached peak capitalism – states, municipalities and the federal gov’t are in a bidding war over mission critical supplies. This is not good.
It’s a sad state of affairs when you watch a youtube news clip and can judge when it was posted by the total count posted in the sidebar.
4/1/20
Infections globally are over 920,700. The US has over 207,000, or more than 20% of the infections. We will most likely reach 1 million infections by 5pm Thursday, 4/2. The deaths then follow, as do the recovered patients.
Right now, we as a global population, need to start the clock every day. We don’t need to litigate immense public failures on social media, yet. We need to get our ducks in a row, our shit together, and have a marching plan. We are very good at following orders, if orders are clear and make sense.
Thus far, we, as a people, have not received such orders. There have been a myriad of vague local and state pronouncements, but no guiding national baseline. The absolute dos and don’ts of what is going on. Thank god for Anthony Fouci, and even Mike Pence. Both are delivering the best information available, with no overblown, indefensible promises.
I could live without the props, the constant flashing of some print out with the national strategy boiled down to bold print.
4.02.20
For most of my youth, until high school, I lived on the edge of suburbia, the interface between residential development and something else – a forest, a farm field. Sometimes, it was at the end of my backyard. Other times, it was less than a block away. This, I realize, says a lot about what I think.
In each instance, I had a foxhole. It was a simple excavation with excellent observational or seclusion opportunities. Eventually, I had the ability to cook and store a few essentials in shelves cut from the earth. This also says a lot about the way I think.
At first, it was just boys playing war in a pine forest – berms of needles and duff to protect from/ initiate pine cone assaults. By 1978, in the 7th grade, it was training for the coming great war with the Soviets. Nuclear apocalypse? Maybe. Preparation for “Red Dawn” (eventually filmed in 1984) was more likely.
My father was stationed at Military Airlift Command Headquarters, Scott AFB, east of St. Louis, MO. MAC, now folded into Air Military Command, provided logistical support for the US military – getting shit from point A to B: people, alive and dead, fuel, munitions…
So, my peers were acutely aware of being on some targeting map in Moscow. Vietnam was still a fresh wound and now Iran exploded in revolution. It seemed civil upheaval, a new world war, was on the horizon, constantly sitting there and never advancing, but never receding.
Growing up, I appreciated what total, global war looked like, i.e. WWII. I also felt what the cold war was all about. My dad was in Vietnam or training most of my first 2 years. I remember seeing POWs arrive home on TV, and meeting them at my home. It seemed war, and the inherent sacrifice and calamity was always around the corner, and the next one would be worse than the last. It was inevitable.
But it never came. In high school, there might be a crisis on the news – invading Panama, the Faulklands, etc. But the crescendo never accelerated.
In college, I learned of other real-world catastrophes happening in real time – African famines, genocides, apartheid. Then came AIDS.
AIDS / HIV brought it all home like nothing else. People near and very dear to me lost family members. Safe sex became the rule.
And studies of past plagues, the Black Plague and the 1918 Flu, showed the true, inevitable nature of catastrophe. It will come. Like the comet, it will come. How bad it will be is largely precipitated by how we react to it.
Hubris, American Exceptionalism is not the answer.
9/11, if it taught us anything, should have taught us we are not beyond the reach of horror, and how we should be prepared to deal with that horror. I’m talking here primarily about the performance of government. In all the cases I’ve listed, the government responded very slowly, if at all, to the threat. AIDS, we saw it coming. 9/11…the opiod epidemic, you name it, the aversion to responsibility and the costs of response are the lasting lessons. There was no way NYC could prepare for the actual attack, but we knew the attack was coming, we knew that.
Quickly, in that case, we responded to the needs of those affected. Was the response adequate? I won’t be the judge. Could other measures, prior to the event have mitigated the result? Absolutely.
We will have all of history, however diminished we may be, to litigate the last few months, our status quo, our response, etc. Until the final numbers are in, this is a pointless exercise. Right now, we have to deal with what we’ve got – the information we have, the stockpiles we have, and our current leadership.
This is gonna hurt, no two ways around it. We’ve surpassed 9/11 fatalities, closing in on Afghanistan / Iraq numbers, projected to eclipse
4.10.20
Today I cried. I cried hard.
For a long time, I have prophesied that the universal rule #1 is DON’T FREAK OUT. That reaction only makes any given situation worse. The past month has pushed that philosophy hard, but has not broken it. I steeled myself to any news of the virus, took it as information, and moved on, without building in biases or conspiracy theories, tried my best to filter the crap from the data, trusted information.
I have not flipped out, so victory there. But, I have had very impacting moments which I buried to be dealt with later, or suffer the consequences of not doing so. A few weeks ago, I was out and about in Chattanooga, all hell was breaking loose, and the nation was trying to shut down. The virus was very much among us. This was about March 10.
My company was struggling to get its 30 employees the tools to work from home. The scarcity of work from home tech was such in Chatt that we had to send someone to Atlanta with a rental van to buy computers, etc. I think an entire UPS truck was filled with printers we ordered. Our company has been exceedingly proactive with this whole mess.
Anyway, I was on my daily rounds, which pass an assisted living facility. I had only noticed it previously because we have an office a couple doors down, it’s a landmark for me. Then, on March 18, I saw a hearse leaving the facility. A group of people were at the entrance to the building in scrubs, mask, and I had a seismic shift in my gut, a shift from this is all according to the programming to oh shit.
Flash forward to today, or rather Wednesday, the day I went back to work. I live in a tiny town and commute 2.5 hours per day to Chattanooga to work at a very busy business downtown. I had no idea what to expect going back to the office after 2 weeks of isolation.
The place was desolate. Traffic was light. The parking garage had its gates up, free parking, I had no idea what the lay of the land was when I got there. Though my nerves wanted me to, I didn’t throw up. The courthouse, across the street, where I do most of my business, was mostly closed, vacant. Ghost town came to mind.
The county jail is at the other end of the block. I often get hit up for a cigarette from a random person just getting out. They usually look like they’ve been through something, but don’t generally stand out. Now, they all have on cheap paper scrub like smocks. Apparently, their clothes are destroyed after they are admitted to prevent infection. The scarlet letter is apparent.
So I made it through two days of reentry. What broke me was my son. He is my best friend. I haven’t seen him since March 9 due to a cascading bunch of consequences – his spring break, in Florida, my 2+weeks of quarantine…It was killing me.
I called his mom yesterday to see if a visit was OK, social distancing in the equation, as she is fairly stringent on regulatory stuff, but a great person. She checked it out and approved it. When I called Myers, my son, I lost it. I missed him so much, was wired so tight about all the shit coming down…
Myers and I have an interesting relationship. Bottom line, if I don’t see him on regular intervals, have that one on one that I don’t have anywhere else, I get lost. When I called him to set up a socially distanced lunch date, I fell apart.
He, more than I, will deal with the fall out of all this. We will both survive, municipal water service and wifi intact, but it could have turned out very differently. After two days in the city, and two weeks in solitary confinement, I fell apart. These are not things a parent is proud of, but it is reality, the only message I want to pass on.
I was scared this might be the big one, a few weeks ago. It isn’t. But, so much of our current situation is incredibly hard to deal with, figure out, make sense of, even for the next hour of how to live life. It’s getting better, thank God. Things are getting a little more predictable, even though not more pleasant.
So, today, we had a luncheon of Shenanigans cheeseburgers, all the way, while sitting an appropriate distance apart in his backyard. We were in his family’s back garden, replete with Virginia Bluebells and Hellebores in riotous bloom, Figaro, a weird morph of bassett / golden retriever / love bug at my feet (he was happy for a new face), and enjoyed a 3 hour conversation about all that is fucked up right now and how joyous it will be when it’s over. It was chilly, but a beautiful blue sky.
I’ve wept on a few occasions over the last bit, but after a while at home, after seeing him, I just cried, and cried hard. This was the sobbing kind of crying where you can’t wipe the tears fast enough. My cheeks were soaked.
His generation is up against so much right now, easily as much as the greatest generation.
Current stats: 1,680,000 + infected, 102,000 dead globally; 500,000 + infected, 102,000 dead in the US.
God be with you all.
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