Today I am 60 years old. I remember very well being a young child and wondering if I could make it that long, and whaddya know, here I am. Coronavirus be damned!
I woke up to the wind, howling and shrieking around the corners of our tiny house, the eaves rumbling a little, the patio chairs scooting across the back porch. As soon as I sat down here with my coffee I heard the scattered, then heavy drops on the old tin roof. Good! Wash away all that glowing green pollen that’s been playing hell with our sinuses!
The media fixates on coronavirus – meanwhile, this has been one of the most pollinated years I remember. So far we’ve suffered the nut trees, now the oaks. Watch out, the worst ones – pine and privet – are still ahead. They say a mask won’t protect you from coronavirus but I’ll tell you – it will keep microscopic granules of living plant material from attaching themselves to your soft, moist internal tissues, digging in with tiny anchors, and causing you all kinds of respiratory distress. Yet another good reason to wash your hands, as well as your face and hair, before you go to bed.
But the talk of every town these days is coronavirus. My son called from Portland the other night to report hours long lines at the Winco, and NO TOILET PAPER. Shelves empty. Wow, as a neighbor of mine observed, we’ve hit bottom when you can’t find a roll of toilet paper on the shelves. What the hell is wrong with people?
The flu killed over 80,000 Americans in 2018. Did your kid’s school close? Did the airports shut down? Did the stores run out of vital supplies? Here’s an interesting story from MSNBC
“While the new coronavirus ravages much of China and world leaders rush to close their borders to protect citizens from the outbreak, the flu has quietly killed 10,000 in the U.S. so far this influenza season.”
The latest report I could find this morning says coronavirus has killed about 4,000, world wide. While I’m sorry for those victims and their families, I am also sorry for the 250,000 Americans reported to have died from medical errors last year.
Here’s what we need to learn from coronavirus:
- wash your hands regularly, and wash them well. Use warm water and gentle soap, and scrub between your fingers. Keep your fingernails short and scrub them good. It’s not just coronavirus, you know better. When a surgeon neglected to wash his hands well before he operated on my friend’s knee, my friend got an e-coli infection. That was explained very clearly in the letter he got from the hospital.
- keep your house neat and clean and well supplied. Keep the basic necessities, like pain/fever relievers, antiseptics like alcohol, and simple groceries on hand. Always have nonperishable food in your pantry. I recommend that miso soup powder that comes in packets. When my entire family had the flu years back, we were so weak it was about the only thing we were strong enough to prepare. We also try to keep at least a case of bottled water in the pantry. And, my family always laughed at me for hoarding toilet paper – well, nobody’s laughing now!
- find a good health care provider – I know, that’s not as easy as it sounds. But don’t wait until you get sick to figure out where you might go for help. Waiting until you are falling down sick and trying to go to Immediate Care, or worse, the ER, is not a good route.
Something I already knew before coronavirus is our healthcare system is in trouble. When my family finally signed up for California Covered, our insurance agent told us there were very few doctors in Chico who would accept our Silver 94 policy, and most of them are booked up with patients.
Another thing I already knew is there’s no real journalism in America anymore, just propaganda. What I see now is a united attempt by a huge segment of the media to create hysteria in the public and lay the whole blame on Trump. For what? Wake up people, you are being led by the nose. This article in the ER illustrates how ridiculous it’s gotten – the city of Chico leads the hysterical charge by cancelling public meetings. Chico Velo wades in by cancelling the Wildflower.
“As of Friday afternoon, there have been no confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Butte County.”
What remains to be seen, is how city manager Mark Orme will twist this non-emergency into a campaign for his sales tax increase.
Chico Taxpayers Association 
Apparently the Chico WinCo was also cleaned out last night. Photos posted on Facebook showed empty shelves where the paper products should be. Same at Target. Also pasta, top ramen, rice, beans and so forth.
I’m thinking that everybody saw Trump on TV yesterday and realized that he is completely incompetent and the US is screwed.
Please explain to me how Trump is responsible for this hysteria.
Trump’s speech was full of obvious lies and distortions. Trump criticized Obama’s response to N1H1 with incorrect statistics, the reported corrected him and Trump shut her down and asked for the next reporter.
Trump was briefed of the risk three months ago and took NO action. Most other countries took this seriously and prepared immediately. We didn’t. Trump also refused to use tests provided by the World Health Organization, preferring an incompetent US contractor. When questioned by another reporter about this delay. Trump said: ‘I don’t take responsibility at all’, which really sums it all up.
South Korea, a nation of 51 million, has tested about 250,000 people since its outbreak began on Jan. 20. We have tested less than 10,000.
People who have been following the news have seen what happened to countries which didn’t take prompt action against this, namely Iraq and Italy.
We are in the same boat as those countries. With the exception that Italy has more hospital capacity per person than we do. They also have national health care and guaranteed payed sick leave.
The paid sick leave in very important, since that means that restaurant and fast food workers can take time off if they are ill. Here many food workers go to work sick.
What if we go on national quarantine like Italy has?
So people panicked.
Do you know the correct figures on N1H1? I wouldn’t take the reporter’s word for it.
If Trump would have responded by shutting down the borders three months ago I think he would have faced a hail of criticism. But that was essentially what should have been done, and nobody was proposing that. As for the tests, I’ve heard a lot about false results, both positive and negative. Then there’s the question of incubation period – nobody can seem to agree on that. Frankly, I would be afraid to be tested, a positive would mean incarceration at this point.
The old country has infrastructure problems that are centuries old, poor sanitation and drinking water problems. Old buildings, a lot of crowding. A virus will spread like wildfire under those circumstances. A friend of mine brought home a picture of a public restroom near the Vatican, I realized, I don’t want to go to Italy.
And that’s where it’s happening in California – in bigger cities where people are crowded and share unsanitary facilities. Yeah, we should all probably carry sanitary wipes wherever we go, wipe down that shopping cart, wipe down the window Squeegee at the gas station, etc. The other day, when I attended that meeting Downtown, I stood waiting for the door to open for five minutes on a piss-stained entryway next to a pile of dried puke. Yeah, I carry hand sanitizer and I leave my shoes outside when I come home.
I think we agree that Americans need more access to healthcare. We need more nurses, but a very competent young lady I know was just denied admission to the nursing school of her choice, despite good grades and a resume full of public service. They told her to keep applying, they didn’t have enough spaces to accommodate her that year. So, at a time like this, schools are turning away nursing students because of lack of space. Yeah, that needs to be addressed.
Don’t panic.
Simpsons warned us about Crona virus.
Oh yeah, my husband and I were just talking about that one! Thanks for having a great sense of humor Jim.
Happy birthday.
THANKS! You know what this means – 5 old people with less than $200 worth of signs and their keyboards just kicked the crap out of a group that raised and spent 10’s of thousands.
Power to the old people! On to November!
I knew I could come here and read some common sense. I went to TJs this morning for tp, not to hoard it but because I was almost out. Thanks stockpilers, no tp to be had. Because I didn’t anticipate the selfish panic buying last week, no one can spare a square and I’m stuck on the can.
As you point out out healthcare system has been broken for years. Flu season is always deadly for some. I’m 67 and figure one day it will probably get me, c’est la vie, c’est la fin.
Happy Birthday Pisces!!
Thanks Donna! Wow, 67 looks good on you! Will I make it to 67? Remains to be seen. But yeah, coronavirus does not scare me as much as riding my bike around town. Me and old Myrtie, we’re probably going to go out together someday, trying to get across the street in front of the post office. We’ve both been slipping gears for a while now!