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Day 94: COVID-19 Lather, Rinse, Repeat
I am at a loss for words. Each day I try to focus on something interesting or useful in the progress of the epidemic, but more and more I seem to just have the same thoughts repeating through my head that have been reflected in past posts. Government has imposed a health strategy on most of its citizens. Compliance is pretty good although somewhat blind in the sense that we don’t quite know what and why we are doing it. Are washing hands good? Of course, it has the benefit of reducing the spread of all sorts of things totally aside from the effect it has in retarding the spread of infection for COVID-19. Is physical distancing good? Well, most of the time unless someone needs a hug. But are we endangering lives when we hug? If so, by how much? In other words: the low hanging fruit of public health has been reinforced and is providing benefits at the margin. These benefits are general and non-specific to the epidemic.
Then we move on to the things that are truly targeted at this epidemic: shuttering businesses, banning gatherings, and demanding people stay home unless its to go to a place of concentrated viral risk such as the grocery store. Sundance has an interesting commentary on the permitted traffic to grocery stores.
If the #1 at risk industry has operated, essentially without disruption and with almost zero substantive mitigation, while carrying the largest population exposure rate, then all other less-exposed business operations would have significantly less operational risk.
And I come back to why? It is at this point that I am caught up in the “lather, rinse, repeat” cycle. The epidemic is supposed to be a health problem, not a political strategy. But we are fed narratives, not provided answers. It’s like a nation of drivers all waiting on the side of the road for our mandatory blood-alcohol tests and to find out whether we will be permitted to drive on down the road or have our vehicles impounded. Shut up until the officer comes by to administer the test. Be patient, we don’t care if you have somewhere to go. Public safety demands it.
[Note: Links to all my CoVID-19 posts can be found here.]
Published in General
I very much appreciate your dedication to this series, but I admit that, watching the climbing number on each new headline at some point started asking myself, at what point will you hit personal mental health issues from staring into the maw of this thing day after day. Stay well, friend.
A majority of Americans, who are mostly unaffected by the shutdown, are happy to continue the shutdown. The tyranny of the majority.
Sundance link does not go anywhere useful :)
Montana is more or less opening back up this weekend.
What world do you live in? I can’t imagine that there is anyone who is not affected by the shutdown. Shopping? No personal interactions with persons outside your own household? Shortages of necessary supplies? Unaffected and happy? Really?
If that was satire, it certainly went right over my head.
And I’m sure that if we were all pulled over and sitting in our cars, AOC would point to the decrease in air pollution – and traffic deaths! A twofer! – and declare it all good news and we should obviously all stay just like that. So many problems solved by this virus . . . .
I am still getting paid, but the loss of personal freedom for myself and my family burns. We are all being prudent, but are utterly sick of it. We want to see our friends and church members in person. While I am still being paid, this shutdown sucks. And I am sympathetic to those not being paid.
Here is the link.
Nearly there already. Isolation leads to depression. And I’m starting to get there.
“Yes!” She says with a growl and a whimper.
Anger and sadness seem to concomitant at this time.
At this point what can we do other than try to stay sane? I’m working from 6:30am to 5pm or later every day, sometimes I start earlier. My work is mostly looking at the computer, meetings with people either using voice and video or simply chat. It’s starting to wear on me.
The left never lost its focus: Agenda über alles.
The funding battles were a victory for Pelosi in forcing massive new funding to go to unrelated pet projects. She compounded that victory by killing additional funding for small business relief because the left knows that
(a) there will never be a clear endpoint—the bug is out there and new infections and deaths will occur regardless of further lockdowns;
(b) further lockdown risks lasting economic damage;
(c) another depression would be a spectacular opportunity for leftism;
(d) even if they are unable to prolong the shutdown to economic suicidal levels, they can use an MSM mantra of “not choosing dollars for big business over lives” to make every loosening come at a high price—nice little industry y’all have going there, be a shame if it had to die just because you aren’t unionized, green and financially supportive of the left.
The left in the UK is already playing this game, calling for a “reorganization” as a condition of re-opening. See,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/21/northern-mayors-call-for-economic-rethink-after-coronavirus-burnham-rotheram
There are millions of government employees who are affected in relatively minor ways. Now, many federal employees live in Virginia and Maryland and are more inconvenienced by their idiot governors but they voted for them, after all.
Interesting bit of news. France is not passing out nicotine patches as smokers are less affected by the virus, contrary to early reports.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-8246939/French-researchers-plan-nicotine-patches-coronavirus-patients-frontline-workers.html
The virus is thought to perch on the surface of the lungs. It may well be the smoke itself in the lungs disrupting the virus’ cycle, rather than anything related to what’s in the bloodstream.
Smoke for your health, people!
Why close down schools and colleges?
Students have the lowest risk of infection and almost zero probability of being hospitalized/ICU/death.
Clothing is an essential item.
We never should have shut down urgent care clinics and hospitals for non covid 19 maladies.
Delaying elective surgeries has endangered lives. If you delay ‘elective’ long enough, it’s no longer ‘elective’, it’s an emergency
Many hospitals and clinics are on the verge of bankruptcy.
The goal of flattening the curve (for 15 days) was to not overwhelm hospitals.
The irony is we may have fewer hospital beds when this is over.
We should make micro-economics, physics and statistics mandatory for all colleges and universities — if you want federal funding, all students, faculty and administrators must take intro to economic, physics and statistics.
or vape
nicotine is bad for plastic surgery FYI
Well, have laser surgery then!
alexandria occasional cortex
one of Andrew Klavan’s best punch lines
We all have to be a little crazy to join Ricochet?
I know a few members including myself are dedicated to this series so it doesn’t all fall on one person, @rodin
I should pay better attention. Glad to hear it.
That would be friggin hilarious.
Are you telling me I picked the wrong week to quit smoking? Darn it!
The bug is not a pandemic, and unless the impeccable common sense approach of the Stanford Univ study is refuted by someone of their caliber, of independent funding, not corporate funding, so since COVID is merely a serious illness, we need to demand to re-capture the old normal and quit pretending that it is important to fall for Bill Gates’ notions of conquering the world.
I have talked to a number of people, including my sister and wife, who want to be nowhere near any hospital unless they have a dire emergency. The hysteria may kill off part of the healthcare system,
While your wife and sister may no longer wish to be anywhere near a hospital (and I am of the same opinion,) we are most likely losing tens of thousands of our fellow Americans who were scheduled for surgeries to remove tumorous growths, for heart surgery, for transplant surgeries. Those activities are no longer occurring. So it is not only killing off the entire health care system – it is killing off real people.
Even if it saves only one life, it’s worth it.
I remember waking up Good Friday feeling as if huge burden had been lifted. I remember thinking to myself, ‘the Terror has lifted.’ Most of us had been past the worst peaks. The burdens remaining are man-made. In some states worse than others. Some of the things I’ve seen written for rules are ridiculous and/or downright silly.
understandable… I delayed getting my shot for whooping cough and tetanus (once a decade) until after this soap opera is over. I also wanted to get LASIK this year, 20/20 vision in 2020