Corona Virus Diary #3

Corona Virus #3

Since I have never watched any of those zombie apocalypse movies (or pick your most favored and feared metaphysical ogre) I cannot say much about their content. However there are plenty of trailers showing scenes like hordes of invaders and entrenched yet intrepid heroes ready to fight them. Those enemies now are out to steal your toilet paper. POTUS has ensured that we can hunker down and protect our loved ones as we can equally protect our possessions and thus gun shops are deemed essential. News of valiant attempts to protect ourselves are a new well spring of newsitems in a world where everything is virus related.  

There are naysayers too. Some who preach that this is overplayed, even a hoax. This is a well-played ruse I guess. There are millions who pretend to have gotten the illness and many who have succumbed to it all for the practical joke of a hoax.

The erstwhile “think tank” called the Hoover Institute hosts RichardEpstein among other propagandists who feel that this all a big hype. He only can convince his own choir and it is easy to do amongst those minions. You can do it too and here are a few ways to do that. You use scornful similes and metaphors and direct them to the “left” (which means all who do not agree with you or the Hoover Institute. You also use verbiage that suggests that those people are lying. You hint that the Chinese have set this virus purposefully in motion and that Italy and Spain are deceptive about their own tactics to tame this disease. You also ignore the fact that America is the world leader in the number of corona virus cases. I guess if this is a hoax those numbers mean nothing. When you don’t have the virus as a foe you can also bring up a true straw dog like socialism.

In other news it seems that every day there is a report about environmental changes that are the result of severely limited automobile driving and factory output. I have to imagine that many flights have been cancelled though I have not investigated. While most all of us are self-quarantining, the earth and atmosphere are breathing a little easier. The web site Space.com printed one such article about the increase in the ozone layer due to reduction of emissions. The science magazine Nautilus has an article about how nature acts when human involvement in it are reduced.  

Anyway the knowledge that this illness is at best a hoax and at worst simply overstated, be sure to attend (along with as many others as possible) your big fundamentalist church so that you can spiritually and more importantly, emotionally reinvigorate as well as to tithe that preacher. Since the NRA doesn’t care about you and POTUS doesn’t either, they only have eyes for each other, buy your new gun. I think that a well-placed silver bullet to the heart of Dracula will keep your family safe.

Some personal news about myself is that nothing has changed. I don’t get out much but we have also had about 10 days of horrid weather. This next week is supposed to be pretty nice so I’ll do more hiking than the last several days. At the same time many (but not all) local parks are closed. I’ll have to make do with what I can.

My friends Arja and Rande came to Portland to visit their daughter in early (pre shut down) and had March 31 as their return flight to New Hampshire. I was not sure that flight would continue but it did and they sent photos of their cabin as they flew home (successfully).

Grocery stores are still open and they have not run out of beer-that is good. They do not have the masks that we are all urged by scientists and medical researchers to wear. Paper products despite being limited to the numbers one can purchase, are still gone almost immediately. There are cars other than mine on the roads on those purchase days (for me that is Sunday and Wednesday) but not many.

Several days ago I woke up with a mild sore throat which for me has usually been the harbinger of a common cold but I jotted down the occurrence. I did not have that symptom the next day but did have a mild headache. This was a tad alarming since I cannot recall the last time I had a headache. It has been several years now since the last one. So I jotted that down. I also have had a bit of vertigo the other day but dizziness is something I have lived with. You may have noticed it yourself if you have been in my presence.

Anyway the headache which was mild enough to only notice if I actually thought about it disappeared after a few hours or maybe even less. I took note of my overall physical wellbeing for a few days but since with the exception of a little light-headedness I have symptoms of nothing.

Every spring I am a little happier and part of that because along with returning swallows is the opening of the baseball season. Should there be a 2020 baseball season it will be particularly joyful as it will mark the end of this year’s pandemic.