"I don't know how to make you see reason"

An old friend...actually he was my sixth grade boyfriend...commented on one of my Facebook posts.  He's worried that we're "overreacting" and giving up civil liberties to defend against a threat he just can't see is that bad.  He said that lockdowns would collapse the economy and cost "thousands" of lives.

This was my response: 

Do you remember a few days ago when you were trying to claim that nobody was showing up to hospitals with Covid-19 symptoms, when in fact hospitals in Atlanta and south Georgia were already swamped? And when I predicted that we would soon match Italy's numbers and you shrugged it off?

I was right. You were wrong. You're wrong now, too. I know you're not a stupid person, and I don't understand your emotional resistance to the facts of the situation. I really don't understand your lack of intellectual curiosity about it; the information I've been talking about is easy to find. It's practically everywhere. I even gave you the information necessary to understand that COVID-19, unchecked, will spread exponentially. Seventy-five percent of Americans will be infected.

Seventy-five percent of 330 million is 250 million. One percent of 250 million is 2.5 million...but that's the best case scenario, with no crowding or external complications and optimal care. 3.5 percent of 250 million is 8.6 million. That's a much more likely number, if this thing is allowed to run out of control.

If we do not act strongly and decisively now, "thousands" won't die. MILLIONS will die. Over four times as many Americans will die than in all of our wars combined. And then our economy will collapse anyway. The difference is that it will be a lot easier to recover if a significant chunk of the work force are holed up in their houses or whatever we can pull together to help people survive, than if they're dead. The difference is between relatively short-term pain and...something else entirely.

You don't have to take my word for it; look up the Imperial College epidemiological model or any of the articles that are out explaining it. The part about the economy collapsing and recovery is the opinion of my husband, who has an MBA from Georgia Tech. He saw this stuff coming and pulled his 401k out of the stock market before it crashed. Argue with him, if you please.

Right now, we are choosing life or death for millions of Americans. We are choosing whether they will get a fighting chance or die gasping in a hallway waiting for a respirator that will never come, and a doctor too overwhelmed to care for them. By the time we get to that future, it will already be far too late.

Haven't you watched the news? Better yet, don't you know anybody who works in a hospital? They are already overrun. They are already running out of supplies. Already, now. And this is still just the very beginning.

If that is news to you, then your sources of information are flawed.

I don't know how to make you see reason, and I find this conversation distressing. Especially considering I am in a high risk category and may very well not live through this. I don't know how to tell you not to step out in front of a bus that has everyone's grandmother and diabetic friend on board. I don't know how to make you see life or death in a mathematical curve, or trust the world's best epidemiologist when he says we should be taking it much more seriously than we are.

I will just remind you of our conversation a few days ago, and how everything I said has come to pass.

I thought it would take two weeks to get here. I was wrong.

"It's no big deal" "People are overreacting" "Hysteria" blah blah meme making fun of people "panicking" hey let's go on vacation...

The number of confirmed cases in the US jumped 40% overnight to 13,726. Now, some of that is surely because of increased testing, but...we still don't have enough tests. These aren't all the cases, they're just the confirmed cases in an environment where lots of people are not being tested. The actual number of cases is probably ten times that. Also, the curve is not going to level off due to the measures we've already taken until sometime NEXT week, if it does.

I admit, I was wrong about the numbers. They are considerably higher, faster than what I was saying. But I still got people telling me in condescending tones that I was hysterically overreacting, something something liberal agenda.

I don't know, man. Maybe next time all the scientists tell you to be worried about something, you should listen to them. I have a couple things in mind.

And stay the fuck home.

Writers Gone Wild

I won the grocery store argument.  They couldn't get all of the things we wanted but we will be ok. I expect that after the grocery stores get a chance to re-stock we can try again.

All of my friends decided to do Facebook Live at once, and one of them was talking about how she still dresses up for staff meetings which she attends from her living room.  I guess we've found the extroverts in the group (some of whom would not cop to that label at all.)

Meanwhile, I'm still in my pajamas at 5:22 pm and my husband, who normally wears slacks, a dress shirt, and a suit jacket, is wearing old gym shorts and t-shirts all day, every day.  Nobody cares what writers look like under ordinary circumstances, and we've pretty much gone feral over here.

 

We are exercising extreme caution because I have underlying health issues and the Atlanta hospitals are already slammed.  Much more so than people realize, I think.  We know what we do because we know people who work in health care.  A lot of people are still in full-on denial, while others are increasingly frustrated with the first group.  Some of my more conservative acquaintances are starting to take it seriously while giving Trump credit for all of the measures he (and they) were scoffing at days ago.  Whatever will make you sit your ass at home, dude.

Anyone who is not too concerned should consider the speed with which Congress is pushing through various legislation, including straight up cash payments to individuals, with Trump all ready to sign it all.   It's not because they care about us, exactly; if they did, they'd have been doing that all along.  It's because they've seen a financial apocalypse bearing down on them.  They're spooked. 

I'm actually about to get dressed and go for a walk around the lake while the sun is still shining.  It's nice out there.  There are a few people about...not many.  The birds are chirping and the geese are honking.  It's a beautiful day.

Milk and Otters

We're out of milk and my husband wants to get out of the house.  We're having one of those low-level married people bickers about it:  he thinks we shouldn't order groceries because delivery systems are strained and it's extra money, and I think he should stay the fuck out of public places for the next little while.  We won't know until NEXT week if the measures THIS week are working...and people aren't paying attention to them anyway. 

I signed us up for a weekly box of vegetables, updated my Kroger and Costco accounts so I can order online easily, and am awaiting a prescription. I'm feeling grateful that I can do those things, as I spent some years living hand to mouth. Though honestly if I'd been able to order groceries back when I didn't own a car, that would have been pretty cool.

I've some big news happening today, but I'm going to save that for another post :D  Meanwhile, the Georgia Aquarium has a sea otter cam.  You're welcome.

The Brunch of the Red Death

The divisions I mentioned yesterday don't seem to be changing any.  People are going out to bars on Saturday night, going to church on Sunday and then out to Sunday brunch like normal.  Nobody I know personally, I don't think, but friends of friends.  I hear about it because those friends are worried and angry about people they know ignoring the writing on the wall.

Meanwhile there are 127 cases under investigation for COVID-19 at Emory, seven confirmed.  One death.

Meanwhile my Pagan ass is parked at home, checking on coven mates via text message and canceling plans.  A friend is using her Zoom account to do daily devotionals.  We normally gather in very small groups, but most of the people I know are skipping even those in favor of online interactions.  I think I hear the 90s calling, they want their technopagans back.

I never would have thought I'd say this, but it seems like Pagans have a streak of common sense after all.

The mayor of Pine Lake sent out an e-mail with a link to a form they are asking people to fill out.  It asks how many adults live in your household, contact information, and whether or not you want a welfare check in an emergency.  We said no because we believe that the time and energy for that should be spent on other people.

Plague Diary #1

We are in the middle of a global pandemic.  It's going to get worse before it gets better, certainly in the United States where we are at the very beginning of the curve.

There's a literary tradition of "plague diaries;"  they've been the main source of historical information about the bubonic plague, for example.  But we have the internet now, and I was a blogger long before I was a journalist.  I know from experience how writing and shared experience can benefit both writer and reader.  In any crisis of my life, I turn to words.

I posted this on Facebook yesterday:

Some people are a bit...wound up. I had someone who has known me for decades chew me out about the headline of an article I posted and then unfriend me.

But for the most part, I not only don't want to get away from social media, I love the way people try to share information and opinions and ideas and ask for help and keep each other entertained and generally shore each other up in the face of trouble. I would never have seen videos of Italians singing to each other from balconies if I wasn't paying attention to social media.

I don't think the barrage of information is "fear-mongering" or bad. If anything, I'm worried people aren't afraid *enough.* The disease is circulating in our communities and people are going about their business like whole countries aren't shut down...whole countries who are about two weeks ahead of us on the timeline. Those people might be fine, but I and others might not, and we can't avoid humans entirely. Their unconcern could kill people.

I've been reading and sharing news, graphs about "flattening the curve" and gallows humor.  I'm currently feeling reasonably good about seeing this coming; I stocked up my kitchen two weeks ago (though I never did make to Costco...I'm going to wait a little while on that), and convinced my husband to start working from home a week or so ago.  As of Wednesday, I stopped all non-essential appointments or outings, and while I went out Friday to interview people for a story I'm canceling all expeditions that don't lead directly to money or groceries.  (I'm going to get my meds delivered). I'm doing a job interview tomorrow that was originally scheduled for in-person.  I'm visiting with friends via Zoom.

Some of that is because I'm diabetic (therefore in a risk category) and I just went through fun times in the hospital with a kidney stone and sepsis last September.  I don't like my chances, though I have a lifetime history of being hard to kill.  Some of it is because I have seasonal allergies (a curse upon Bartlett pears!) and I've been low-key congested, tired, and slightly achey for weeks.  I'm both more susceptible to secondary infections, and more likely to not know that I'm sick until I spike a fever.  So...home it is.

People in Pine Lake where I live and most of my social sphere seem to be taking it seriously.  The weather has been nice but there are fewer people out and about, and the ones who are seem to be keeping a reasonable distance from one another.  I overheard a couple of neighbors talking about carrying a six foot pole to maintain "social distance," and I walked past an exercise class that was being conducted on the beach (presumably because outside was deemed safer, though with Pine Lakers you never know).  City Hall is closed for now, some of the older residents are self-isolating, people are organizing to pick up groceries and run other errands for people who don't want to leave their homes, and one of our neighbors is making elderberry syrup.  Which she is selling for the exact same amount she normally does.   Local governments are also taking it seriously:  schools are shut down, public offices are closing, meetings are being livestreamed.  COVID-19 cases who can't isolate at home for whatever reason are being sent to Hard Labor Creek State Park, which is about an hour from Atlanta, has commercial kitchens in the group camps and lots of room. 

Outside of Pine Lake and on the ground as it were, not so much.  We drove around a bit yesterday to see what was happening.  Wal-Mart was crowded, which is understandable I suppose.  Downtown Stone Mountain was full of people and cars, which is less so. 

It's less an ideological divide than one of temperament and how people get information. As I say my social sphere is mostly taking it seriously, but some on the fringes...aren't.  The difference between left and right politics is mainly in which conspiracy theory/dumbass interpretation they believe, though there's a measurable difference in how many people believe them on each side.  Trump supporters and watchers of Fox News think that either 1) the whole thing is made up to crash the stock market, make Trump look bad, and keep him from getting re-elected, or 2) it's just a "bad flu" that Democrats are politicizing and blowing out of proportion to make Trump look bad.  Folks on the other side of the ideological line favor the theory that it's being exaggerated to scare people and seize power, or is a bioweapon.  Or they think we can make it go away with lavender oil and positive vibes.  What disturbs me is that while the latter views are mostly being presented by wingnuts who get shouted down pretty quickly by my peers, the former are being taken seriously by people I....would have assumed were smarter than that.

The Saturday Evening Post published a short story of mine this past year.  I wrote the first version of that story in high school, some *cough* years ago.  (NEVER GIVE UP!)

And lookee here, I am on a list!  

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