No outside In

Thursday, March 26, 2020 One week in SELF induced immediate family isolation

4:30 pm United States 79,785 cases 1,124 deaths. up from 69,210 cases and 1,046 deaths at 10 am today

I marked my one week inside the apartment with a walk outside.  There were some items that needed to go to the Central Avenue post office and I thought we could use the outside comfort food of subs from Andrea's on Central.

When I leave the doorway of our building, for more than throwing the garbage and recycling to the curb, I wear blue rubber gloves and a N95 mask, that I bought a month ago at City Paint Hardware.  It's important to not touch your face even with the rubber gloves on.  The gloves keep your hands from coming into contact with surfaces, but the virus may have been picked up from the surface by the glove.  I wear the mask for two reasons. 1. I am not convinced that we know enough about the Virus being airborne, especially indoors, and that they say you may have it and not have any symptoms, so for all I know I have it and a mask prevents me from spreading it to others.  In the end, I would rather look a little silly to some and "overreact" and reduce my chances of getting or spreading the Virus. Risk-Reward. 

Before I get to the door, I grab my jacket and boots, which have both been left in the hallway since March 19th. I put them on when I am going to go outside and take them off before I enter the apartment. I lean and brush up against surfaces with my jacket and if someone sneezes or coughs the virus onto the sidewalk, how long does it survive on that surface?  Can it be picked up by the bottom of my shoe  and tracked onto the carpet that my eight month old crawls on.  Again Risk- Reward.  I'd rather overreact and do everything I can possibly can to keep the Virus out.

When I return, I take my boots and jacket off and place my goods on a table in the hall.  I go inside wash my hands and get a wipe.  I wipe both doorknobs on the apartment door, on my way to wipe the goods I brought home.  Leaving the bags they came in in the hallway to throw away the next garbage night.  Sorry, but even this most anti single user is going to err on the side of not bringing this Virus into my apartment. 

It was nice to be in the air and feel the sun today, but I would rather stay inside.  I'm too nervous about the cavalier attitudes of other people concerning the Virus.  I don't think we know everything about the Virus yet. And we live in a very densely population place.  Telling everyone to "go for a walk" in a place where there is 50,000 people per square mile seems incongruous with social distancing to say the least.

Stay Safe.  Stay Home.

David Calamoneri

March 24, 2020 7:00pm EST

53,263 cases 696 Deaths

Most if not all stay at home "orders" are still voluntary. The tone seems to be changing a bit.  Even Gov. Cuomo sounded even more urgent this morning.  People were still out and about on Sunday.  Social media, at least me and my bubble,  is still full of posts about food, Facebook Live music, videos, kids stuff, and anger towards the president and his happy talk and nonsense pressers.  

11:09pm March 22, 2020 The president of the United States tweets:"WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF." ?!?!?!  He's talking about economics (see money) and people are Dying and the curve on that dying is a J on the up swing, the rate of that dying is quickening.  The virus is spreading quicker. And he wants people to go back to work, because of the economy.  The crash of this viral wave will be huge.  But right now the Priority are the lives of the American people! 

The virus is HERE.  Until we get at least to the crest of this wave, we need that to be the focus.  Make manufacturing companies make what We need.  Don't worry they'll get paid. Ready and start to deploy every doctor we can, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard, Coast Guard, Veterans Affairs. Army Corps, on facilities.  

It seems to be starting, but slowly and hopefully not too late.  When I look at The Map, I think the United States isn't comparable to Italy, or Spain, or United Kingdom. It's comparable to All of Europe. Or maybe China, but their clamp down was Far Far more strict and in no way voluntary.  

The United States Population is 331,000,000 people.  I hear scientists and others say 40% of the population will get it.  132,400,000 people.  If the death rate is 2% (it is currently 1.3% in the US) That's 2,648,000 (1,721,200) people in the United States.

David Calamoneri

Working from Home

March 21, 2020

It has been a week of voluntary self-quarantine for my wife, 8 month old and myself due to the warnings and requests of career epidemiologists and virologists, some public officials, watching the map,  and reading reports out of China, South Korea and All over Europe pertaining to COVID-19 (“the Virus”).  I left the apartment for groceries at ACME in Jersey City “over by Best Buy” and St. Joseph’s Zeppoles from Giorgio’s on March 19^th.  Before that, I had gone grocery shopping at Stop and Shop, a few blocks from home, on Friday the 13^th.  We were in Lo-Fi on March 12 and ordered corned beef from Carpe Diem on St. Paddy’s. Outside of that, all contact has been through FaceTime, Zoom, and Microsoft Tables. Along with an uptick in live social media.

It’s eerily beautiful outside.  Not too hot.  Not too cool.  Yet I worried for a second to even open the windows.  I did.  I’m one of the "over reactors".  I figure if you are too precautious what’s the worst that can happen?  You make yourself, and your family an friends, a little more nuts for a couple of weeks.  It’s a scary time though to be sure.  I wore a mask and gloves and was Super conconcious every thing I touched my last two grocery shopping trips.  On the 19^th we actually wiped the load of groceries down, piece by piece, before bringing them into the apartemt, leaving the paper bags in the hall.  The NIH says the Virus may live in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.

This was my first week ever “working from home”.  I’ve had pretty much the same desk job for 20 or so years.  Remote Access took a few days to work itself out. My computer at work is a slow PC and through the remote app it’s even s…l…o…..w…e…r. Residents calls getting forwarded to my phone is a kind of weird thing.  As long as they don’t get my number, I guess I’ll just have to deal with the after hours and weekend calls.  There is still confusion.  Understandably, working from home isn’t everybody’s immediate priority.  Some employees are more tech savvy than others.  Some have different home lives.  I think there are a lot of people still trying to keep some semblance of normal.  There is a lot of unnerving tension literally in the air.  As of today Hoboken has 15 confirmed cases of COVID-!9 virus.  We live in Jersey City, which has 50 confirmed cases. 

The virus is said to have started in Wuhan, China at a “wet market”.  A “wet market” is a much less than FDA approved market complete with on premises butchering of wild and exotic animals. Many coronaviruses have been found in bat blood and guano. Bats are butchered in Wuhan wet markets. COVID -19is a coronavirus.

China didn’t report the virus to the World Health Organization (“WHO”) until the end of December 2019, but it is said that Wuhan had it as far back as Mid-November. The First case in the United States was in Snohomish County, Washington in January of 2020. The president described the situationon  Jan. 22: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”

My wife has been on family medical (”parental”) leave for the school year so far, but will start teaching, see working, from home, starting April 1. Unless they stop the “work from home” portion of “stay at home” or at least the School from Home potion.  We are lucky our child isn’t of school age.  Working and “Teaching” from home simultaneously is a lot.  It is very different even doing the work I have been able to do from home, with our 8 month old crawling, trying to stand and letting us know she’s hungry.  Not sure what it will be like if my wife is teaching from home at the same time.  And in the tension and uncertainty of EVERYTHING right now….        

We will see.

We will see what the Virus brings.  We watch NY Governor Cuomo give his press conference every day around 11:00 am.  Governor Cuomo has been particularly good over the week.  Straight forward, calm, empathetic and relatable. He seems to know what is coming and how under prepared we currently are.  I am done watching the president’s press conferences.  I try to catch Dr. Fauci when I can on TV and the internet.  And by the reports coming out from the surge in testing in NYC, we are going to need more beds, doctors, ventilators, masks, gloves, sanitizers, nurses, bio-hazard staffing…  Stay Safe. Stay Home.  Maybe I’ll see you on Facebook Live, Instagram, Zoom, Microsoft Tables, Google Hangouts.... Not sure which apocalyptic tin foil hat ping is louder, the fascist feel of actual “lock downs’, or our reality and social interactions becoming even more virtual.  My buddy Kuz is right.  A screening of Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” would be a good idea.  But not until after the Virus, as the president putt it “washes through” sometime in the future.

As of  4:30pm 3/20/20 there were 24,148  COVID cases in the US and 285 Deaths.

Stay Safe.  Stay Home.

David Calamoneri