March 29, 2020

by eric

We went on a longer walk today, up to the “schoolyard playground” near our house where we’ve whiled away countless hours.  We knew it would be closed, but seeing the play structure wrapped up in caution tape and the gate locked really brought the change home.

On the way home we did the social distancing dance on the sidewalks with others out on walks.

New York City is dealing with more 911 calls than during 9/11.  People are fleeing to remote areas and encountering resistance from the people who live there due to the obvious risk of accelerating the spread.  And while I get that it’s scary to hear about the state of the hospitals in NYC right now, do people think their prospects would really be better if they find themselves with bilateral pneumonia in some small rural hospital?  (and out of network, natch)

Continued positive news on the caseload in Washington State (although there are already internet idiots claiming this means the threat was overblown and the reaction too severe).  I do wonder if we’re due for a small surge: while there were moderate distancing steps taken here early, things were only shut down completely very recently, and there were certainly large groups of people congregating at parks and having parties just a couple weeks ago–those cases would just start appearing now.

Hopefully soon serological tests will allow us to determine everyone who has been infected, and finally nail down some of the transmission numbers.  In the meantime amateurs continue to fill the void and influence federal policy.

I realized we hadn’t started our car in three weeks, so I took it for a short drive this evening to get the fluids moving.  U-Village was as empty as if it were Christmas morning.