Pandemic Recap (Thus Far) - Part Three

December 2020

December 2, 2020, the U.S. reported 2,760 COVID-19 deaths.

 

Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist and a Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington DC tweeted this image:

Pandemic Recap (Thus Far) - Part Two

June 2020

Before the pandemic, my three-year-old son and I had time to ourselves during our weekly grocery store trips. That was our thing, our dedicated time together. And I missed it terribly.

 

Before the pandemic descended upon us, our son was already far more attached to my wife. But his attachment to her became more extreme during the pandemic. If she wanted to run an errand, she would have to sneak out of her parents’ house without him noticing because he would otherwise cry and wail if he knew she was gone.

 

During his early years, I saw my son cry on many, many occasions. Early in the pandemic, when my wife would try to leave the house to go to the store, he would wail with what felt like fearful despair. He would stop as soon as she stepped back into the house. It was a different type of crying. If we had tried to explain the pandemic to him then, he couldn’t have comprehended what was happening, but he knew something was terribly wrong. I have no doubt.

Pandemic Recap (Thus Far) - Part One

January 2020

On January 10, 2020, the first SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence was posted on an open internet depository by Chinese researchers, confirming that the pneumonia-like outbreak in Wuhan, China—reportedly occurring since November 2019—stemmed from a coronavirus. The Chinese government denied the virus was spreading among humans until January 19.

 

On January 21^st, a Washington state resident who had recently traveled to Wuhan became the first person in the United States with a confirmed case of the novel coronavirus.

 

Two days later, the Chinese government locked down Wuhan, a major transportation hub and city with a metropolitan population of 11 million people.

 

On January 31^st, the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live, was identified in Santa Clara County. It was a man who had recently traveled to Wuhan. That same day, the World Health Organization (WHO), for only the sixth time in its seventy-three-year existence, declared a public health emergency once the worldwide death toll from SARS-CoV-2 passed 200 and after an exponential jump to more than 9,800 cases.

 

February 2020

A few days later, the second confirmed COVID-19 case—unrelated to the first one—was identified in Santa Clara County. She had also just returned home from Wuhan.

 

On February 6, 2020, 57-year-old Patricia Dowd—a resident of San Jose, CA—was the first known death caused by COVID-19 in the United States. She had no foreign travel history.

 

At the time, I worked at a community health clinic in Fremont, a sprawling suburb bordering Santa Clara County. A standing sign at the clinic’s main entrance posted information about the novel coronavirus. It warned patients about the virus and noted that all patients would be screened for any recent travel to China, or contact with anyone who had recently returned from China.

Pandemic Ride

 

There I was, standing in my closet, picking out a clean shirt and digging into a tote bag to find swim goggles for my first ride on public transportation since March. It was New Year’s Eve, 2020. My beloved in-laws—my angels throughout this pandemic—were grilling up steaks and chicken wings to mark the passing of this dreadful calendar year. Instead of staying home and waiting for my wife, Maria, and our son to return with leftovers, I thought it would be a righteous note to end the year by dining with them. No one else was coming to their house, and we were in each other’s COVID-19 bubble.

While I got dressed and ready, I had to pee twice. I also started to involuntarily cough. It had been a while since my nervous cough surfaced: the first weeks of the pandemic back in late March whenever I got ready for a weekly solo supermarket shopping trip.

Thoughts on the NBA Restart

On March 11, 2020, everything went to shit: seconds before tip-off between the Utah Jazz and Oklahoma City Thunder, a member of the Thunder’s medical staff sprinted onto the court and spoke to the officials. The game was eventually postponed. The Jazz’s All-Star center, Rudy Gobert, had tested positive for Covid-19, which prompted the league to “suspend” its season. For many of us ‘Muricans, the NBA’s shutdown is when we undoubtedly knew shit got real with this pandemic.

Although it was four and a half months ago, it feels like that date was at least half a year ago. This pandemic and our country’s subsequent unfuckingconceivably horrific response has a way of warping our collective sense of time. So much can change in a matter of days, and something two weeks out viscerally feels much longer than that because so many bad turns can and have happened in such a minute time frame. Since early March, so much has happened in this country and I’m not even going to try to begin to talk about that mad whirlwind because once I get going I’m not sure where I should conceivably end.

Instead, for one of the few times since early March, I’m going to try to focus my attention on something that isn’t related to SARS-CoV-2, the Black Lives Matters movement, police brutality, and the death spiral of the American empire we are witnessing in real time. Although this pandemic and the correlated destruction resulting from American hypercapitalism is far, far, far from over, I want to share some of my thoughts on the NBA’s 2019-2020 restart.

Into the COVID-19 Fray: An Interview with an ER Nurse

Ebola test laboratory in Liberia, Image courtesy of UNMEER

This interview was recorded on the 03/20/2020 weekend.

JAV: How was your shift today?

NURSE: It almost felt more normal than I expected it to, I guess. There’s this combination of…and I feel bad saying this…ignorance, panic, and self-entitlement that we’re seeing that’s really difficult to deal with. But then, at the same time, we’re kind of used to dealing with this already. I think some of the staff, even among medical people, you’re getting some of that panic where people want all the [personal protective] gear even if they don’t need it to be in that room, or they’re a little hyper-paranoid. And there’s actually a lot of people calling in sick because they just don’t want to be around it. It’s a little crazy. We’re all at home being very careful about social distancing. Everybody is staying home and being very careful about not bringing germs home and all that and then at work all of us are super close together as if it was just any other day. It’s kind of weird.

JAV: How long have you worked as an ER nurse?

NURSE: I’ve worked down in the ER for nine years. I had previously worked in other units.

JAV: How do you think you ended up becoming an ER nurse?

NURSE: (laughs) Almost by accident! When I was a new grad I worked in medical oncology. I wanted to go back to school but the only position that allowed me the flexibility was a float nurse. Back then, I always said, I don’t want to work in the ER. It’s too chaotic. It seems crazy. I like things organized. I like to have my day and plan it but I had a friend at the hospital who kept telling me, come down and work with us…and I just had no interest. That seems like a mess.