Corona Virus is Far From a Laughing Matter

Corona virus is far from a laughing matter.

 

Here in Washington State where it apparently landed in the United States first (we’re a seaport state with a lot of Chinese commerce), the corona virus has devastated one senior care community and infected several other counties, too, including my own.

 

It’s in Lakewood, in Puyallup and in Tacoma, so the highway that runs less than a quarter of a mile from my home is probably a corridor for it. There are five cases here in Tacoma so far–almost overnight. So, it’s spreading.

 

I’ll be working most of this week helping a client get the word out about the crisis because their company  operates all over the United States where crowds of people gather. Corona virus is in most states now, down both coasts and across the midsection of the country.

 

The good news is that it seems to have run its course where it all began, in Wuhan, China, so with any luck at all, it will be a short-lived crisis.

 

But in the meantime, at least one of our state universities has shut down and is offering its courses online right now. Comic Con has been postponed. And other places where lots of people gather are considering canceling events or postponing them to later in the year.

 

Upward of 2% of people with confirmed cases have died. That’s about the same percentage of people who have surgery and don’t make it off the operating table, so the percentage of deaths is low and has mostly been among elderly populations with additional medical challenges: heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes. The virus attacks the lungs and saddles lots of people with pneumonia.

 

I’ve seen the memes making fun of people “hoarding” hand sanitizers, water and toilet paper. It’s all fun and games until it lands in your back yard and you’re told by the authorities in your state, “there is no cure for the corona virus, so if you think you have contracted it, isolate yourself from everyone for 14 days and call your health care provider for directions if you think you need to go to a hospital.”

 

(Translation: stay home unless you’re close to dying because there isn’t a helluva lot anyone can do for you if you end up in a hospital…and you might infect health care workers by going there…so… good luck!)

 

I’m about as far from a “sky is falling” person as you can imagine, but I’m taking precautions I normally don’t:

 

• I’m washing my hands a lot more often than I ever have before every time I go out in public.

 

• I’m staying six feet away from almost everyone.

 

• I’m using hand sanitizers after pushing a shopping cart or touching things that other people have touched.

 

• I pull my hand into my sleeve when I walk down stairs using a hand railing or going out a door that the public goes through a lot, and I wash my clothes when I get home after doing so.

 

• I’m attending less well-attended theaters when I go see a movie so I’m not sitting close to anyone else.

 

• As soon as I get back home, I usually shower; at a minimum, I wash my hands and face again for at least 20 seconds with soap and water.

 

• I’ve just about given up the idea of “don’t touch your face” because it appears to be a near-impossibility for me to do that, so I’m just being super-careful about washing my hands every time I’m out and about.

 

 

And it isn’t just a matter of keeping myself safe. I’m friends with a person who is a caregiver for a 95-year-old woman and I’m a friend of another 95-year-old. I don’t want to risk getting infected because, although I would likely survive a bout of corona virus (no guarantees there, since I’m 69) I would hate to be responsible for passing the virus along to them, or to any other elderly person with health complications.

 

I know the current occupant of the White House is making political hay during this crisis, as he does with every issue, but he’s a moron, so I take everything he says with a ton of salt. He’s blaming our Governor for bringing the virus into the country and calling him a snake. First he called it a hoax, and now his cult is hoping it wipes out all the blue states.

 

It’s far more likely to wipe out the red states, because they’re listening to Trump’s blather. The blue states are taking the crisis seriously while the red states are drinking their Fuhrer’s kool-aid, as usual.

 

I don’t want to see anyone else dying of this virus.  Sadly, that probably won’t be the case…