Corona Virus Diary #6

Corona Virus Diary # 6

It gets more difficult every week, to find enough corona related events to make mention of. My peers and I typically cite our exhaustion with the news. The media likewise has abated with news, at least so far as it is relevant. Those outlets are reliant on informing people that some celebrity's cousin has died as a result of the virus and to point out the recklessness of POTUS. The latter has become tedious long before this virus made news and then pandemic. We know that the Commander in Chief will lie, exaggerate and change his story routinely. This personal failure has not been news for many years and plugging it into stories of Covid 19 does not change that. Likewise the outraged and indignant presentation by all the talking head at Fox News is now just a trope. People who want misinformation and propaganda rather than informed information that is data driven will continue to use Fox as their source. People who eschew such nonsense will get news from genuine sources. The latter should have stopped slapping their foreheads every time some Hannity or Limbaugh says something absurd.

I have been watching more television during this lull in the action and have noticed the style of television advertisement. Apparently every company that can afford a commercial wants us to know that they are available for services because they are concerned with our health and they admire first responders and medical professionals.

Then they intend to sell us high fat foods, plenty of sugar and provide us with cures and relief from things that we did not know were ever an issue. The examples are legion but I'll just provide onethat I saw the other day.

On a daily basis there are several mentions in the news, of how the environment is faring during this pandemic. It is essentially good news and often presented asif ironic. Simply taking a few moments to reflect on events, it is obvious that with less traffic, many businesses shuttered at least temporarily and people home schooling, less impact on the environment is being made. It is not ironic and is temporary.

We know that it is short lived since we can look at the organized MAGA hat wearers including politicians, who are demanding a lifting of quarantines and suggested safety measures imposed by local governments that are taking their cues from scientific data rather than misrepresentations suggested from the White House and its favorite news sources.

Locally one of our representatives, Eileen Quiring (elected on the curious motto “a republican you can trust”) joined protesters in Olympia and tells the media “the natives are getting restless”. Her electors and the POTUS undoubtedly love this nonsense.

Once released (or releasing themselves) from the prescriptions of this virus, it seems certain that all measurable environmental improvements will return to as they were around March 10^th of this year. No one is going to learn a lesson from any of this.

I am running out of things to say so now I present some historic context.

I and everyone I have contact with are still healthy.

Corona virus #4

Corona virus #4

It’s been over a month since I last ate or drink any provisions from a food establishment. I wonder when the last time that happened. Probably before I was in high school. But that is not tragic.

What is tragic is how republicans and their minions are making this whole mess and the government’s response to it, a political game. The POTUS has tossed sops to all of us and boons to businesses-and he wants no restrictions or over sight. History does not suggest that tycoons find largesse during times like this. It does suggest that the degree of profiteering will go up.

Potus is intent on making board members and stockholders get their due quickly and among his dubious exhortations, is an optimism that is unwarranted. He also originally appointed Mike Pence to head up the government response and Pence becomes mute. The legitimate epidemiologist, Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks after the commander in chief has bumbled and lied his way through another of his daily updates. When leadership is required this is what we get. In the Portland newspaper I saw today, an editorial by Steve Duin that makes this obvious.

When you mix science with politics you get politics and nobody but the Executive Branch, the Senate and all of their minions will throw a screen up to blur their own duplicity in this. Hopefully if the POTUS lifts quarantine bans, governors and the common man will ignore that and stay sequestered until the disease is genuinely contained.

There is also the issue of miracle cures touted by many and accelerated by many in the media and on the World Wide Web that are either not tested or inefficiently done so. I see them everywhere these days and hear people extol their virtues with only the information provided by a media talking head. You cannot make people think for themselves. They would have to break the barriers presented by authority figures like Sean Hannity. Rudy Giuliani, himself just a self-promoting huckster also sings the praises saying of the charlatan doctor Zelinko, which he is “thinking of solutions, just like the president.”

In other news there is no other news from me. Everything in my personal life is a clone of the one that occurred a week ago. That is a good thing too because in my case no news is good news. I am reading considerably and was allured by Montaigne’s essay On Experience which is much about self-quarantine during the time of one of Europe’s plagues. Here is a reference to that from TheParis Review. Lastly for today is some further details about Montaigne and this essay.

A Corona Virus Diary

Corona virus diary 1

A lot has happened regarding this pandemic during the last few weeks. It is difficult to assort all of the aspects of this on an international scale. Today I can only provide an overview. Since I want to keep track of how this affects me, my aim is to discuss my experiences more specifically.

Corona Virus is the latent issue with a disease that thus far has killed thousands. Having the virus does not mean that it is or will become manifest (at least as I understand it today March 21). When it blossoms into full blown disease it is known as Covid 19 and recently an article I was reading called it SARS-CoV-2. These different names may serve the discussion well among researchers and medical professionals, the several terms can be confusing (thus misleading) to the population in general. For the purposes of this diary I am going to refer to it as Corona Virus.

This venture is only directly about me and how the pandemic has impacted my life. That is for now and that may change in the future. Today I am thinking about it in broad and generic terms. There is too much information screaming at us currently to really distill much of it. We also must recognize the conspiracy theories for what they are. Likewise anyone downplaying the seriousness of it are either lying or simply foolish.

So today is March 21 and I do not have the disease, the virus or unique symptoms. No one that I know has any of these either. Hopefully it will remain so. I also can go grocery shopping though stores now have restricted hours-sensibly enough. The last time I ate out and associated with friends was March 10^th at the Heathen Brewery in Vancouver. This is mainly because on March 15^th all restaurants and bars have been closed. Some food establishments including food trucks, can provide food to go and many use one of those ride sharing companies to deliver it.

I was able to meet with an old friend in Portland on March 6 as he and his wife are visiting their daughter there. In Oregon as of today, the governor is strongly urging people to stay home. It is not a mandate at least not yet. On the Washington side of the Columbia where I live no such urging has occurred. So I am out in the field looking at birds and new buds as spring is here. We have had some splendid spring weather since the 15^th. I have been cooking (thus eating) too much for it is something to do.

It is probably only the beginning of the demand that we do not do anything that will further the spread. Containment is the most crucial step today. While it takes much of the joy away from daily life, it is not some sort of draconian hardship forced upon us by some real or simply believed in, enemy. So many have endured much more difficult times historically and today it is nonsense to think that not having 100% freedom to do whatever enters our mind (and is legal) is disastrous.

Here are what somepeople who are far more well-known than I describe their own experiences.