Living in the time of pandemic: COVID-19 (32)
January 11, 2021
Week 43 of COVID in the Bay Area.
Week 43, Day 298: You’ll forgive me skipping the week after Christmas – we are still trying to right the ship that now has an extra human passenger and some days are harder than others. Nights, harder still. Nothing of note happened other than keeping ourselves alive and intact, anyway. I have a to do list the length of my leg today, and my brain only wants to crunch money numbers. The biggest things I need to get done: clearing PiC’s old SE for a trade in, organizing our investments, we need to organize our thoughts about how to talk to JB’s principal about better options for their school situation, deal with our still broken internet and yell at Comcast some more because it’s still broken though they promised a fix by yesterday. (Who actually believed Comcast when they promised me this would be fixed by Sunday? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?)
I notice my brain avoiding all but the number crunching though. That might be because I was up with Smol Acrobat most of the night? MAAYBE. We went for a very slow medium length walk today and it was extra hard on my joints. Also maybe because I was up with SA most of the night. PiC slept quite well though thankfully so I could go rest this afternoon while he parented. It worked out though. I can’t sleep through Smol’s whimpers and nighttime wakings, while he can, so I might as well field those and let him sleep so he can parent during the day when I catch up on my sleep.
***
COVID LIFE: Over at Nicole and Maggie’s, I said I would start talking about the things we do and do NOT do , so I’ll go over a bit each day this week.
We will maintain these rules for as long as it takes to get to a point where we feel things are safer. Between you, me and PiC, that’s going to take several months, minimum, even after we get vaccinated.
I’m really grateful that he and I are aligned on what it takes to consider things safe and what risks are acceptable. It took a few discussions and uncomfortable feelings occasionally as we felt our way through the early weeks and months. The discomfort isn’t with each other, it’s mainly with the situation and evolving information. We are agreed that no short term fun is worth greater risks and unknowns so we have taken steps to make our lives more comfortable and fun (or less terrible) within the confines of what we consider safe-enough behaviors for the long haul.
Our rules are very much at odds with many other people we know – many people are hopeful it’s only going to be a short time before we’re back to normal. We don’t agree, but that’s just how the cookie crumbles.
It is helpful that four sets of local friends are also similarly restricted and cautious. It helps us maintain our boundaries and means they are available for the kinds of playdates we’re willing to make (video only or really really outdoors). But I still bite my tongue a lot when people make plans or say they think it’ll be safe to (insert a thing I’m pretty is not safe).
We’ve also had a ton more video calls with legitimately far away friends and family, which helps a bit with feeling more connected. (TOO connected, sometimes…)
So, starting off with our hard line nopes:
We do not travel.
We do not attend gatherings – not the loosely supervised unmasked playdates, or the unmasked Halloween party that some neighbors had.
We do not go out: no eating out, no bars, no gyms, no children’s parties, no holiday celebration, no sports, no playdates.
We do not use a babysitter, the dog walker, the dogsitter. The lack of childcare is going to be really tough when we go back to work. But we’ll figure it out.
Week 43, Day 299:
We’ve been watching Moana again and at any given point in time, one of us is singing or humming a song from the soundtrack. It’s infectious!
You know how they say the days are long but the years are short as regards childrearing? It’s true in normal times. But boy howdy is time topsy turvy in the middle of a pandemic AND the early days of babyhood. I am so tired. So so so tired. Why don’t my children like sleep? And how did I forget how much I love sleep?
Today’s the Georgia runoff and I’m on pins and needles wondering if we will get a Senate that will do anything or if we will be stuck for another four years with McConnell obstructionism. I can’t watch the returns, I just need an answer.
***
COVID LIFE: We are seeing people under the following circumstances (all criteria must apply):
- Low frequency. We rotate between 3 sets of local families. We schedule generous time between them so there’s no asymptomatically transferring germs from one family to another. We don’t see one set and then a second set the same or the next day. If we spend real time with one family, then anyone else we see is only for dropoff and pickup interactions (if that) for about 2 weeks before we choose to spend real time with the next. We generally go a week or two or more without seeing anyone at all.
- Everyone is ALWAYS masked, physically distanced for at least 95% of the interaction (small exceptions made for the moments JB wants to run up to hand off a prepared gift / bag / packet, or when they have something to hand to us),
- Outdoors only. No one is breathing the same air as anyone else. We always have a stiff breeze in our neighborhood too, so we are spread apart AND have air that’s always moving briskly. Part of our home maintenance included making our yard more usable and that’s helped us “host” safely – kids can play “together” masked and outdoors without touching, breathing on each other, or being close to one other.
This has evolved incrementally between March of 2020 and now. In the spring-summer period of the pandemic year 2020, we would see one couple, once every 2-4 weeks at most, sometimes 6-8 weeks. In about 5 months, I’d guess we saw them four times maybe?
In the fall-winter of 2020, one person entered our home to help us with Smol Acrobat for a period of time. They were isolated before coming to help. One other person was heavily pregnant and needed our bathroom. No one would humanely say no to that, and they were only inside as long as they needed the facilities and they were alone in the house. The rest of us all stayed outside.
If we share a meal, it’s still outdoors, spaced apart, and masked. We only remove masks to eat, then they go right back on. JB is a stickler for reminding people to get their masks back on as soon as food is consumed. There’s no sitting around chitchatting, maskless.
Week 43, Day 300:
What. The. Flerken. Flerk. We just got Rev Warnock and Ossoff elected and before we had a chance to breathe, we really saw a whole coup attempt at the Capitol today.
It was absolutely no secret that this utterly incompetent, malicious, self centered, horrible president was whipping up his followers to do something violent (hello Charlottesville), how in the hickory sticks was the Capitol Police, the DC police, and the National Guard all caught out flat-footed by this? Though really as the day wore on it was apparent that at least some of them were simply treating the mob as tourists and letting them in.
This was an absolute stunner of a day and I wish I could say it was hard to believe what just happened but these white supremacists have been trumpeting their intent all along. This was no surprise. They had shirts and sweatshirts made up with the date. This was not a secret.
***
COVID LIFE: We ramped up indoor activities to the tenth degree as needed. The wildfires seriously curtailed their outings, weather now does the same when it’s too wet to want to be wandering about out of doors or riding a bike. We have a lot of art time. Scratch art is a massive hit. So is painting, drawing, making cards and envelopes, and sundry other paper crafts.
Week 43, Day 301:
I cannot believe that the entire Congress hasn’t immediately decided to impeach the treasonous Squatter in Chief. He incited an insurrection intended to disrupt the rule of law. Multiple senators supported this encouragement of civil unrest.
I’m so angry at this country’s death grip on white supremacy.
***
Making a conscious effort to think about other things when we’ve done what we can …
***
COVID LIFE: We have allowed JB to play on one playground, a few weeks ago, and sanitized everything afterward. We have been to a local beach for digging in the sand a few times, and that’s even easier to stay far away from people because our beaches are not warm and welcoming. People are out walking their dogs but they aren’t hanging out sunbathing or crowding the area. Luckily, JB enjoys the cold and damp (ew) so digging in the sand on a gloomy day is fun for them.
We go on daily walks with the dogs and wear masks for most walks. Only I occasionally go maskless if I’m taking them out for a 2-3 minute potty break and am coming right back, since I can easily avoid all humans in such a short jaunt. JB never goes outside maskless, period, since they are more prone to getting distracted and lingering.
Week 43, Day 302:
To quote Captain Awkward – I’m not doomscrolling. I’m regular ass normal scrolling and the doom is just THERE.
***
This first full week of January has been so surreal that I keep finding myself surprised that it’s January / 2021.
Our new benefits have begun, I can schedule an eye exam and get my backup glasses. It’s time for our annual IRA contribution, and sundry other things. But my mind is intensely otherwise occupied.
Why are you taking such extreme measures? It feels like wearing a mask outside while walking your dog is such an overreaction, as is not letting your kid play outside with friends unmasked. I know about 15 people off top of my head who’ve had COVID now and several over the age of 65+ with some comorbidities and they all said (this is anecdotal of course) that it basically felt like a bad head cold or the flu. Because of this I have a hard time taking any of the “SKY IS FALLING” stuff seriously…..
These are not extreme measures. This is what we’re doing after considering the impact of the disease and the preventative measures that work here and in other countries.
There are over 300,000 people dead in our country, to start with.
If we’re only talking *anecdotally*, my friends have lost family, some people have lost their entire families to this. My friend of 30 years was hospitalized with it for weeks and still hasn’t recovered fully, another dozen more were laid up for weeks. I know other people who suffered serious long term effects for months, and are still.
Meanwhile because people aren’t taking this seriously, hospitals are so overrun that ambulances will no longer transport anything they call a non-emergency and their definition of an emergency is very narrow. I have an elderly family member *right now* sitting at home with a serious injury that may be life threatening and they cannot be transported to the hospital and even if they were, they are way back in line to be treated. Friends and family who are healthcare providers are utterly burnt out by the massive numbers of cases they’ve been treating since March.
Looking at data, we still don’t know the extent of how bad it can be but studies are finding that COVID can damage healthy heart tissue in a significant percentage of healthy teens and college athletes, not to menton the myriad other issues that long haulers (about 10% of COVID survivors) have faced like memory loss, fatigue, body aches, etc:
https://health.ucdavis.edu/coronavirus/covid-19-information/covid-19-long-haulers.html.
If your personal circle’s limited experience with it hasn’t been severe, then they are fortunate.
This is not something we are going to take lightly. And even if we thought we’d recover just fine from it (we don’t), we still aren’t willing to spread it and potentially kill or damage other people’s health.
I already live with many of the symptoms that long haulers are left with, we have no intention of risking a serious illness that exacerbates my already difficult health.
It’s very sad that 300k people have passed with Covid but that number doesn’t tell the whole story.
In my state 60% deaths were people 80+, and of those 91% had pre existing conditions. Young people don’t seem to get the illness as bad or pass away from it unless they have underlying health concerns.
That’s a real dismissive handwave at the deaths of a huge number of people. You’re basically saying that since those folks were over 80, the years they would have had remaining without COVID were negligible and disposable. They could have had ten or more good years to meet new family members, to enjoy life, to do whatever they wanted left to them but it’s ok that they died of COVID because they eventually would have died anyway? That seems both wrong and a terrible reason to NOT take reasonable precautions and NOT take a serious disease seriously.
You might be surprised to know that most of us have pre-existing conditions and referring to that as the reason people are dying in droves or seriously affected is flawed. Many pre-existing or underlying medical conditions are not terminal illnesses. My fibro may be horrible for quality of life but it’s not fatal. Many pre-existing conditions are entirely manageable – why would that be a good reason to dismiss COVID as a serious threat? It’s not.
These ultra-right-wing talking points are sociopathic! Like, WTF.
When they say all lives matter, they don’t actually mean it.
nicoleandmaggie recently posted…What are we doing to deal with the huge post-holiday Covid surge
Ummm first of all Revanche HAS an underlying condition. So… that qualifier doesn’t do much.
Also… it’s okay that they died because they were old and had a chronic ailment? People’s justifications are truly illuminating inre: their psyche.
Abigail @ipickuppennies recently posted…Monday randomness: Two windfalls, my holiday, TikTok love & more
While we’re tossing anecdotal evidence in the ring as scientific fact here, my best friend’s fiancé’s father died due to complications of COVID. Same friend’s parents both got it, and her mother had to sleep in the hospital’s emergency room because, even though she could hardly breathe, she wasn’t a priority compared to other patients. (They ended up sending her home with oxygenation equipment. She’s still recovering four weeks later.) One coworker’s wife broke her hip, caught COVID while in the hospital for that injury and died. Another coworker lost both of his parents. It’s true that some people have less severe cases and end up fine (the jury is still out on long term effects though). That coworker whose wife died also caught COVID, and he said the only symptom he noticed was losing his sense of taste. I am super relieved for those people! But I’m not willing to bet my own health on it working out like that for me. I don’t think Revanche taking mostly precautions that have been lauded as basic common sense by infectious disease experts and the medical community warrants a comment accusing her of believing “THE SKY IS FALLING.” I would say if you want to risk your own health go ahead, but the problem there is that while you’re risking your own health you’re also risking the health of your family and members of your community.
As you said, that is only anecdotal. My grandfather died of it. A woman I used to use for beauty services is in the hospital last o heard. A coworker still had such severe brain fog — as in, she briefly couldn’t remember one of her son’s names — WEEKS after infection that she decided to finally retire. I have also talked to a 30 year old who was hospitalized for a month and two of his organs started failing. He had no underlying conditions. (The beautician had fibromyalgia — just like Revanche, incidentally.)
Not to mention that even in some supposedly mild and even asymptomatic cases, doctors found lung or heart inflammation. So a) some folks may not notice the effects as much as others and b) WE STILL DON’T KNOW THE LONG-TERM EFFECTS! There’s no guarantee that “mild” or even asymptomatic cases won’t find the disease’s full effect on the body just yet.
Remember, Lyme disease wasn’t considered a big deal for decades (if not longer). Most cases are mild, but there are severe cases. I have a relative who had to be hospitalized for it. But anyway everyone seems to get over it except… some people start having debilitating, chronic issues afterward that they are stuck with for the rest of their lives.
So I’m glad the people you know had mild symptoms, but that doesn’t prove diddly squat about the real danger of the disease (especially those 375k who DIED).
Abigail @ ipickuppennies recently posted…Monday randomness: Two windfalls, my holiday, TikTok love & more
Okay, and also? The elected leaders who keep screaming at us to stay home and stay safe keep getting busted for…..not staying home. They’re visiting their families for Thanksgiving after telling us not to. They’re going to restaurants right after they vote to shut down indoor dining. They’re going to their Lake Home after telling others they shouldn’t travel. They’re getting on private planes and flying to Mexico and making videos there about how we need to stay home. They’re saying teachers in Chicago shouldn’t go back to schools because its not safe…..while they’re on vacation in Puerto Rico. I just…..don’t believe any of it anymore.
Just because political leaders (and really, ANYONE I don’t personally respect) are behaving hypocritically and recklessly doesn’t mean the disease isn’t serious or that I should follow their lead. I wouldn’t take my cues from how politicians live any other parts of their lives, why would I on this?
You can delete dumbass comments! I give you permission!
7 people in my town died of Covid yesterday, including two people in their 50s. Our ICU usage is 130% and has been all week, even with several of the deaths being in the hospital. Our department secretary is out because her dad just died of Covid, her brother is hospitalized with it, and she’s still sick from it.
nicoleandmaggie recently posted…What are we doing to deal with the huge post-holiday Covid surge
Yes, I recall that you do! But sometimes comments require a response when, as we both have seen, this isn’t an uncommon view and frankly, one that needs refutation.
This is a really rough ride for a lot of people and it pains me that the people who escape unscathed lack the empathy to see the pain of those who didn’t.