So this bug passed, leaving me tired, but essentially functioning again. Today’s blog will be more stream of consciousness musings than anything else, however, with my brain still trying to iron out the fever wrinkles.

Garden variety flu (accompanied by garden variety birds, yes, I need the cheer, but promise there will be non-avian photos in the future…) led to thoughts about Covid 19 – since all of a sudden the world has started to react.

If you are a regular reader you will remember that I wrote about it already over a month ago. Since then we have learned a lot of things; my own information comes in large part from the ministry of health in Germany, which has been placing ads on FaceBook and other social media for a week now urging people to go to their website to learn about prevention and treatment options.

Contrast this with our own government: with so many lies destroying its credibility, how would I trust them for advice? With its cutback of health resources, how can it functionally combat a potential pandemic now that it is arriving? How can we rely on an administration that has the most stunningly incompetent appointees in memory? How can its focus on the stock market instead of the virus not make us all nervous about the efficacy of potential plans? Is secrecy part of the deal?

Oregon, for example has currently 254 people monitored for an outbreak of the virus, but I have not seen public notices to alert people to come in for monitoring if circumstances suggest. In many states testing equipment to verify the presence of the virus is not available in sufficient numbers. (Nor are essential preventative gear for help personell should we see a real onslaught all of a sudden.) We cannot verify the exact lethality of the virus, since the way who is counted as sick or even verified as sick changes so often. It is certainly higher than the flu. It starts with vage symptoms, often a bit of nausea and fatigue, then fever and cough. Most people will recover, but for some the dangerous part sets in after about a week of having the milder symptoms. Males over 60, with preexisting conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes, are particularly at risk. People can infect others before they themselves show obvious symptoms. The virus survives on surfaces (doorknobs, tables) depending on who you believe, from 1 to up to 9 days. (Cannot verify.)

Here is an informative pamphlet that helps us to take control of what can be controlled (and includes links to what the CDC has suggested for business owners last week.) The suggestions for private citizens in a nutshell:

• Try to get a few extra months’ worth of prescription meds, if possible. (Supply chain disruptions are a guarantee.)
• Try to have a several week supply of non-perishable food. (Hard to suggest when you know some can afford that, most can not.)
• Think through now how we will take care of sick family members while trying not to get infected. 
• Cross-train key staff at work so one person’s absence won’t derail our organization’s ability to function.
• Wash hands, soaping them for the duration of TWO rounds of Happy Birthday that you can hum silently. That is 20 seconds, eternally long but necessary.
• Practice touching our faces less. So how about a face-counter app like the step-counters so many of us use? (Ask friends and family to point out overtime they see you do it- it helps the learning process.)
• Replace handshakes with elbow-bumps (the “Ebola handshake”). 
• Start building harm-reduction habits like pushing elevator buttons with a knuckle instead of a fingertip. 

Here is a psychologically interesting question for which I have no answer: if you consider how Obama got trounced by the media during the Ebola scare of years gone by, how come our dear leader has essentially gotten a pass on Covid 19 so far? Wouldn’t you think that in an environment as divided as ours, people would jump on the opportunity to hold him to task? What is the secret key to evading responsibility over and over again?

Music today reminds us there is always a need for cheer!