Covid in the Fall

October 26, 2020

Covid alarm bells are ringing again with the urgency we witnessed in the spring. The expected fall wave is here after a summer reprieve in Europe. France is the worst hit with daily infections now close to 50,000. Partial lockdowns, curfews, earlier closing times for bars and restaurants and mask wearing are some mitigation measures. In the USA the heartland is having its turn, bringing our daily new cases close to 80,000. This third "wave" isn't a surprise. Epidemiologists have made the siren calls that without strong centralized government policy different parts of the country will be affected at different times. Utterly frustrating to hear the experts like Dr. Fauci urge safety measures and Trump the infant doing the opposite.

Fall is definitely here. Mornings are chilly. We've had to turn our heating on when we get up. Outdoor exercise is delightful in cooler temperatures. On Saturday at sunrise Daryl and I strolled on More Mesa Beach which we accessed from Mockingbird Lane. We had the beach to ourselves - so serene and magnificent - and we welcomed the strenuous climb up the many steps back to the mesa. On Sunday we drove to the backcountry onto East Camino Cielo Road to access the Fremont Ridge Trail. Cloudy cool weather was ideal for a good trek through the chaparral. A dense layer of mist obscured the normally breathtaking views, but we didn't mind. We went further than in the past, to a section where the trail narrows and drops steeply into the Santa Ynez River valley. The return, all uphill, gave us quite a work out. Normally, a 5 mile strenuous hike before breakfast drains me, but I stuffed myself with a scone from the previous morning's breakfast and that sustained me pretty well.

Cayden update: All evidence points to the acne treatment he has been on for a month. For some reason the prescription medication he'd been taking affected his liver and spleen, caused inflammation and persistent high fever. Biopsy results and blood tests exposed another issue - tuberculosis. Not the usual contagious kind that affects lungs and makes you cough. His is a latent form, which he might have been able to fight off had his immune system not been compromised. He was immediately put on a course of medication and all would have been fine had he not developed an allergy to one of the medicines he'd been given. He broke out into a full body rash so all medication was halted. He was thankfully released from hospital after a full week there. Now his rash is gradually disappearing and once his skin is fine he'll resume medication. We're all having an awful 2020 but for Cayden it's worse! Poor guy!

Eight days before election day. A tense time. Due to the pandemic states have opened up polling centers for early voting and turn out everywhere has been robust. Also many people are voting by mail this year.

I tracked my mailed in ballot and pleased to see that it's been accepted.

We are obviously hoping for overwhelming results in Biden's favor so that we won't have a long, drawn out fiasco after November 3.

The Trump team hoped for an October surprise similar to the Comey announcement last year. They tried to feed a Hunter Biden corruption story to the FBI and the Wall Street Journal. But only right wing fringe media went with the story, so it backfired. Hurrah!

Pleased with the lawn signs I've been seeing in my neighborhood!

For escapism at the moment I'm watching the Netflix series Norsemen. Farcical and satirical, it's hilarious. Just what the doctor ordered for these bleak times.

October 31

Three days until election day. We are nervous wrecks, wanting to believe the polls but the trauma of November 2016 keeps us wringing our hands. A Trump win will be unthinkably horrifying.

As the month ends the global mood is again one of anguish. In the USA daily new infections broke records with over 100,000 new cases reported yesterday. That's twice as many as India, 2nd on the Worldometers list. Europe's surge has exceeded Latin America's daily new cases. All of France will go into strict lockdown next week. So will England and critical parts of Germany and Spain. In the USA, mitigation measures are obscure. California is maintaining a low infection rate and my county's daily numbers are as low as they were before the summer surge. So I'm not despairing despite the fact that the country has now exceeded a total of 9 million cases since the start of the pandemic. 

We're ending the month with a week of summery daytime temps. Halloween today is subdued. Trick or treaters can't do their usual knocking on doors in their neighborhoods. Poor souls.

Almost 8 months of pandemic life and we've adapted to our restricted lives. No visiting friends at their homes. Nobody has come inside our home. Leisure shopping doesn't happen. Trips to the grocery store are infrequent, quick and guarded. Mask wearing is normal. Entertainment venues have remained dark. Though most of the world is in a state of limbo there are places where normal life continues. New Zealand, Australia, China, Taiwan, South Korea and a handful of others. We're all so desperate for normal. We're assured that vaccines will soon be available. Currently, the experts predict we'll know by December of a safe candidate. Then starting in January the public will start getting vaccinated, but it will take at least 6 months to reach everyone in the country. This puts us at June for a somewhat back to normal scenario.

Pandemic Diary - October 2020

October 2

The October surprise has landed. Trump tested positive for the coronavirus! Got the news just before going to bed last night. Melania positive too. Both have mild symptoms and will be in isolation for the next 2 weeks. It's all the news today. Of course I confess to Schadenfreude! By the end of the day we'll learn of more people in Trump's orbit who have the virus. My biggest hope is that it jeopardizes hearings for the Supreme Court Justice replacing RBG.

October 5

Donald Trump was helicoptered to Walter Reed Military Hospital less than 24 hours after news of his Covid announcement. So it's serious! Though all news outlets are covering the story details are murky. More White House positive cases emerge everyday. Turns out that the ceremony held to nominate Amy Coney Barrett in the Rose Garden was a super spreader event and many who attended tested positive. This includes 2 Republican senators on the judiciary committee.

Less than a month before election and the pandemic is again the big news. Trump's utter failure to handle the crisis. Plus his utter recklessness in continuing to campaign in front of crowds, endangering all involved.

My therapy this weekend was attempting to make sourdough bread. A daunting, multistep process that I doubt will become a regular activity. The outcome wasn't great, but it tasted right and looked passable.

October 6

A week of breathtaking Trump news. First, the New York Times exposé on his tax returns. We learned about his $400 million debt, that he hasn't paid taxes in years and paid just $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017. Next came the first presidential debate in which Trump shouted, bullied, interrupted and basically demonstrated just how obnoxious he is. And then came news of his Covid infection, serious enough to be hospitalized for 3 days to receive state of the art treatments, including an experimental monoclonal antibody medicine. His return to the White House was staged for television in keeping with his narcissism and dictator delusions. More appalling was his dismissiveness of the health crisis, showing no regard for the critically ill unable to access the services lavished on him, nor acknowledging the losses of grieving families. This is a desperate man who knows his days are numbered. 

We see ads like these everyday. In our community face coverings are the norm and when we see someone's bare face we cringe.

October 12

Confirmation hearings of Amy Cony Barrett began this morning. Utterly depressing on top of all the other depressing news. Talk about rubbing salt on a wound!

The news has moved on from Trump's personal Covid drama to his return to the campaign trail as an unhinged lunatic. It's been so stressful anticipating his corrupt attacks on Biden. Now we're three weeks from the election and my anxiety is even greater.

I confess I feel optimistic about Biden and Harris. The polls are showing strong leads even in battleground states. My concern is the senate. It's always nail-biting for the democrats to win senate seats in red states.

Covid news has turned grim again with frightening surges in the UK, France and Spain. The rest of Europe is seeing a significant rise in cases too. The dreaded fall wave is here. In the US, after leveling off at around 40,000 new cases a day for a month, our numbers are climbing to over 50,000 a day. Different states are at play now - mainly the midwest and northern states. California is holding steady at around 3,500 new daily cases and under 100 daily deaths. But much of the state is still in the purple tier. Our county has moved to the red tier. Curious to see if we can continue to keep our numbers down with the lifting of some restrictions.

October 19

California went into lockdown exactly 7 months ago, on March 19. While our state is holding steady with new daily infections, case numbers nationwide are trending upward. Numbers are climbing to July/August totals. Daily deaths continue to be close to 1000. Europe's situation is alarming. Daily new cases in France are exploding - over 20,00 and in the UK just under 20,000. Spain and Italy are reporting big numbers too. Daily deaths in Europe are currently low, but hospitals and ICU units are filling up. Australia continues to do well with a handful of new daily cases. South Africa also appears to be holding steady at between 1000 and 2000 new daily infections.

Elections in 2 weeks. I mailed in my ballot 4 days ago. Fivethirtyeight predicts 70% chance of Democrats winning a trifecta. But I'm nervous as heck. We absolutely cannot endure more of this insanity that grips us! The news these days is full of Trump's shocking assertions and denigrations of experts. "Dr. Fauci is a disaster," he vomited. It really does feel like a horror movie in which an entire nation is taken hostage by a lunatic, and amazingly about half the citizens are okay about it!

My family's main concern now is Cayden, who was admitted to hospital 4 days ago. Today, he was anesthetized for biopsy and fluid samples. A persistent high fever, an abscess on his spleen and swollen liver are symptoms presented. Kalvin is beside himself with worry. Initially, due to Covid precautions no visitors were allowed and that was alarming to leave a 14 year old overnight at a hospital. But Cayden tested negative for the virus and his parents have been visiting him daily.

Summer is over. We had long periods of extreme heat in September and October, but today the temperature feels autumnal. With the shorter days, my daily schedule has to change. I can't do garden chores after dinner anymore. Now I have to cut my writing and reading time in the afternoon in order to get routine tasks done.

Covid times Turn Darker

September 19

It's been 23 hours since I heard about the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The thing we feared most - and it happened 45 days before election day. When Daryl broke the news to me I screamed hysterically. For 3 minutes I cried with my head buried in my hands. I became lightheaded from lack of oxygen and walked around a bit, drank some water and then felt that awful despair blanketing me. Can 2020 get any worse I wondered? Silly question since the November elections could be a disaster.

Minutes after RBG's death was announced Mitch McConnell and Trump began making noises about filling her seat in the Supreme Court. Obviously, the Merrick Garland fiasco was ignored as you'd expect from the world's biggest hypocrites. We just may escape a 3rd Trump appointee if the few Republican senators with some heart decide not to vote. Watching our democracy crumble is heartbreaking. Why didn't RBG resign under Obama before 2016? Every answer I've read when the question had been posed to her is feeble. Points at remarkable naivety. She told Gail Collins of the New York Times, "Oh, I'm sure we'll have a fine next president." Seriously?

September 22

I've been waking up with a sinking feeling each morning since Friday's news. Of course the Republicans are going to fill RBG's seat. School kids decades from now are surely going to be horrified at this period of US history. Trump, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, the most corrupt creatures, were voted into power by an electorate manipulated by Fox news and who hold irrational views on guns and abortion. Driven by money, greed and power, Trump and his clan don't give a crap about anyone. A sobering lesson on how much power the president wields and how dangerous a corrupt politician can be. And now we'll have to live with permanent damage for decades.

The pandemic has been overshadowed by the earthshaking events of the week. Europe's surge is becoming a concern. The UK's Covid numbers are predicted to grow exponentially in the next weeks. Boris Johnson has imposed laughable restrictions such as pubs and bars closing by 10:00 PM. Locally, Santa Barbara and California are continuing to make progress. Good to see that even though it's taking us a while to get to low numbers, the current safety measures are working. It's very unlikely we'll ever go into a complete lockdown again. The worst really is over. South Africa is also continuing to show declining new cases and daily deaths. They've dropped to 9th place on Worldometers.

At this point we may have another 6 months of this unstable, restricted situation. Experts assure us that a successful vaccine may become available by December, but will need months for wide distribution. By summer life may be back to normal. New treatments may soon be available too as well as better testing capabilities. I'm just happy that it's no longer a challenge to access food supplies. In the spring and early summer we missed out on seasonal produce. Now I make a weekly trip to Sprouts early morning when it's quiet and I grab fruit, milk, tofu, etc.

September 27

I awoke to the dreadful news of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's replacement, a devout Catholic, anti-abortion conservative. Thankfully, our Sunday morning beach walk provided distraction and therapy. Due to high tide and heavy surf, we saw more surfers than we'd ever seen this early. Dolphins close to shore and Canada geese flying in formation delighted us too. But after we returned home and went about our usual activities, my spirits fell again. It's staggering how fragile our democracy is. Watching the Republicans abusing their power with no one to stop them is jaw dropping. The Senate will always have a Republican majority with brief periods of Democrats in the majority. And now the Supreme Court is decidedly conservative too. Can nothing be done?

More bad news - another destructive fire broke out today in Napa Valley. A day of evacuations and structural damage. What despair! 

The day ended with bombshell news about Trump's tax records which the New York Times has published in detail. No taxes paid for several years and in 2016 he paid just $750. The report exposed shady business shenanigans and debt of over $400 million. Who does he owe this money to? Is this news going to have any impact on the elections?

September 28

Covid News: A million people have died from the disease. In the USA more than half the number of states are trending upward with over 40,000 new daily cases. Santa Barbara County has shown satisfactory declines and will be moving to the less restrictive red tier this week. With UCSB students moving into Isla Vista we're anticipating possible surges. Though classes are all online some students hope to experience some of that "moving away from home" excitement.

September 30

I feel restless, discombobulated, depressed. I can't wait for Trump to be booted out. Election Day is 5 weeks away but I'm bracing for ugliness for a while after while Trump attempts to pull out all stops to stay in power. How I wish he'd be dragged away, handcuffed and humiliated.

Last night at the first presidential debate Trump seized the opportunity to shout, bully, lie, interrupt and belittle Biden. Too bad Biden went on the defensive. Though he was mostly dignified he needs more practice fielding attacks from a reviled creature. All media outlets are headlining with the appalling shouting match that the debate turned into.

On this last day of the month, the end of summer, the start of fall, the Covid situation continues to dictate how we conduct our daily lives. Our county is holding steady with a low transmission rate and retail and personal services are opening up. Los Angeles has improved tremendously and statewide things are looking good. A 14 day average of 3,400 new daily cases and 84 daily deaths shows a promising decline from a month ago.