Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

It's been a weird day. I was working from home today when we received an email telling us that one of my colleagues tested positive and they were doing the contact tracing. They would be calling people who were considered to be exposed directly. That set off a series of rumors, but I didn't get a call, so I figured I was considered safe. In the end, over 30 people were told to quarantine, but I'm not one of them. I'm going to be working every day from home at least through Christmas.

The colleague who tested positive reached out to a bunch of us late in the day to tell us it was him, thinking that might put some of us more at ease. He actually apologized, but it was just bad luck. A family member tested positive during the day yesterday. My colleague didn't find out until after work, so he went to get tested and it came back positive. He said he feels fine. which we all told him was the most important thing.

 

Texas Wedding Photographers Have Seen Some $#!+

A pretty ghastly account of Texas wedding photographers in the midst of sporadically observed COVID regulations. The quote at the end is particularly frightening but I realized it says something very telling about our society.

I've found that (not counting the anti-government zealots) many of the people who are fighting these regulations the hardest are the ones for whom the pandemic is affecting non-repeatable experiences. I have a relative who's a high school senior. His junior basketball season was canceled after his team went 18-2 in the regular season, then cruised through the first phase of the playoffs. Their senior football season was off, then it was on again. The school forced them to forfeit their Senior Night because of an outbreak in the school district. They've managed to win three playoff games on the road before the state of Michigan froze their season at the quarterfinals for three weeks and told them they're gonna try to finish, then froze it again for another 12 days, which functionally pushes the whole thing past Christmas.

And yet, I remember thinking when Michigan restarted their football season that it had all the wisdom of driving home drunk from the bar because you want to tuck your kids into bed and it's probably worse than that. I mean, the message they probably should have tried to get across is simple: As a governmental entity, our first obligation is to protect your safety and there is no gathering of any significant number of people that is safe enough to justify at this time.

The easiest way, maybe the only way, we could have fixed this is to fast-forward through 9-12 months of life, but the simple fact is that there are non-repeatable things in people's lives that are being ruined every day and the best we offer them is a shrug. I can certainly see why that is not remotely satisfactory for some people. Maybe the failure is in how much enjoyment we suck out of the day-to-day as a culture in exchange for these big things that are being ruined.

 

I'm pretty sure you were underpaid and under appreciated.

 

‘We want them infected’: Trump appointee demanded ‘herd immunity’ strategy, emails reveal

 

Hope he has a speedy recovery.

 

I understand the rationale, but giving the first doses to health-care workers and not focusing every early dose on 75+ is a mistake. Just going straight by age reduces deaths and hospitalizations much faster.

 

I hope all you folks getting snow ignore the emergencies and just drive around like normal. Because freedum! Amirite?

 

I like to think I am a practiced snow driver and I'm not going anywhere until summoned by a boss, my mother, or some other higher power

 

The beginning of that Texas Monthly story is absurd. Some people are selfish assholes.

 

New update: Josh called us around five. He's home, feels not great but OK, is supposed to do no heavy lifting for three weeks but can eat anything he wants within reason. For some reason, he wants oatmeal tonight.