My Coronavirus Diary Part 19

Good morning. As I write this, there are now 981,221 cases of the coronavirus throughout the world. By the end of the day, it is projected to top 1,000,000 cases. The US has almost doubled the number of cases as Italy has. Italy currently has 115,242. We have 226,374 and we do not seem to be slowing down. ISOLATE, people! Our numbers are getting out of control. Yesterday, more than 1,000 people died in the US alone. Our total is now 5,316 dead...and that number is nothing compared to what we are going to be seeing very soon.

Part of the big spread in the numbers may be the issue of masks after all. According to an article my mother sent me, scientists now say that, in addition to coughing and sneezing, they've found that the virus can be transmitted from just talking or breathing. Jeepers creepers! Get yourself a mask--doesn't have to be an N95 (save those for the medical professionals, please). Just a mask of any sort will be helpful in containing the virus if you are infected and you are breathing it out. (Yes---the threat is from infected people breathing it out---not so much you breathing it in. Don't panic...just mask up out of courtesy.

Here, in the US, a record 6.6 million people applied for unemployment last week.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been the calm voice of science and reason during this crisis, is actually getting threats made against him. What is wrong with people? The outbreak is not his fault. Crazy!

Florida, whose shelter-in-place law does not go into effect until tomorrow, had a huge burst in the number of cases. There are more than 8,000 cases there now. If the governor had only put that stay-at-home rule into effect sooner...

Here in California, we will be hitting and surpassing the 10,000 infected mark today. California has had 216 deaths. Here, where I live, there are 183 cases in the Central Valley with 3 deaths. My county has 82 known cases...but you know there are dozens more out there that are undiagnosed as of yet. Yikes! It's creeping in more and more...

The first five patients to receive the experimental use of plasma from recovered coronavirus patients have gotten their doses. This could (fingers crossed!) be a therapeutic (and potentially life-saving) way to inject antibodies to the virus into those patients suffering from it to help them recover sooner.

Strangely, medical support staff at doctor's offices, dental offices and non-essential surgical centers are being laid off during the shelter-in-place laws. Couldn't they be re-deployed elsewhere in this crisis?

At the hospital I work for, my co-worker friend Anna said the hospital is really trying to conserve items and is not following the CDC guidelines or our own policies.

"They gave me one N95 mask in the Emergency Department for the entire shift," she said. "I had to put a yellow mask on top of the N95 and switched it out in between patients. Then the charge nurse only gave us about 10 yellow masks when we ran out. I eventually called the charge nurse and asked for either more N95 masks, so I can use them for each patient, or for an entire box of yellow masks. It was ridiculous."

My co-worker friend Sandy also sent me a note about some new rules at the hospital.

"I don't know if you heard what's going on at work," she said. "We are now going to be screened every time we enter the hospital. We have to answer questions on a slip of paper and have our temperatures taken. No call offs. The overflow staff will be held in an area and pulled to cover in case someone doesn't pass the screening.

"The hospital is getting ready and making two of our floors negative pressure floors.  Hopefully, I will not have to float there. I shut down with just the ordinary respiratory illnesses."

The news of work was interesting and somewhat encouraging, knowing that action is happening there. (The mask situation has me questioning things, though.) It was what Sandy said afterwards that caught me off guard.

"I was dumbfounded to hear a respiratory therapist, who I think is good, comment that this is just another flu and we’re making a big deal for nothing," she said. " 'Lots of people die from the flu every year. And we need to worry about getting the economy back on track'," she quoted the therapist as saying.

"Another coworker is a Trump supporter and thinks he’s doing a good job," she added. "WTF? Am I missing something? I actually like these people, but am dumbfounded because I don’t think they're dumb."

Continual denial that this is a massive worldwide crisis I am also still stunned by. The other day I had a little argument with some guy on Twitter, who insisted that the whole virus thing was a hoax (a worldwide hoax? Benefiting whom?). He based that on two bits of video. The first video was done by some right wing vlogger who went to a hospital in New York looking to see the "war zone" the news described. He walks down the sidewalk in front of the hospital, asking people if they were there visiting coronavirus victims, bothering ambulance drivers, etc. He never goes in and never speaks to anyone who can definitively say yes or no there was a problem. The video was posted to YouTube on March 18th, long before the 92,000 cases of the virus in New York were there.

I commented back to the person who used that as evidence that he might want to go back to the hospital and take another look.

He told me "Maybe you should, and bring something to record it... Because you won't being seeing a warzone..."

I sent him several video links, many taken from regular people (not "fake news" people, as he calls them) showing bodies being put into freezer trucks, footage inside of a hospital, etc.

He wrote back: "Ok if it's sooo bad.. Why would the news fake what's happening in the hospitals? Please if you can give me a straight solid answer then I will change my Mind."

To prove his point, he had a short video clip taken of a news cast that showed a hospital in Italy. Three days later a news broadcast here was discussing the crisis in New York and the same brief film clip from Italy showed up in the piece.

My response: "Whatever... I can't speak for that news agency as to why they re-used footage, but really. I have no idea where you live in--but I'm guessing it isn't bad there yet. I'm NOT going to argue with you. You can't argue with stupidity or ignorance. Just keep your blinders on..."

And then I added, "I'm a NURSE. What are you?"

To which he replied: "Not a nurse, but my wife is... And the hospital she works at here near Seattle is no where near a warzone like the media is telling us... The message here is 'we cannot blinding listen to everything we hear'.. We must think for ourselves.. There's more going on behind the scenes."

I didn't bother continuing the conversation. Why should I? As I had told him earlier, you can't argue with ignorance or stupidity. For others, like those co-workers Sandy encountered, it is obvious that some people don't get it or don't bother to think and look up the information for themselves. They are just content to have it spoon fed to them by those pushing their own agenda (i.e. FOX News and others like them). Facts don't matter. Lives, apparently don't matter. Profits and the economy DO matter to these people. It's so wrong.

As for the Trump supporter who thinks he is doing a good job. Ha!

The White House and Republican party have been trying to back track the president's bungling of this situation and put a new spin on it, saying that the president was too preoccupied with the impeachment trial to focus on the coronavirus situation (thus putting the blame on Democrats).

BULL!

The Senate acquitted Trump on February 5. Following the acquittal, the senators took a 5-day weekend. There were numerous briefings about the virus before then, but if the president was too worried about the impeachment to focus on it, once he was cleared, he must have been more worried about his golf swing, because just two days later, the president (who said repeatedly before he was elected that he wouldn't play golf--wouldn't have time to do so--if he were president) was golfing (for the 115th time since taking office), doing NOTHING about the virus problem.

And yet, his supporters think he is next to God and can do no wrong.

I just don't get it...

Meanwhile, in my own life, yesterday I received a certified letter in the mail --- from my next door neighbor.

My neighbor is a pain in the butt. Usually he leaves me alone, but when he wants something, it is always his way. He parks his RV in front of my house for days on end. When his wife ran a day care out of their home, the family used to park in front of my house to leave the parking in front of their house open for their clients. When they thought I needed to have a tree pruned, they left me a nasty note demanding it be done within a month. I don't know what was to happen if I didn't comply, but there was a threat of some sort involved.

Now they are saying that the fence separating us is in eminent danger of collapse and they want it replaced. My share is $1,000. Uh, hello?

First of all, I am on disability. I can't afford anything at the moment. And are they really doing this during the coronavirus crisis? Really?

Secondly, it is clear from the bids they shared that they intend to do their entire backyard fence--not just the one between our properties. They will pick the fence pattern they like best regardless of what I like or think.

The letter they sent me has some legal mumbo jumbo in it that I am sure they sent to all of their neighbors. It is intimidation. The man who lives next door is a prison guard. He makes very good money. I do not.

I am going to tell them that I am on disability, I can not afford $1,000 and that I think the fence is fine. It could perhaps use some maintenance---and I will gladly split that cost with them for that--but I can not possibly cough up $1,000. If they go ahead and do it on their own, go for it. But if they expect me to pay---NO WAY! I'm going to set up one of my exterior cameras to film the fence. It is a tad wobbly but not bad and it's not sagging. If they try to destroy it, I'll have footage showing that. They just want a completely new fence and want me to pay for part of it. They've been nothing but rude to me all of these years. No thank you.Repairs--yes. New fence? NO.

When there are so many bigger problems in the world, why do some people have to be such jerks? Grrr.

After that, as you can imagine, I was super excited to find I had an unopened bottle of  Bloody Mary mix in my cupboard after all last night. Just the thought of annoying my neighbors gives me a headache. It's not going to be nice.

Stay safe. Stay sheltered. Stay ALIVE.


CHEERS!



Continue to the next part HERE.