Mophstymeo

Oddly, I'm reminded of one of the Austin Powers movies. "Nutty."

So far, a Jewish news site has it. Nothing on standard media yet.

Today's holy crap moment: Hospital administrators where my wife works are petitioning the state to allow the hospital to basically refuse new patients. They're so overwhelmed they can't take any more.

What concerns me is this: God willing, this ends with a death toll that's smaller than what had been predicted as possible, mostly because of the measures taken by state and local leaders. People will come out of their quasi self-imposed isolation and wonder if it was all worth it because it "wasn't so bad," a situation sure-to-be exacerbated by idiot politicians who will say the same thing. What happens then in terms of preparedness for the next pandemic, one with a higher mortality and one that requires quicker and more drastic measures be taken? I'm concerned about our compatriots' ability to simply ignore the lessons of the past.

Saddest thing I heard today: My wife's supervisor, an RN, was given an iPad and tasked with taking it around to patients in the hospital -- COVID and non -- so they could say goodbye to their loved ones. That thought/image will stay with me for a very long time.

Even after 9/11 and Sandy, I never had the urge to cover my eyes and just cower in the corner. I guess the difference is the length of the ensuing fear. 9/11 and Sandy had a finality to them; as singular events, they ended. This just keeps going, ratcheting up the emotion little by little by little. What's been happening with COVID19 has been like a slow-motion train wreck. You see it unfolding, you feel almost like if you reached out your hands you could grab hold of it and stop it -- but like a force of nature, it just keeps barreling through.

I have to give the City a lot of credit. I called 311 to get information about testing for my mom. After a two-minute intro, I was able to get transferred to the City's department of health and hospitalization. From there, I was able to speak to a live human who, realizing he wasn't qualified to give me an answer, put me in contact with a doctor. Here's hoping the doctor's advice was sound, but the process was worth noting.

That political atmosphere is poisonous at the moment. Neither side entered the negotiations with the right mindset; they came in with most the frighteningly partisan angles. It's like negotiating for price. Seller asks for something exorbitant; buyer lowballs; eventually they come to some kind of agreement. Here, one side wants something outrageous, the other side asks for something equally outrageous, and maybe they come together. Then, both sides get to vilify each other to their constituents and in the press. Everybody wins -- except those caught in the middle of their pissing contest.

My wife works at NYP-Queens. They've pulled all the nurses and midlevels from their satellite facilities to take rotations in the hospital itself because of the increase in hospitalizations.

My mom has developed symptoms. We've been told to quarantine her, watch carefully, and only go to the ER if her symptoms worsen. "Scary" doesn't quite do this justice.

I'm generally on a low simmer. Now I'm a bundle of nerves.

My problem is my imagination and my generally dour attitude. Tell me something good and I can find the bad. So when I found out that someone my sister works with tested positive, my anxiety went through the roof. Now I'm worried about my sister's and my mom. This has done wonders for my blood pressure.

We're hard-wired capitalists, and because of that we all see things to varying degrees through an economic lens. Using an economic lens one can't escape the fact that economic shutdowns will not only destroy livelihoods but lives as well. People will lose jobs, become homeless, go hungry. We'll have Trumpvilles or Pelosivilles (whoever you want to pin blame onto). These are times I wish we could figure out a way to create a Star Trek- Like economy where our pursuits go beyond the acquisition of things and wealth. But until we do, economic pain is real and it has to be considered. But balancing people's actual lives, currently, against possible -- or even likely -- future harm is what some are asking us to do. This is impossible to do, for if we balance out to protect the latter we will likely be condemning the former. And as the son and brother of people who have underlying health issues, I find that unacceptable. Remeber the old adage: The death of one is a tragedy; the death of thousands is a statistic. Those saying "oh, well, the recovery rate is over 90%" forget that those 8% are real people. Please don't hide behind statistics.

I know your question is more rhetorical than literal but people are trained, through conditioning, to show up to work no matter what. They're either afraid of losing sick days or, even when that's not the issue, they're afraid of letting their workmates down or themselves or their bosses or their clients. We have a very work-centered culture here.

You can't expect people to be swayed by an economic argument in the face of loss of life. You're seemingly conflating a human crisis with an economic one. Both are real and both are huge problems, but it makes people -- myself included -- very uncomfortable when a question is posed in such a way. It sounds almost like you want some sort of quadratic equation for this. Believe me, I realize we are on the economic brink. Believe me, I realize that people whose livelihoods have been yanked out from under them will begin to truly suffer if they can't resume their lives. But how do you weigh someone's life in the here and now against someone's livelihood (and economic life) in the (near) future? This is why people want to hear about economic "bailouts" for the average person who has been impacted by this. People need to feel reassured in a time like this; they need the equivalent of fireside chats. They need to feel that there's some sort of plan.