The death toll keeps rising. There are 1,982,552 cases of the virus worldwide. 609,516 cases in the United States. 589 cases here in the Central Valley of California. And we are all in self-quarantine for fear of catching this horrible virus.
So, in other words, happy solo birthday to me.
Yep, today is my birthday. April 15th is synonymous with a lot of awful things. It's tax day (usually). It's the day Abraham Lincoln died (shot on the 14th-died on the 15th) and the day the Titanic sank (hit the iceberg on the 14th-went down on the 15th). There were a lot of other historical events that happened on April 15th. There was the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 and the Notre Dame Cathedral Fire just last year. Clearly, I was born under a lucky star. Not.
But it is my birthday. Even though I'm home alone (just like I was yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that...), I need to make the most of it. You only get so many birthdays in a lifetime. You need to make each one count. You never know if it may be your last...especially in the year of the coronavirus. EEK!
April 15th has also been deemed National Take Out Day. Since it is my birthday, I thought I might splurge a bit and get some take out...or maybe even order through Door Dash or Uber Eats. It will be a splendid birthday celebration for one. I'll decide what I'm going to do later, though.
The news comes first---and there is a lot of it.
Federal agents stopped a multi-million dollar scam. Several hospitals were in a deal to buy 39 million N95 masks and were nearly defrauded. This comes on the heels of a report that says 9,000 healthcare workers have tested positive for the virus. Yikes!
Seven members of the USNS Mercy, the medical ship anchored off Los Angeles to treat non-COVID 19 patients, have tested positive for the coronavirus anyway. Meanwhile some nut with a conspiracy theory crashed and derailed a train near the ship.
A simple, positioning trick has proven successful in treating COVID 19 patients with respiratory distress and is saving lives. Believe it or not, flipping patients on their stomach and leaving them in the prone position seems to help greatly.
Johnson & Johnson is rushing a possible vaccine into production. It has not been fully tested or approved yet. The company wants to have it ready to go when/if it proves to be effective and is approved.
The stimulus payments have started going out. (I got mine direct deposited yesterday, actually.) London's Daily Mail reports that 82% of the $2 trillion stimulus package is headed for million and billionaires. What a surprise. NOT.
News is also out that President Trump, wanting to look as good as possible in the shadow of his poor handling of the coronavirus (like, doing nothing but dismiss it during the month of February), wants his name on the paper checks that will be sent out in the coming weeks.
Speaking of the president's bungling, he has now cut off funding to the World Health Organization. He claims they were mismanaging things and covering up for those in China as the virus spread. CNN has an excellent, brief presentation (in which they invite Trump's supporters to look this up themselves) showing the president's own words praising the World Health Organization leading up to the outbreak here. (In other words, he's trying to put the blame for his own inaction on the W.H.O.)
A congressman from Indiana thinks that lives are expendable in order to save the economy. Jinkies! I hope he isn't thinking of running for re-election.
A large meat processing plant closed down in South Dakota when 293 of its employees tested positive for the coronavirus. The governor of South Dakota, which has just seen the number of virus cases explode in just a few days, still refuses to issue shelter in place orders for the state.
The much talked about antibody tests, which would determine if a person has already had the virus (which sometimes shows no symptoms at all), have turned out to be mostly faulty. The testing was going to be used to gauge whether states could open back up again or not. This is a huge delay in the return to semi-normalcy.
But some experts say that social distancing rules will probably need to be in effect until 2022.
More than 150 people went to an underground (and illegal) club in the Bay Area recently. Who knows how much of the virus was spread there? Geez!
The death toll for the nation on Monday alone was more than 2,300 as New York City began the recounting of coronavirus deaths, many of the victims were found at home before they could seek medical treatment.
My co-worker Sandy texted me yesterday.
"I'm well, so far," she said. "I'm sheltering when not at work."
Sandy was checking in, but she also had some good news to share. Her daughter's wedding plans are still on--thanks to a little adaptivity.
"My daughter's wedding will be live feeding somehow and they'll have a car parade for anyone who wants to drive by. We'll have a food truck. They can stop and get a meal and then take it home to eat. They have altered the wedding a few times due to restrictions, but I believe this is the plan that will stick."
My friend Jenny also checked in yesterday:
"More good news for me in this terrible pandemic," she said. "I am going to be a grandmother. I'm very excited but, of course, worried about my daughter's health and the baby's health."
But Jenny also had some disappointing news that isn't surprising in these days of sheltering in place...
"My son-in-law, Chris, found out last Friday that he is being furloughed starting May 1," she said. He is a CPA at a big firm in Fresno. He wasn't the only one and others had wages and hours cut. It is happening to so many people."
With more economic woes, my friend and former co-worker Monica sent me a note yesterday as well.
"I don't know if you've heard, but McClatchy put 115 people on a 90-day unpaid leave of absence," she said. "It's most from the advertising department; significant declines in advertising resulted in a reduced workload, so changes in staffing had to happen. And it happened fast. Thursday afternoon we were told, Friday was their last day. We lost one from our group. But then gained two others due to the restructuring of things - one from Florida and one from the Carolinas.
"I don't think things will ever get back to the way they were - at least around The Bee/McClatchy. It's just an unbelievable time!"
Things are bad...but good things (Sandy's daughter's wedding, Jenny's upcoming grandchild) still happen. Which brings me back to...my birthday. I'm curious as to how the day will go. I have some plans already in place. In addition to my indulgent lunch order (whatever it turns out to be), I also purchased myself some (mostly) cheap, new (to me) vintage movie posters for my collection over the last few weeks. (You can view my birthday batch HERE. But warning--it's mostly horror stuff.) I also have already received a few birthday cards in the mail (from Alan in San Francisco, Sheila in Oregon and Erich in San Leandro).
Despite the increasing number of infected and the growing number of dead, today is going to be a good day.
Right?
RIGHT??!!
Hmm...
Stay SAFE. Stay SHELTERED. Stay ALIVE.
CHEERS!
Continue to the next part HERE.
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