Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

God...Broken record time.

No one that I know of here has had COVID-19. I'm praying none of us get it.

I have had MRSA and pneumonia. Have your lungs ever been so inflamed, so full of fluid you needed assistance to breathe? Do you understand what happens to your body when you cannot get enough oxygen? If you are unlucky enough to get very sick with this, it could take years to get back to anything close to what you were before you contracted it. It hurts and it breaks you mentally and physically.

Why in the name of anything good you might believe in would you subject yourself to the risk of going through that if you didn't have to?

 

This. It's hard to prove anything about something that didn't happen. And 112,000+ is certainly a significant enough number that makes it seem like we're not stopping it, anyway, no matter what we've done.

You can always say things could've been a lot worse, of course. But...well, you can always say that, about almost anything.

 

If it is so hard to prove a negative, why is it American gospel (and reasonably historical fact), that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved many more lives than they took?

 

Well, that absence of COVID-19 hitting people directly or closely is actually also part of the problem.

To be clear, I wouldn't not go along with whatever precautions are required. My workplace requires that I engage in them. Besides, I have mild (so far) COPD, and also spend a lot of time around my elderly mother, so I want to be careful, for her sake as well as my own.

But that doesn't mean I have to like it. And a lot of people don't, and will stop taking precautionary measures at some point -- especially without some tangible, foreseeable end point to it all. That's the real problem for most people. They're willing to wear masks. They're willing to do social distancing. They're willing to work from home. They're willing to home-school kids. They're willing to curtail outings and get-togethers, etc.

But not indefinitely, or forever.

 

Trump says he'll hold a klan rally in Tulsa on June 19.
The city's main arena, the BOK Center, has no events scheduled on its website until July 30. Everything previously announced between now and then is listed as postponed or canceled.
State guidelines on large events are, shall we say, hard to ascertain. Rodeos and racetracks need to have "appropriate social distancing guidelines in place." Group events at entertainment venues need to "consider" social distancing. What does that mean? Can the authorities say, "When Trump called, we considered social distancing but decided against it." ?? Or does "consider" imply a requirement? Conveniently vague.

When can rodeos and racetracks reopen?
They may reopen on May 1 with the appropriate social distancing and sanitation guidelines in place.

How many people can attend group events (at entertainment venues, bowling alleys, sports venues, etc.)?
During Phase 3, there is no limit to group size provided event organizers, local officials, or businesses consider social distancing.

 

Schools are almost surely going to reopen in the fall. If they don't, things will be so bad this discussion will be moot. My best guess is that social distancing in some form will be common/mandatory until a vaccine is developed and widely available and that wearing masks, at least in the winter months, will become part of normal routine, like putting on a hat and gloves.

 

Betty (a character Elizabeth Jennings killed in "The Americans") explained it when Elizabeth told her her death would make the world a better place:

"That’s what evil people tell themselves, when they do evil things.”

 

Well, I never knew that to be gospel. Regardless, the same concept applies. Whether impact could be guessed, or even reasonably stated, something that didn't happen is not actually proof that it would have happened under different circumstances.

Unlike with the rise and spread of COVID-19, virtually no one knew about those bombs, or that they were going to be dropped, so I'm not sure it's an apt or equal comparison. Any theoretical talk about their impact, or the impact that not dropping them would have had, was all hindsight.

And I'm not sure people have seen, or have come to believe, that their efforts at virus suppression have truly worked. I think they're wondering why it hasn't been stopped already.

 

Nobody knows for certain how the damn virus is spread, but a couple things about Arizona that stand out to me:
• It's triple-digit weather time, so most people are using air conditioning, which re-circulates air (including air exhaled by people infected by COVID).
• The Navajo reservation continues to be heavily stricken by COVID cases (although obviously that's not a major population center).
• Even after the snowbirds leave, there's still a significant year-round senior citizen population in Arizona ... including my parents. Unfortunately, that group is more at risk.

 

Iowa State Fair canceled.

 

But, but where's all those fried foods going to go? And where can Iowans awkwardly eat corn dogs?