03-18-2020, 09:56 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-19-2020, 07:57 AM by Bob Butler 54.)
I’m from Massachusetts, blue, prophet, and retired. I live between lakes near Cape Cod. A few years back I had a brain tumor, and various doctors are still dealing with the after effects. Most of this is at a fairly low level given time.
I have spent much of the last few weeks getting calls by doctors cancelling appointments. All the monitoring and maintenance visits are coming to a stop as the health care system reorients itself to the virus. For the duration, minimizing contact is rated as more important than routine check ups.
The fantasy role playing community is shutting down. The restaurants are gone. The local super market has senior hours early so the most vulnerable can isolate as much as possible. While I have been relaxed in ordering groceries by delivery as I can’t carry as much as I used to, and will pick up the items I missed at brick and mortar stores, I spent a little time recently building a list to minimize or eliminate these visits. I just signed up for delivery without coming into contact with the deliverer. I am paying my tax person by check for the first time, to minimize contacts. Both the tax people and I had similar ideas to do this.
Thus, I am rapidly turning into a hermit.
Now I do know that California is a split state. There are a few large cities, mostly on the coast, backed up with huge rural areas that include much territory but fewer people. (Massachusetts is quite similar, if less rural. The western part of the state is quite sparsely populated.) In the less populated areas, assuming you don’t have a big source of infection nearby, there are no cases and no need to take precautions. It seems you are in a zone where this state lingers.
But in areas like ports, or near Air Force bases where they have flown in infected people and then leaked the disease into the population, it gets like Massachusetts or worse right quick.
One response does not necessarily fit all. If we had a lot of test kits, if we knew for sure which communities could stay relaxed, sure, stay relaxed. Thing is, we don’t have test kits. Under the circumstances, staying relaxed while not checking reality is taking a risk.
All I can say is that your community is flirting with disaster. If the precautions seem too strenuous for you, don’t take them? You may have a time of living the old way a little while longer, but judging from the curves, this time could end abruptly.
They say in the old Black Death days you knew it was coming. It was far away, then closer, then terrifyingly close, then it arrived. These days, with all sorts of transportation, it is far more spotty. You have areas like Iran, Italy, Washington state and New York where it has gotten into the general population. There the professionals expect an exponential growth where all the precautions to flatten the curve are necessary. Sounds like you aren’t there yet. Just because you are not, don’t assume that all places are alike, and that it cannot in time change.
I have spent much of the last few weeks getting calls by doctors cancelling appointments. All the monitoring and maintenance visits are coming to a stop as the health care system reorients itself to the virus. For the duration, minimizing contact is rated as more important than routine check ups.
The fantasy role playing community is shutting down. The restaurants are gone. The local super market has senior hours early so the most vulnerable can isolate as much as possible. While I have been relaxed in ordering groceries by delivery as I can’t carry as much as I used to, and will pick up the items I missed at brick and mortar stores, I spent a little time recently building a list to minimize or eliminate these visits. I just signed up for delivery without coming into contact with the deliverer. I am paying my tax person by check for the first time, to minimize contacts. Both the tax people and I had similar ideas to do this.
Thus, I am rapidly turning into a hermit.
Now I do know that California is a split state. There are a few large cities, mostly on the coast, backed up with huge rural areas that include much territory but fewer people. (Massachusetts is quite similar, if less rural. The western part of the state is quite sparsely populated.) In the less populated areas, assuming you don’t have a big source of infection nearby, there are no cases and no need to take precautions. It seems you are in a zone where this state lingers.
But in areas like ports, or near Air Force bases where they have flown in infected people and then leaked the disease into the population, it gets like Massachusetts or worse right quick.
One response does not necessarily fit all. If we had a lot of test kits, if we knew for sure which communities could stay relaxed, sure, stay relaxed. Thing is, we don’t have test kits. Under the circumstances, staying relaxed while not checking reality is taking a risk.
All I can say is that your community is flirting with disaster. If the precautions seem too strenuous for you, don’t take them? You may have a time of living the old way a little while longer, but judging from the curves, this time could end abruptly.
They say in the old Black Death days you knew it was coming. It was far away, then closer, then terrifyingly close, then it arrived. These days, with all sorts of transportation, it is far more spotty. You have areas like Iran, Italy, Washington state and New York where it has gotten into the general population. There the professionals expect an exponential growth where all the precautions to flatten the curve are necessary. Sounds like you aren’t there yet. Just because you are not, don’t assume that all places are alike, and that it cannot in time change.
That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.