Products |
SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: The week ahead. And looking back: Do you remember when Costco gave free samples?
By
Published: Mar 22, 2020
Category:
Beyond Classification
I live in the epicenter of the pandemic. My Lifeboat People and I are fine (so far). I have been self-isolating for decades, so the isolation is bearable (so far). I have a play to finish and a book to write, and I’m productive (so far). But as the virus moves closer, I’m like everyone else: compulsively updating news, wishing I could do something to help, getting regularly knocked back in my chair by the toxic mixture of stupid-and-evil in the Executive Office. Is it not amazing: Donald Trump is a 3rd Responder.
I especially follow news from Italy, which is, it’s said, 10 days ahead of us. Yesterday: 800 new deaths and 6,600 new cases —– its biggest day-to-day increase yet. (How is this for a sentence in a news article: “In Bergamo, military trucks lined up outside a hospital to take the dead to crematoriums.”) If the daily death toll doesn’t flatten in Italy and ours continues to dramatically increase every day, we can anticipate a medical crisis — very, very soon — on a scale our hospitals and health care heroes can’t handle. (If you find yourself thinking, “If we can just get to Thursday,” you’re not alone.) Cities under siege are our future. They have moved beyond testing. The urgent mission now: filling a criminal shortage of masks and ventilators. Why is this happening? The President refuses to invoke the Defense Production Act. Unreal, is it not: One man has turned the richest country on the planet into a Third World nation. But as I’ve said, don’t waste a breath on him. Do you have a sewing machine? Get busy.
BEFORE WE BEGIN: Two minutes of brilliant and funny
WISE WORDS FROM AN EPIDEMIOLOGIST: “This virus is unforgiving to unwise choices.”
Source: Jonathan Smith, in Medium
You should perceive your entire family to function as a single individual unit; if one person puts themselves at risk, everyone in the unit is at risk. Seemingly small social chains get large and complex with alarming speed. If your son visits his girlfriend, and you later sneak over for coffee with a neighbor, your neighbor is now connected to the infected office worker that your son’s girlfriend’s mother shook hands with. This sounds silly, it’s not. This is not a joke or a hypothetical. We as epidemiologists see it borne out in the data time and time again and no one listens. Conversely, any break in that chain breaks disease transmission along that chain.
In contrast to hand-washing and other personal measures, social distancing measures are not about individuals, they are about societies working in unison. These measures also take a long time to see the results. It is hard (even for me) to conceptualize how ‘one quick little get together’ can undermine the entire framework of a public health intervention, but it does. I promise you it does. I promise. I promise. I promise. You can’t cheat it. People are already itching to cheat on the social distancing precautions just a “little”- a playdate, a haircut, or picking up a needless item at the store, etc. From a transmission dynamics standpoint, this very quickly recreates a highly connected social network that undermines all of the work the community has done so far.
PAUL BOUGHT A GUN
Paul Schrader (he wrote “Raging Bull,” “Taxi Driver,” etc etc): “I have been anti-gun most my adult life. I see guns as the problem, not the solution. Raised among hunters, I could never justify killing a animal with a high powered weapon for entertainment. Yet last night I tracked down a gun dealer who worked out of his garage here on Putnam Valley and bought a Mossberg 500. It’s in my trunk where I hope it stays. If the social order decays I don’t want to be the only person on my block without a gun.”
BEST COMMENT (SO FAR): “Ok, so that takes us to page 15; I’m fully engaged in this story..”.
FOUR MINUTES WITH JAMES GANDOLFINI
He reads Maurice Sendak’s “In the Night Kitchen”.
YOU DIDN’T THINK IT WOULD COME TO THIS?
From Politico.
The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies —– part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads through the United States.”
COMMENT FROM CHUCK SCHUMER: “Hell, no.”
ANN LAMOTT
“If you’re glued to the news, or can’t watch, it’s OK. If you’re unable to eat or eating your body weight in ice cream & chips, it’s OK. If you’re having insane, self-centered thoughts about your gym closing, or your roots, or acrylic nails, it’s OK. You — YOU — and your life matter.”
O’KEEFFE’S WORKING HANDS HAND CREAM
Wash your hands all day? A cream like like this is essential. To buy it from Amazon, click here.
GO OUTSIDE. TO A PARK. RIGHT NOW. THIS COULD HAPPEN HERE.
Late last night: “The Italian Prime Minister is giving a snap 11.30pm press conference, announcing EVERYTHING in the country – including factories – will shut down. Only things to stay open will be supermarkets, pharmacies and banks. All other workplaces closed. Also all parks.”
THIS HAPPENED YESTERDAY: Rana Awdish, MD, on Twitter
Today broke my heart.
Today I picked up scrubs and repurchased the clogs that got me through residency and fellowship.
No more clothes or shoes that go home.
Today I had colleagues get tested for CoVid.
Today I talked about advanced directives with every ICU doctor I know.
Today we came up with plans for our kids and our pets.
Today we shared our emergency contacts.
Today we talked about our “break the glass” scenario when we stop going home.
Today I had colleagues tell me that they’ve decided they’d rather die at home rather than come in and traumatize their colleagues who would have to care for them.
Today we came up with contingency plans for our contingency plans.
Today broke my heart.
THE FILM FOR TODAY
“The Death of Stalin.” I laughed myself stupid. Stream it on Amazon.
FIRST IN A SERIES (SUGGESTIONS WELCOME): DO YOU REMEMBER A TIME WHEN…
Can you remember a time when Costco gave free samples?
GUILTY PLEASURE: MY FAVORITE TELL-ALL
George Jacobs was Sinatra’s live-in valet from 1953 to 1968. Mr. S: My Life with Frank Sinatra begins like this:
Summer 1968. The only man in America who was less interested than me in sleeping with Mia Farrow was her husband and my boss, Frank Sinatra. Theirs had to be one of the worst, most ill-conceived celebrity marriages of all time, and after two years of one disaster after another, it was all over except for the paperwork. Mr. S’s lawyer, Mickey Rudin, who was a combination bag man, hit man, and Hollywood hustler, was planning to take Mia down to Juárez for a Mexican divorce that would get her out of Mr. S’s life once and forever, which, for everyone who knew them as a non-couple, couldn’t have been soon enough.
To read more and buy it from Amazon, click here.
CHEAP SHOTS FROM THE CHEAP SEATS
Laid off? Deal weed.
Of course: Trump would take bailout cash.
Bright idea (Twitter): Could we please restore the Deep State?
You heard it here first: Skype Sex.
Three weeks without hair treatments and Botox, the East Side of Manhattan will look like the picture of Dorian Gray.
YOUR DAILY BUDDHA
From Lama Willa Miller is Founder and Spiritual Director of Natural Dharma Fellowship in Boston: “In a pandemic, self-isolation is called quarantine. In Buddhism, it is called retreat. From the cave of our home, like the meditators of ancient times, we can consciously kindle the lamp of compassion and connection.”
YOUR DAILY MUSEUM
George O’Keefe. To visit, click here. For a terrific novel, “Georgia: A novel of Georgia O’Keeffe,” click here.
LATE NIGHT
“After Midnight.” J.J. Cale. 1970. For more, click here.
