March 10th, 2019
We have established a protocol for house entry, receiving of goods and brief greetings of guests who have not been feeling unwell. Whether or not this is wise remains to be seen. Everyone has to scrub in like an OR. We are at a real precipice here. At the last count I was able to find, the US was testing 5 for every million individuals, compared to over 3600 per million in South Korea. It is obvious that community transmission is occurring, what remains to be seen is the extent of the problem.
As the possibilities set in on people, activity is beginning to dwindle. The national news, in sharp contrast to the White House is beginning to show Doctors, who are duly alarmed. Why we would expect a different course of illness after watching Italy, South Korea and China is beyond me. Diseases do not alter their behavior at borders, but I digress.
It feels an awful lot to me like being at the center of a storm. They eye of a hurricane. You know that the gale is coming on the other end, but for a moment, there is a certain serenity as everyone suspends disbelief — maybe we’re different. Maybe the air is better here, services and doctors… But I suspect we all bleed red, so to speak. We will know over the next 7–9 days, either cases will explode as testing is brought on-line, or the miraculous has occurred. I am prepared for either eventuality. My roommate feels a little off. Today my hands are clammy, although a walk up to Buena Vista Park was refreshing, and I still feel relatively vigorous.
I realized a few things today — one being that I should probably be spraying down the bottoms of my shoes considering how long the disease can live outside of a host. It also makes sense to me now why Iran and China and South Korea have been literally dousing their cities with disinfectant. The other was this: The success of the COVID virus in reproducing and spreading hinges on it’s ability to outlast the human capacity for worry. I am aware of the timeline of progression, and yet here I am, 5 days in already cutting corners, making small breaches in protocol as I become normalized to the situation. Most people can maintain serious concern over a stressor for a week before burnout sets in and carelessness becomes a factor. Longer than that and you probably have an anxiety disorder. Most of the things we have needed to fear over the course of human evolution were immediate: Tigers, fire, water, elements, starvation, thirst.
In those cases, an over activated parasympathetic nervous system makes sense. It allows us to flee. In a situation such as this, or climate change — it works to overload / wear down the human being as cortisol and daily irritants build. At two weeks, most people don’t even believe it is a problem. Then at 3 the cases start to emerge. We are 6 days away, give or take from our 21 days since community exposure of HHS workers and family at Travis AFB. The next 7 days will be telling.
