My Coronavirus Diary Part 28

The coronavirus continues its deadly sweep across the globe. It is the most concentrated here, in the USA, with 467,184 cases. Deaths here keep escalating. New York City's death toll  (7,067) is nearly that of all of England's (7,978). One doctor theorizes that the reason our numbers of cases and deaths is based on the delayed reaction of this country in reacting. After seeing how the Trump Administration delayed action ("We have it contained.", "It's going to go away.", etc.), I believe it. The government was also involved in bungling testing for victims of the virus.

Meanwhile, the president is preparing a new task force. This will will be examining re-opening the economy and getting people back to work (and endangering themselves with the virus, possibly). Typical.

My friend Kevin in Massachusetts sent me a note about something I hadn't heard of or been aware of.

"The cases in the Boston area have already been pretty high," he said. "A lot of people have fled New York and come to this area, bringing their disease with them. They have to drive through Rhode Island to get here. At least the authorities/police/army there are flagging down New York license plates, making them turn around and sending them back to where they came from. That's pretty hard to do. But they actually have been doing that. It's funny how I have also read about the New York rich who have flown out of the city in their private jets and bought property and houses in middle America to hide out there. That's craziness and rich privilege - but I wonder if they brought their disease with them to the Mid West."

Hospital workers in Detroit are being overwhelmed with COVID 19 patients and are horribly understaffed. One hospital had patients dying in the emergency room hallway before anyone was able to help them. Scary.

Meanwhile, the federal government is ending support for testing sites.

A veterinary scientist in the Faroe Islands turned his salmon testing into a test for COVID 19. The islands have had zero deaths.

But ready or not, Easter is on its way. While I may have totally forgotten about it (and, when you are sitting in your home day after day after day, forgetting is an easy thing to do), others are putting their thinking caps on and coming up with alternative ways to worship and celebrate.

Even though there are many alternative ways to celebrate the holiday, locally some families fear their loved ones will break the law and try to go to traditional church services this Sunday.

A Valley long-time couple died within hours of each other in Merced from complications of COVID 19..

On the good news side of things, a World War II veteran celebrated beating COVID 19 the same week as he celebrated his 104th birthday. Amazing.

My mom and my friend Vye both alerted me that the city of Fresno has turned the convention center into a pop up hospital to treat non-COVID 19 patients if things get bad here.

A new urgent care facility in town is offering testing for the coronavirus. Most insurance is accepted for the costs and no appointment is necessary.

Locally, farm workers are still supplying us with food...while practicing social distancing. Bravo!

Former news man Dan Rather has unearthed a video of President Barack Obama talking about the importance of and the setting up of an infrastructure to deal with pandemic outbreaks such as this. It's worth a watch (turn the sound on). There is a repeated section, but watch to the end when you can see what the former president had to say and what the current one has said.

Several people have emailed me or left comments about the issue of the neighbors and the fence. I took this photo last night. My side is on the left., Theirs is on the right. Yes, the fence is warped, but it is not in immediate danger of collapsing as the neighbors insist. It can be repaired. They also claimed it was so bad that they had to prop it up. Where are they propping it up?

This diagram shows one of the four estimates for the fencing job that they delivered to me via mail last Friday. Clearly this is planned for their benefit. Notice that all three adjoining neighbor fences are being done, as well as their own front fence (with steel gates!!!) and a secondary back fence on the left to segregate the backyard from the garbage cans. I'm NOT buying this fence. They can sue me and I will gladly meet them in court. 

The really awful thing is, I apparently did NOT send that text to them as I thought. I double checked the number today, and I didn't send it to them. (I have no idea who got it. OOPS!) So, I re-sent it to her email address (which I discovered on the letter). I will let you know when and if I get a reply.

My new doctor sent me some lab slips. She wanted to check my adrenal glands. So, yesterday morning I got up early and got myself down to my hospital to get some labs drawn. I had made an appointment for 8 am. The place is always packed with kids and their families, but there was almost no one around today. I sooooo hope that this new doctor figures out what is wrong with me. Quickly. It is getting harder and harder for me to get around.

After my labs, I thought I'd hit the grocery store on my way home. I was in search of some of my Carb Balance wheat tortillas, hand sanitizer and some frozen peas. I had not been to the store in more than a week. The grocery store near me has two entrances--one on the east side and one on the west. I parked near the east entrance and was told that was now an exit only. A long line across the front end of the store was roped off and there were bits of tape on the ground indicating where we had to wait as they were only letting so many people in at a time.

Most of the shoppers were in masks this time. The store was fairly well stocked. Water was there abundantly. I got some frozen peas for Shirley. There were no Carb Balance wheat tortillas again, but I did get several packs of the Carb Balance flour tortillas. They'll have to do for a while. I neglected to check the toilet paper (I didn't need any), but a lot of the cleaning supplies were still gone (No sani-wipes at all). I did score a bottle of bleach though. When I went for hand sanitizer, that was gone as well. Drat it all. I have some, just would like some more before I run out.

I got home, wiped everything down, and put it all away.

A while back, my friend Christa sent me some N95 masks. I told her I could not accept them. She insisted I keep them, but I may be sending them back her way, because...

Yesterday in the mail, a (cloth) mask (with a removable filter) that my mother had ordered for me, arrived.

Also yesterday in the mail, I had some super surprises. The first was an Easter card from my friend Eric and his family in Costa Mesa, CA.

There was also a very small card made out to me, with no stamp and no return address. Hmm. I opened it up and found this:

Inside the card were lots of notes and signatures from some of my co-workers at the hospital. How incredibly delightful. That made my day. I just don't know if my legs are gonna ever be good enough again...

I miss my peeps. 

Stay SAFE. Stay SHELTERED. Stay ALIVE.

CHEERS!

Continue to the next part HERE.