Time NOT Lost

  Monday, April 6, 2020 I have yet to sew any face masks. Stores are completely out of N95's - the gold standard of face masks. My daughter Angela says she has a couple of extra N95's she will send us. She and Harry wear theirs to the corner grocery store. They seem to take it in stride. I always feel like a pariah while wearing a face mask in a doctor’s office. I imagine people staring at me and wondering, “What’s she got?” I feel like I’m advertising my health condition, so isn’t that a HIPAA violation?  Wondering if Angela might feel a similar awkwardness, I asked her, “Do you feel uncomfortable wearing a mask in public?” “No, not at all,” she said. “Lots of people are wearing them here.” Aw, Snap! San Francisco, where she lives, might be ahead of the game. In fact, the CDC has changed its tune on mask wearing. It now advocates using two-layer cloth masks .  I guess I’ll have to get over myself. With the new guidelines, everyone will soon wear face masks in public, wh

  April 5, 2020 The number of projected US deaths from COVID-19 steadily increases. The White House projected 100,000 to 240,000 US deaths under the current social distancing guidelines. -CBS News Given where we are today – a total of 3900 deaths nationwide, it is hard to believe that we could end up with a total of 240,000 deaths, more than 60 times the current tally. Some people are more inclined to believe the projections than others. It is tricky business developing epidemiological models, [1] They are, in fact, susceptible to assumptions researchers make about human behavior, health messaging, how the virus infects people, and how contagious the virus is. The projections themselves, if publicized, might even affect health outcomes. If people believe the projections and are motivated to work hard to defeat the disease, the projections may overestimate the infections and “prove themselves false.” If people don’t believe the projections and don’t follow safety measures,

April 2, 2020: President Trump likes to say he acted early to fight the spread of COVID-19. He points to his executive order in late January, that restricted travel from China. And he claims he took heat from Joe Biden for the ban. True, Biden has called Trump xenophobic, but the reasons go beyond the travel ban. Trump has shown a pattern of xenophobia evidenced by his rhetoric against immigrants from Mexico and from other places Trump calls “shithole countries,” and his quest to build a wall at the border with Mexico. Trump’s travel order seemed to spring from his oft-expressed derisive views of China and its leaders. Trump has repeatedly referred to COVID-19 in a mocking tone as the “Chinese virus,” creating a negative connotation for Asians, who could be seen as a physical embodiment of the virus. Some Asians have expressed their fear of being profiled and the stigma that could be associated with “coughing while Asian.” Joe Biden’s March 12 speech, for example, took Trump to task no

 April 1, 2020:  On April Fools Day, NPR would usually run some humorous and false news items, just for fun. Not today. Google took a year off from its annual April 1 pranks  “out of respect for all those fighting the COVID-19 pandemic." And in some countries April Fools jokes about the coronavirus are illegal.  Instead, here in California, we hear the local NPR affiliate interrupt its broadcast for a press conference about COVID-19 infections in California. I tune into a local TV station and sit down on the sofa to watch. During the press conference, staying home, physical distancing and hand washing are the main interventions advocated. The benefit of wearing face coverings is not as clear. Governor Newsome repeats what I’ve heard before (see March 23 entry): that the public should not use masks that are in short supply for health care workers, who need them most. Masks can be an additional protection but are not substitutes for physical distancing. Dr. Sonia Angell, Director

Monday, March 30, 2020 (continued):  Doug and I are on the road. When it's Doug's turn to  drive, I can write and reflect on the news of the day and I consider our own decision to travel. 1 pm We have both questioned whether it was a good idea to leave our home in Seattle. Still, over the weekend, we packed our Chevrolet Bolt, an electric car, and this morning headed south to our condo in Aptos, California. As our car zips down the I-5 corridor, the electronic traffic info signs display only one message: Stay home. Save lives. COVID-19. We feel that both “scofflaw” and “privileged” apply to us. We are lucky enough to have a second home. We rent it out when we aren’t there ourselves. Our trip each spring is filled with repairs and resupply chores to ready the condo for summer guests. But I am mindful that any travel looks like a mere vacation. I keep our Aptos property tax forms handy in my travel bag, in case we need to prove to anyone that we are “going home,” that we are

Monday, March 30, 2020:   Last week President Trump mused about how beautiful it would be for everything to go back to normal, with people back at work, by Easter , which falls on  April 12. The increased infections being reported make it clear that two weeks from now is not a realistic end date.  So, Trump's health advisers  (Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Deborah Birx, global health ambassador and diplomat since 2014)  were forced to engage in damage control. After the press conference, the health advisers reported that Trump' s comment about Easter was merely “aspirational.” In other words, just kidding, he didn't really mean it.  In follow-up interviews, the doctors assured the American people that Trump understands the safety measures will be needed longer than that. This nimble reinterpretation of Trump’s words does not fool me. I understand the doctors are trying to present some consistent messaging a