Journal entry- Oct.14,2020 Living in the time of Corona
By jxmartin
Thu, 15 Oct 2020
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“Living in the time of Corona”
Wed. October 14, 2020- Journal entry
It is a warm, ninety-degrees here in Southwest Florida, amidst abundant sunshine. The television air waves are crowded today with the Senate hearings on the Supreme Court vacancy. The Judicial candidate, Amy Coney Barret, held her own in the face of a day-long barrage of questions and opinions from the Senate Judiciary Committee. The results are a foregone conclusion. The Republican majority, of the U.S. Senate, has the votes to confirm her nomination to the Supreme Court. The rest of this is just kabuki theater in an election year.
Covid-19 infections are on the rise all across the United States. Some fifty thousand new infections per day add to the total, now running near eight million Americans infected with the virus. Deaths from Corona spike as well, now nearing the 218,000 level and rising daily. Talk of three to four hundred thousand deaths, before we tame this plague are common amongst medical experts.
Presidential politics clouds any appropriate handling of the virus. Last night, in Florida and tonight in Iowa, Trump forces staged huge rallies where few if any mask were worn and no social distancing was in place. The signal sent out to Trump supporters is that masks are silly and a sign no confidence in the President. This, despite pleas from all available medical sources to wear mask and practice social distancing.
The White House today announced a “new policy” on the Corona Virus. It is something called the New Barrington Declaration. Basically, it embraces the much scorned “Herd effect” on the population. In other words, if you just open up everything, and let the virus take its course, the virus will spread as far as it can and then go away. The World Health Organization and every reputable American Medical expert has declared this “wishful thinking” and “faulty science” that will cause much harm to the population. It hasn’t worked anywhere else in the world, so why would it work here, they ask?
Despite the aggressive campaign by the Trump forces, news reporters show network polls that put the President increasingly behind in the race, to the tune of twelve points nationally. In several of the “key states,” needed to win the electoral college, Trump is behind by several points. Everything now depends on “who comes out to vote.” Some fifteen million Americans have already voted by mail. Long lines of voters were featured on the television news tonight, in Atlanta and in Texas. It illustrates that the population is fully engaged in the election.
On a more poignant note, a woman in our small community was afflicted by Corona and died a few weeks later. Only in her early seventies, she left behind a grief-stricken family. We knew her well enough and feel awful for her spouse and family. The empty seats from the Corona Plague will be felt by loved ones during the coming holidays.
Two of the major drug companies, trying to effect a cure, have called a “pause” in their research. That means they have stopped until they can figure out what made some of their sample population ill from Corona infections. Necessarily they have to figure this puzzling virus out, before advancing further.
Medical experts are still hoping that some type of vaccination for Corona will be available by years end. Distribution to the entire populace could take many months. And compounding these logistical difficulties are the results of recent surveys that state that a large segment of the population will not currently submit to the vaccination. Reasons for their skepticism are not clear beyond a vague distrust of both the government and all medical providers in general. Our medical and governmental officials have a new education program to develop that will convince a wary population to take the cure as it were.
Internationally, most developed countries struggle with increasing covid-19 rates due to people moving indoors in the colder weather. Some are handling it better than others. Canada and Europe still have their doors closed to us and ours to them.
Businesses everywhere are slowly fighting to regain some type of normality. Customer wariness at enclosed spaces is their chief opponent. The threat of a return to lockdown status, in the face of increased infection rates, doesn’t help anything. The double whammy of Flu and virus, during the winter months, will reap a terrible toll in lives lost and businesses bankrupt.
In the face of all this, we proceed about our lives daily as best we can manage. We had our car serviced at the dealer and then spent time sunning on the Naples Pier. For an off-season month, there was good crowd on the beach. A stop at “Trader Joe’s” for groceries featured a line outside the store. The number of people entering was restricted. Mask were required to enter the store. We find that pretty much the rule here as everywhere. But, the other night, we had dinner at our club house. In the tap room., two tables of ten to twelve each, sat maskless, cheek to jowl and enjoying drinks, with not an apparent care in the world. Most of them are above eighty years of age, so we couldn’t figure out why they didn’t show more caution. To each his/her own, I guess.
One day at a time.
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Comments
Great summary of the virus
Permalink Submitted by Kurt Rellians on
Great summary of the virus situation in the States! Well worth a read. I feel I understand what is going on there a lot better now. It seems to me that Trump is encouraging people to be careless, which will prolong the agony of the virus invasion.
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