Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

It seems to me the pressing need at this stage is not a vaccine (which is going to take more than 18 months, you can book it) but mass, virtually daily, testing of huge chunks of society. This, fortunately, can be done...the testing process already exists. It's just a matter of political and societal will. And leadership. And so far, we've wasted two months because we have a "will vacuum."

 

That's what I mean. The restrictions here are not that strict that most folks can't abide them. Certainly not compared to what my daughter experiences in France, where cops will hassle you for standing in front of your apartment, and you get a ticket if you're outdoors without your government pass.

 

Including, maybe, the fact that you may only get paid for 25 hours a week...It could happen.

 

I have a friend who's a special ed teacher - learning disabilities, behavioral issues, kids on the verge of dropping out because they hate school and they're poor, etc, etc. Half of her kids haven't even turned anything in or done any work. Parents don't call back, kids won't respond. It's a farce.

I have another friend who is a social studies teacher. High school. He can't stand this. He got a lot of his identity from being able to connect with the kids, in person, and see something click. Now? Nothing. Zoom is a terrible substitute, the district he's in is too big to hold kids consistently accountable with online attendance and the like. The semester's just gonna spool out.

There's talk of taking this into the fall. They both laugh. The special ed teacher might quit and just go back to apartment management with her husband.

 

I was listening to the Reply All podcast and they had a guy call in from France very early in the lockdown there ... and he basically said that the only way you could go outside for exercise was if you had a dog to walk. It got to the point where people were secretly letting others borrow their dog so they could get out and walk.

So no, we haven't had that level of restriction. We have been nowhere near "locked down," except for maybe in NYC proper.

 

First my hair never gets more than a spray bottle, so it's never thoroughly washed.

Second, the barber is behind me, then beside me, then the other side, then in in front checking, rinse-lather-repeat and all the while talking.

Not saying mitigation can't be put into place but it's not as inherently sterile as you pretend it is.

 

It could, but that really wasn't my point. My point was more about how much bullshitting goes in offices during any given week versus how much actual "work" gets done. Not just the amount of pointless meetings, but the amount of time spent in the breakroom grabbing coffee and bullshitting, or the amount of time discussing things that have nothing to do with work. How many people in a corporate-type setting actually work a full 40 hours, consistently? In most jobs, there are busy times and slow times, so it ends up all balancing out.

 

This seems like an on-point denial of a badly written news story.

 

I have to say that, for some reason, I have been reading "carnivorous" in my mind, lately, every time I see the word coronavirus.

 

As you all probably know, I'm speaking as someone who loves cruising, of course.

But, I'd at least consider the idea that later this year might actually be a good time to do it, with masks in place, maybe. There are bound to be far less people on the ships than usual; these ships have probably all been worked over lately in terms of cleaning and sanitizing; there are bound to be more stringent policies of cleanliness, and probably way more hand-sanitizing stations than there already are on a lot of these ships as they're on the move. You'd be going out on the ocean, and so, theoretically, getting away from most people for much of the time, etc.

I don't know. If I got a really great deal on a trip to a place I'd like to go/see -- say, the Scandinavian countries, maybe, because some of my family roots are there -- I think I'd do it, as long as we see that things are improving in terms of coronavirus trends in the run-up.

 

The way to smother this thing is to socially distance, test a lot, isolate the positive immediately, and pursue contact tracing aggressively. This is not rocket science. It is basic public health. It is what has worked for the countries where the rates are now very low.

Back in the day the public health would come to your house and post a sign on the door. No one in or out for two weeks except for needed medical. Period. Wasn't tyranny then or now.

 

"Probably" is doing a lot of work here. They were having ongoing issues with recurring infectious disease before Covid which they could never stop even though they had legal and marketing reasons to clean them up. Have fun. As you say, likely they'll be less crowded and all will be well.