/data/universe/

For lots of complicated reasons today I masked up and went to the grocery store to do our own shopping–the first time in a month.  I got there right at opening (assuming restocking was most likely to be completed then and the crowds the smallest).  There were purchase limitations on some items and no stock of others (tough luck on adult Tylenol), but I snagged most of what I was looking for, most importantly a bag of flour.  Despite the new CDC guidance only about a third of shoppers were wearing masks, and even fewer workers.

We’re finally getting some warmer weather, so later in the day the oldest and I went for a bike ride around Magneson Park.  Presumably to minimize the number of people in the park, most of the large parking lots were barricaded.  There were still plenty of people, though, and my son only intermittently remembers that he’s supposed to keep distant from others.  So it ended up being somewhat stressful, and I wondered if it was a reckless move: after a month of zero contact with anyone but immediate family, today we encountered tens of people (albeit briefly, in passing, outside)…  It’s hard to judge risk.  So far I have managed to keep a lid on latent tendencies towards mild OCD (I’m not scrubbing grocery boxes yet), but reading about what’s happening in the hospitals makes me start to feel a little twitchy.

Pro cyclists did a virtual Tour of Flanders.

Well, this seems to complete the story about what’s happening to the federal stockpiles of PPE (purchased by the taxpayer): they are being given (?) to private middleman distributors and sold to the highest bidders!