Dispatches from the Coronavirus Days #6

Don't Stand, Walk, Lurk or Exist So Close to Me: I waited a few days to do another Dispatch because this thing has apparently taken off in some small way and I wanted to let readers catch up before I started again. As we all should know by now in these days of global pandemic, staying home and maintaining a distance of six feet from others is the recommended way to slow down the virus's progress. Slow down, not stop. There is no stopping it yet. This thing is the ultimate invisible predator, able to live on surfaces and in the air. But it can also be killed with soap and water and bleach. However, those things aren't going to curb its advance so stop going to the fucking grocery store with your entire family, unmasked, un-gloved and not maintaining distance!

The Few, The Masked, the Aware: Naturally, I have a real-life example or two because I try not to pull things out of the virus-infected air.  Today at a certain higher-caliber supermarket, I was one of five people in the entire store wearing masks. Even the staff was walking around without gloves. And nobody was maintaining a six foot distance. In fact, one woman seemed to be everywhere I wanted to go, standing either right in front of me or to my side. So, I'm not proud of it but I started coughing in my mask. Suddenly social distancing seemed to become her number one priority.

Brief Scare: The night before last, my asthmatic wife who has been dealing with an upper respiratory infection we're almost positive is not Covid-19 had an excacerbation. In case you're unfamiliar with what that is, read all about it. The last time she had one this severe, she wound up in the hospital for a week; that was when her chuldhood asthma became chronic. Back then she didn't have all the equipment and medication to treat it. Despite all that, it still looked really bad and normally we would have taken her to the hospital, but the pandemic has made that nearly impossible right now. Also, since her pulmonologist says I can't be in the room for three hours after she uses her breathing treatment, I slept downstairs. The next morning, I heard sirens nearby. That's not unusual because of how close we live to a hospital, but when they suddenly stopped and it sounded like the vehicle stopped right outside my house, my first thought, "Oh, no. She called 911 from upstairs." But I was wrong. The EMS was across the street at the grocery store, where I saw someone being wheeled out on a gurney. You can probably guess I didn't shop there like I had planned.

Finally, the Writer Makes a Literary Reference: I didn't create the image above. The attribution seems to belong to a librarian named Louise Darlington. Frankly, it couldn't be more accurate. I mean, we've reached a point where nearly every title listed is a plausible outcome both for the U.S. and the planet. In fact, I could easily see most of these combining into one big fat dystopia. I've been telling people for years to listen to the science fiction writers. Now we're living it.

Some Heroes Don't Wear Capes or Masks: Italy isn't only Ground Zero for the pandemic in Europe, it's also a prime example of what can happen in America if we don't handle this outbreak properly. Five more Italian doctors have died  fighting this thing. Two of them were 70-year old retirees who returned to the field to help out. Lack of supplies such as gloves and masks continue to take a toll in Italy, where over 8% of its medical workers have died from the virus. Meanwhile, in the Hoarding States of America, our own medical professionals are posting frantically online about how they also don't have masks and gloves. Dr. Oz even called it our "patriotic duty" to not hoard masks and, in fact, to go without them.

Beach Blanket a-gone-gone: Finally, after allowing way too many people to potentially infect one another on its beaches, America's Wang's governor ordered them shut down. Governor Ron DeSantis (R) said, "The Party's over in Florida" after video of idiotic springbreakers proudly defying the CDC recommendations in the name of partying and being stupid went viral. Too little, too late.

Shit Just Got Realer(er): As I was writing this latest Dispatch and about to end with the current trend of teenagers licking groceries and videoing themselves, I heard voices outside and walked over to the window to investigate. A large SUV sat at the stop sign with its emergency lights flashing. Assuming the person was having car trouble, I went back to writing until, a few minutes later, I noticed red lights reflecting off the wall over my wife's head. We both went to see what was happening and there was a EMS, the second one outside my house today, parked with people working in the back on someone. I could see one of them wearing a mask. When the other one emerged from the back, he got behind the wheel and they drove off slowly. The SUV was nowhere to be seen. Obviously it could have been anything that caused them to call 911 but the liklihood that it was Covd-19 related is too high to ignore.

I think I'll stop writing now~



Read the previous Dispatch here.