lassitude
I’m tired.
I was optimistic this weekend that maybe I was settling into a sort of acceptance; that I was experiencing the astonishing human capability for adaptation and coming to terms with all of this as my new normal. I was wrong; I can’t accept this yet.
There is a long expanse of unknown ahead of all of us right now, and I’m finding it hard to take. In a Presidential address in the Rose Garden on Sunday, where media members were spaced out on the grass a chair’s width apart, Trump extended the social distancing guidelines until April 30 – more than a month away.
Many experts agree that even this is optimistic.
In New York, the Javits Convention Center has been transformed into a 1,200-bed temporary hospital – with the capacity to expand to more than twice that. As case numbers skyrocket in that city, and in others, the new panic is that medical and emergency services workers are becoming ill and aren’t able to do their jobs. News came down this weekend that 9-1-1 services in New York are overwhelmed and there aren’t enough paramedics to transport urgent patients. Hospitals and other institutions are rationing equipment to minimize critical shortages.
This is actually happening. It’s real life. Today.
As I look outside my apartment at the empty streets and the barriers on the narrow sidewalks instructing people to find another route where six-feet of social distancing is possible, I find myself feeling exhausted. Every day presents some new chilling thing.
Some 80 percent of Americans are now under stay-at-home orders. The White House issued a statement about their latest predictive disease modeling, indicating that there is the potential for a quarter million deaths in the US alone. The American case number is over 187,000 today — the highest in the world, with 23,559 new cases since yesterday. So far, 3,860 people have died of this thing here in the United States; 6,461 have recovered.
The flurry of FaceTime calls that marked a rekindling of social connection at the start of all of this just a few weeks ago are slowing down. I should reach out, but I just don’t want to talk about this anymore. And since our worlds have shrunk to our own four walls, what’s left to talk about? I still can’t do Tiger King.
Of course we’re going to be homebound until the end of next month. Longer. Every morning we turn a new page of this depressing book. How many pages are left? And is this Volume 1 of a multi-volume set?
The beaches are closed to foot traffic. Farmers’ markets just got cancelled. On Sunday, Trump attacked a reporter for asking a “nasty” question and then tweeted about his fantastic television ratings for his daily briefings. Last night, CNN host Chris Cuomo read the news from his basement because he has tested positive for the virus.
At the company, where we would otherwise be planning and executing marketing events to celebrate and promote the brand, people are fighting to make sense of their jobs. We’re the lucky ones who are still employed while many others are facing layoffs so we’re all grateful, but it’s still a hard time to be at work. Some people are pulling back into wait-and-see mode, others are organizing their files and sorting through past projects. Still others are plunging ahead with their regularly scheduled phone calls and meetings and running through agendas full of what-ifs a dozen times a day. I’m pretty sure a handful of my colleagues are doing nothing at all. I’m somewhere in the middle. It’s hard to stay motivated when there are no answers to any of the questions.
Tonight, after I make dinner for myself and the senior neighbor, I’ll be working on my sewing. Officials said early in this crisis that mask-wearing wasn’t necessary because it didn’t offer protection from catching the virus and could actually increase risk by encouraging face touching. At the time, the recommendation was to venture into the world bare-faced, and leave those critical supplies to the professionals that need them most. Now it seems that masks — even homemade ones — might help reduce the spread by keeping asymptomatic carriers from transmitting the virus to otherwise healthy people. The CDC and WHO aren’t aligned with this thinking right now, but a few experts have begun calling for everybody to wear them — like we’re seeing in some countries in Asia, where mask-wearing has been part of polite culture for many years.
Of course there aren’t any masks to be had now. Anywhere. A nurse friend mentioned to me a week ago that getting masks and gloves at work has become something of a treasure hunt even for medical staff, because those items had to be locked down at the hospitals so that people — like visitors desperate to protect themselves and their families — wouldn’t steal them.
We clearly need more gear. Although the US has indicated they are willing to accept supplies from China, where a lot of the global supply of these disposable medical items comes from, a trade official added a caveat that they didn’t want to see Chinese aid being used as government propaganda exercise. I’m not sure now is the time for that particular concern but, what do I know? I’m not from here. Meanwhile, in Canada, the Chinese Embassy said 30,000 medical masks, 10,000 sets of protective clothing, 10,000 goggles and 50,000 pairs of gloves are on the way to that country.
I went online over the weekend to see about shipping myself some supplies to make fabric masks like they wore in the 1918 flu pandemic. If indeed they are better than nothing, I might as well have some ready to go. I plan to use old tee-shirts as my fabric source. In case you were wondering, Amazon is out of sewing elastic now. I bought some athletic hairbands to repurpose. And if those don’t work, I’m eyeing the waistbands of The Stallion’s boxer briefs.
The Stallion called me today to say he missed me. I don’t know when we’ll see each other again.
Maybe sewing is tomorrow’s project. I’m done. I think I’ll call it a night.