/data/universe/

Several days of emotional rollercoaster here.  Saturday the long stretch of isolation finally started to get to me, particularly as hopes of seeing family began to seem more distant.  Sunday had a few happier moments (and yet more nice weather); but then today we are met with yet more dispiriting news.

“Reopening” protests continue to proliferate.  Seeing this picture of a crowd in Olympia, WA brought me despair, thinking of all the sacrifices that have made here in Washington State that are being undermined.  Even more frustrating is that—while many in the picture may contract Covid due to behavior like this—many others not at the protest may also fall ill due to the increased contagion.  Libertarianism fails to grasp that pandemic response reveals mutual interdependence and requires collective action, not individual choice.

Governors in the South (Georgia, Tennessee, and elsewhere) are now reopening their states, led by media and not by science.  My in-laws live in Tennessee…

The science remains uncertain, in any case.  The first serological antibody studies are coming out of California, to hot debate about statistics esoterica.  All eyes are on Sweden, which has taken a much less restrictive approach and claiming success–but is it premature?

There are rumblings at work about trying to get “some work” going again.

Something about Seattle: basically the whole city is under the approach path to SeaTac airport, so over the years I’ve gotten used to the sound of jets at all hours of the day and night.  The last few weeks have been much, much quieter–but did I imagine a surge in planes landing today?

If masks are becoming politically coded, that’s a terrible outcome as they may provide one of the best ways to approach some kind of normalcy again in the near term…

If this latest immigration suspension survives the courts, what will it do to my many colleagues who require regular visa renewals?