Last weekend, Santa Cruz County imposed a mask requirement “in public.” By observation I’d say folks are 30-50% compliant outdoors, but 100% in stores, many of which deny entry to the naked-faced. The Wellness center associated with my workplace had one patient refuse last week because “she doesn’t believe in it.” I guess she’s using Instacart to get groceries.

WHO, an organization a source I trust more than our Meanderer-in-chief, is ambiguous about the helpfulness of masks to prevent community spread among people whose Covid status is unknown. It cites disadvantages of masks, which may impart a false sense of security and reduce use of the more reliable methods of hand-washing and social distancing. As far as I can tell, the most useful function of a mask is to remind us not to touch our faces.

Another WHO report noted that in a set of over 75,000 community transmission cases in China analyzed for transmission method, zero were transmitted via air. This makes one wonder, how does asymptomatic transmission occur? Apparently it still happens via droplets, though I haven’t worked out how anyone generating droplets could still be considered asymptomatic.

Meanwhile, six weeks into Pandemic USA the efficacy of masks isn’t the only thing people are confused about. I heard a woman complain that her workplace wasn’t protective because it provided only soap, not sanitizer. A sheriff’s officer, albeit a friendly one, asked my husband to “move on” from the unshared shoreside bench on which he was reading. And why are people washing their hands for extended periods when they haven’t put even a toe outside?

Sometimes I think we know less every day. Why, for instance, do experts agree that extensive testing is required before we can re-open? If they’re talking about the test that determines whether you are currently infected, well, even if it’s negative, you could get infected the next day, or maybe you had it two weeks ago. Finding out who has antibodies seems more helpful, but that test is less available, more intrusive, and would have to be administered quite widely, even as a randomized sampling test. 

At least we still have our daily walks. Here’s a view of Pleasure Point residents social distancing at the beach today. Not too many faces, or other parts, are covered.

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* Or more? My husband and I are feeling more hopeful that we had this in mid-February.

One quite minor, and certainly not worth it in any manner, advantage of the shelter-in-place is that I am slowly working my way through about 20 recordings of Nova episodes,* most recently an episode about self-driving cars. Though this sub-Jetsons technology is touted as a safety improvement, that’s not really likely in the US, because driving is super safe now.

Nay, thou sayest? Let the numbers speak.

Our 35,000 annual driving fatalities occur at a rate of 100,000,000 driving miles per each! Boy howdy, we love to drive. At an average speed of 30 mph, one person would have to drive 24/7 for 380 years in order to rack up that many miles. That is a very, very high bar for self-driving carmakers to beat, and according to Nova, they are not close to doing so, though perhaps not for the reasons you would expect.

You would expect the difficulty of recognizing and reacting to every possible event on a  roadway. We saw, from the viewpoint of the vehicle’s detection system, a woman step abruptly into the street with nary a glance toward oncoming traffic, and a cascade of boxes slide down a truck ramp into the road. Most chillingly, when a turbaned food delivery worker raised a covered tray to the level of his head to navigate an obstacle, he disappeared from the car’s people-finder, because, obviously, people don’t have heads shaped like that combined profile.

There are some bad programming decisions, many revealed after an Uber autonomous prototype killed Elaine Herzberg, the first person to be killed thusly. Many of those poor decisions are captured on the Wikipedia site about that incident, including the disturbing news that Uber resumed road testing 9 months and 2 days later in a different city, after paying some undisclosed fines to her family.

Uber did not participate in this program. Nor did Tesla, whose Autopilot cars can autonomously maintain speed and spacing on highways and change lanes. Several carmakers have similar products on the road now, and human nature turns out to be their fatal flaw. Automakers offer various levels of cautionary advice to which some folks may adhere, but many others are texting, reading, sleeping, and even swordfighting while driving, as Youtube will attest. Some of those posters have died, abruptly. No cars have been found at fault.

Fans of this future may point out that safely isn’t the only benefit. What about those marketing renditions of parking lots repurposed as parks while point-to-point autonomous cars whisk folks to restaurants, work, school, and airports down mostly-empty roads? Children, blind people, and other non-drivers could be as mobile as car owners are now, and much climate-killing carbon release averted. Well, this might happen, or easy/cheap transportation could double down on traffic and pollution, just as ridesharing services dramatically increased congestion in cities.

Unexpected consequences. We’ll see some from shelter-in-place as well.

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* I have twice that many of Nature, and my failure to take this opportunity to view them may sentence them to erasure. In the hardly bearable worst case, I may have months more of excessive TV viewing in my future. At least I am not overeating.

Hair is funny now. Anyone who had short hair is now shaggy. Lots of men, especially in SC, have much longer hair. Many men are going for the facial hair as well, which seems disingenuous. Were they previously being shaved by a barber? Some women are foregoing hair color, which can be scary. The rest of us are doing this at home, with results that can also be scary.

Speaking of scary, I had to cut my own hair last weekend. I could ask my husband of course, but he’s a little too keen to try it. With the help of Youtube, I chose the unicorn cut, which involves creating a forward-facing ponytail at the center of your forehead, flattening it out, then cutting a single diagonal snip toward the end. Simple! Works well for all the hair except any shorter pieces around the face, so I try to keep my back toward people as much as possible.

People wearing masks can be pretty funny. It’s disconcerting to see people wearing balaclavas or bandannas, especially in banks and convenience stores, and even more so if they are young people otherwise clad entirely in black. My husband purchased monster masks for himself and his sons. Pretty masks are the choice of  many women, with many beautiful fabrics and colors now available; I personally have a cloth mask with a modified leopard skin print that I don in order to be admitted to the grocery store.

Some people stuck at home are doing some very funny things. Top honors to the couple who are recreating famous paintings and frescoes using common household items and their own bodies. Some very funny chroma key composites are springing up, notably of Queen Elizabeth’s recent inspiring speech to her subjects, though I feel compelled to mention that the speech itself didn’t spark the ridicule. Rather, her green blouse provided an inviting opportunity. People in our old neighborhood sing together nightly, while some people here have a nightly howl. Our Morris team has Zoom practices, during which we sing (very funny) and also dance in “sets” with each person in a different video window.

Most people probably found Morris dancing funny before shelter-in-place. On second thought, most people probably found it annoying.

New Yorkers are cheering for providers every night, and that habit is spreading down the East Coast and beyond. That’s not funny, it’s very nice. Now we should do something really useful for them, like make sure they have healthcare. There was an EMT on the news last night who praised the nightly acclamation then mentioned that what would really help him is health insurance. Wow.

Among the haughtily-named First World, that only occurs in America.

Santa Cruz is a quirky combination of California throwbacks like twentieth century cars and diners, surf culture, healthy eating and exercise, California tech, and pseudoscience, with an across-the-board sprinkling of amateur musicians, most wielding ukuleles at least some of the time. It’s a credulous group, and I am daily subjected to a barrage of theories about SARS-CoV-2, which is either a byproduct of the rollout of 5G, a bioweapon designed and deployed by a foreign power, an Ivy League lab invention sold to a hospital in Wuhan, or some combination thereof.

Since this is the third zoonotic coronavirus causing a respiratory syndrome to afflict humans this century, and since other viruses, including some coronaviruses, have assailed us at various levels since we emerged from the soup, I am not sure why it is necessary to  have a special origin story for this one. SARS-CoV (the First) was less easily transmitted so didn’t spread as fast, which is good since the fatality rate was 9.5%. It has an R0 of 3.

MERS-CoV was the super scary one, with a fatality rate of closer to 30%, but transmission was much gnarlier, so it didn’t get as far. Viruses mutate constantly, and RNA-based viruses mutate millions of times faster than their hosts, so whether they get the Golden Ticket of crossing over to Homo sapiens is a random event.

SARS-CoV-2 hit the jackpot, crossing over to the Big Target of Humanity with an estimated R0 of 5.7, and now we are where we are. It’s bad, but it could be worse. If you’re bored at home, read Station Eleven, or watch the reboot of Planet of the Apes. We’re not there yet.

Or you might consider Avatar, a movie in which the planetary plague is an alien species that threatens the planet’s entire ecosystem and all of its lifeforms. Its conceptual leap has a very Santa Cruzan feel: the entire planet is connected to a mother goddess, Eywa, though a neural net to which individuals creatures attach by various appendages. Ultimately, the lifeforms of the planet, incited by Eywa, join forces to successfully expel the aliens, many of whom are killed. The survivors must return to their own planet, a planet they have exploited to the point of ruin, planet Earth.

I can imagine the satisfaction of believing that Earth has created a virus to either destroy us or at least cull us enough to slow our headlong destruction of it. Why isn’t this origin story making the rounds?

If you’re living in America, you probably have a Nextdoor site associated with your neighborhood. Our lovely neighborhood in Brookline had its own neighborhood site,  posting useful info and townwide and neighborhood events and goings-on. I can’t really compare it to Nextdoor because it was a curated site; if you wanted to post, you had to submit your posting to someone for approval. It definitely wasn’t being used as a social-media-style commentary site.

In recent weeks, residents of our old neighborhood gather in the park to sing every night, with appropriate spacing of course, and there’s a posting announcing the night’s selection each day, selections that have been fun, meaningful, memorial, and topical. We miss their solidarity and their spirit.

In Pleasure Point, all we have is Nextdoor, a social site that is lightly monitored and occasionally useful–I got a free plant once–but mostly used for venting, and as with all social sites, the venomous venters seem to have the most energy and time for posting. Recently an enormous argument has sprung up between member of the Fear Factor, who feel no one should so much as stick a toe out the door without a Good Reason, and  those of the Health and Sanity, who feel that with proper precautions some enjoyment of the outdoors is still possible. I’m mostly staying out of this, but I created those monikers, so you can guess which side I favor.

Recently things have become quite ugly. A person who mildly commented that while visiting the hospital and found it not very busy was attacked so viciously as a virus denier that he removed his post and presumably joined a monastery. The posts of one particular volumizer of vitriol have risen to such a level of virtual screaming that other posters are concerned about her sanity. New flash: Too Late.

Now there is a campaign of taking pictures of people on the shore, posting them to the list, and sending them to the sheriff’s office. The violation of these subjects is they have the temerity to travel to PP to walk along the coast when they don’t in fact live in this neighborhood. This attitude is a bit hypocritical, since, like most Californians, this group has previously been vocal in its commitment to the statewide policy of coastal access and, for whatever reason, local authorities haven’t closed our shoreline parking yet.

Maybe it’s time to start wearing a mask when I leave the house, for purposes of Identity Concealment.

I watched an hour-long video by Dr. David Price, a pulmonary specialist working in the ICU at Weill-Cornell Hospital in NYC, twice this past weekend. The amateur production values, earnest yet klutzy video audience, and practical message enhanced the verisimilitude for me.

The best thing about this video is he tells us not just what to do, but why.  The three things to do, you’ve heard before: Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and maintain social distancing (Dr. Price would say 3-6 feet instead of 6 feet). But why?

We wash our hands through an abundance of caution. It’s not likely that if an infected person touches a surface, ten other people from the community will then touch that surface and get it. But we act like that could be true, because over 90% of people who have contracted Covid-19 have done so by getting droplets on their hands and then transferring them to their eyes, nose, or mouth.

That’s not only why we should not touch our faces, but also why wearing a mask can help. A mask doesn’t prevent the virus from getting through, but it does train us not to touch our faces. For this purpose, any mask will work, including a Halloween mask or a bandanna. If, like most people, you can’t keep your hands off your face, wear anything on your face to remind you.

Social distancing of 3-6 feet protects us in case someone who is infected spreads droplets by coughing or sneezing; more than six feet doesn’t do anything, since that is an Olympic record distance for droplet spreading. The goal is to keep those droplets off your hands and thereby away from your face.

So if you wash your hands every time you touch something, and either wear a face cover of any sort or develop a serious talent for keeping your hands off your face, you will not get this virus. I think that’s an empowering message.

Things this virus does not do:

• Float through the air in a cloud around an infected person’s body.
• Survive even the most cursory disinfection–it’s wimpy in that way at least.
• Transmit as an aerosol from any contact less than ten minutes long.
• Persist outdoors in the presence of sunshine, wind, or rain.
• Recur in people who have had it–Yes Virginia, there is Immunity.

There is some bad news. If you live in America, Covid-19 is in your community right now. Lots of contacts means more chances to slip up, so spend most of your time with a limited group. People with the disease shed virus 1-2 days before fever starts, and up to 14 days after symptoms appear. Anyone aged 15 and up of any health level can get any version of the disease, although older people are more likely to have the most severe effects.

If you get a fever:

• DON’T go to the doctor.
• DON’T take ibuprofen (acetaminophen ok).
• DO use telemedicine; hundreds of doctors are waiting to take your call now.
• Isolate yourself from your family (in your own room) until you are sure it’s not Covid or until symptoms disappear.
• Don’t go to the hospital UNLESS you are short of breath. If you notice shortness of breath–about 10% of cases–GO to the hospital. You’ll probably be triaged and sent home, but you must go.

Exception: Anyone with symptoms must be COMPLETELY isolated from someone in your household who is vulnerable.

Fox News summarized the prevention suggestions of this video in the segment Watters Words: Vanquishing the Virus. The segment was 7 minutes and 20 seconds long, and the first 5:20 was excellent, both accurate and very much in the spirit of what Dr. Price himself emphasized. The last two minutes were a stunning rah-rah session of how America is Ramped up and Ready to conquer Covid-19. I mean, I hope that happens, but it was presented as a done deal–Vaccine being tested! Masks pouring off the production line! America test more patients in a day than Germany does in 18! It had the feel of those WWII propaganda reels.

Why does Fox do this? The mainstream media might say, In order to bolster Trump’s reputation. I do admit, if you just flow with it, listening to the pep talk was much more uplifting than the drumbeat of Wow, we blew it! that drones from MSNBC.

Nonetheless, I both fear and suspect that we actually did squander any chance of making this a minor event, by which I mean, We blew it!

While slicing a cauliflower held awkwardly, I instead sliced a diagonal slash across my left hand, creating a deep gash at the base of my index finger, a neat, more distal cut in my middle finger, and a scratch on my ring finger. Trifecta. I grabbed the nearest dish towel to staunch the flow and we headed for my health facility in Scotts Valley, with our son driving, my husband calling ahead, and me in the back applying pressure.

What a difference a moment of inattention makes! I ended up with six stitches, and two days later, my hand still looks like Dr. Frankenstein appended it, and I’ve developed a new hybrid method for keyboarding.

SC County has 34 cases and no deaths–you know what I’m talking about–but is not complacent, and on entering our group was confronted by two gatekeepers standing much too close together who reduced us to the allowed group size of Patient + 1 then grilled us on symptoms. We later found out that if we had had symptoms, we would have been returned to our car and limited to phone consultation until the Infectious Disease Unit could arrive.

Interesting method of health care rationing: Only those with functioning cell phones in hand and a car in the lot.

The patient is supposed to do what while waiting for the cavalry, bleed out? 

Once we got past Thelma and Louise, everyone was professional, helpful, efficient, and delighted to have something to do. The entire experience lasted about 45 minutes. We left with a bag full of supplies for replacing the dressings in case drugstores were running low. The charge was a relatively reasonable $65, and the intake desk offered to bill it rather than have me remove my bloody towel and rummage through my purse.

We also learned a few things that I should have found out before, such as, my medical facility offers Urgent Care weekdays 10-8 and weekends 10-6,  and, should I need to go to the hospital, Kaiser has admitting privileges in Watsonville, about a 20-minute drive from my house. Even in America, if you’re in extremis you should go to the closest hospital, but going to the right one will save money, possibly buckets.

SV is the most conservative community in SC County, and the Kaiser facility, like most of SV’s newer buildings, is a low, rambling, office-park-style edifice with appropriate landscaping, pleasant and sunlit, with plenty of parking. As far as I could discern during my visit, we were the only patients. Minus the blood and pain, it was an enjoyable outing.

This level of inactivity is typical of medical facilities in SC County, where we currently have 34 cases and no deaths. I have seen the pictures from NYC, and I realize a tsunami is probably about to crash, yet for now we feel like an island in the eye of a storm. Almost a deserted island, though we sometimes have to work to keep social distancing during the period just before sunset on the path beside Monterey Bay.

This post is coming to you from the parking lot of Whole Foods, whose free Wi-Fi is still available although their tables and chairs have been removed.

Reduced non-profit funds and hands. Grocery stores are not taking reusable bags now because they might be contaminated. So we don’t get bag tags any longer, and the local nonprofits that used to profit from our bag tags have a reduced income stream, which may have already dropped precipitously if they decided to close, as our local aquarium did. For non-profits still open, like food banks, most of the folks who used to volunteer are staying home, and with income uncertainty, donations are down.

Being homeless is even harder. Public bathrooms are potential contamination spreaders so they have been closed. In California, the homeless are exempted from shelter-indoors orders, but remarkably, that isn’t true everywhere.

Professional artists can’t work. Perhaps not true for all, but I can personally vouch for the problem for classical musicians, who rely heavily on symphonies, music festivals, music schools, churches, choirs, and venues for income. All of these are closed or canceling. So are art galleries and museums, and art fairs. Ballet or play performances? Craft fairs? No and no. Even major motion pictures are releasing to the small screen, and how will new ones be made with social distancing?

The weakness of the gig economy is revealed, a positive unintended consequence in my view. Whether you are a realtor, a consultant, an energy healer, or an electrician, if you are self-employed, there is less work, and no access to unemployment benefits. Without income, you may be forced to let your health insurance lapse, if you had any.

Negative health effects. My chiro is having trouble staying stocked with anti-viral and pro-immune supplements, probably because of increased demand, possibly because of hoarding. Blood supplies are dwindling since people are reluctant to go out and institutions are reluctant to have us come in–our family is actively trying to donate blood and having trouble finding a way. Overall health could decline as folks forego cancer screens and checkups, including dental cleanings, as well as exercise and socialize less and eat more, or more poorly.

Election canceled or influenced. This is only a possible consequence, and perhaps the most terrifying. Some folks are starting to speculate that we won’t be able to hold our 2020 presidential election at all, while others think participation will be significantly reduced.

Lessons learned. I heard this morning that in Singapore schools never closed, and in another country, perhaps South Korea, businesses stayed open. This was attributed to their previous experience with other coronaviruses, SARS I and MERS: they learned their lessons well. If that happened in the US, that would be an extremely unexpected consequence.

I prefer not to find that out, honestly. One pandemic is plenty.

When you are a female my age but have no chronic health issues, most of your doctor interactions involve cancer checks: pap smear, mammogram, dermatologic exam, colonoscopy. They occur at wide intervals, ranging from one to ten years, and while I try to keep on schedule, it’s not the sort of pressing thing I think about daily.

In the couple of months preceding the shelter-in-place order, I realized it was time for me to get my regular checkup, but I was also distracted by the increasingly ominous news from abroad, busy at work, and traveling, first to Hawaii for our wedding anniversary then to NJ for our son’s recital. So I just put it off.

Now that SARS-CoV-2 is upon us, anticipating a worsening of availability of health care activities as more people contract Covid-19, I wanted to get my overdue screens out of the way, but the only appointments I could make online were video or phone appointments, which are not suitable for either cancer screens or general checkups. Since no one offered to reduce my huge monthly premium to reflect the level of service actually available, I scheduled a call with my primary care physician and, glory be, was able to snag one of her two/day live appointment openings.

I’m sure this sounds selfish, and it is. I did inquire whether anyone in medical distress would be denied an appointment if I took one; apparently at this point the live appointments usually go unfilled. I also asked if I would be putting the doctor at risk by requiring her to come into the facility, but she assured me there is “no work-at-home option for doctors.”

Now let’s think about cancer screens and other preventative activities that go on at checkups. Are they effective, or are they meaningless revenue-generators? If the latter, by all means, let’s drop them. If the former, then statistically, it is highly likely that canceling all such activities for several months will result in some cancers or other conditions that would have been prevented otherwise.

This is a choice, and someone has made this choice.

The health facility was pretty empty and I was the last patient of the afternoon so my doctor and I had a short chat. She told me three interesting things, from which you may draw your own conclusions.

• The leading theory as to the rapid spread of this coronavirus is that it is asymptomatic in a large number of individuals, probably mostly younger people, not just during a latency period after infection, but for the duration.
• The doctors have plenty of time to chat in-between phone and video visits, and they are concerned about the number of scheduled colonoscopies being canceled. They feel these should be evaluated case by case, and are urging reversal of the decision in specific cases, with mixed success.
• She is ok with my current weight, but does not want me to lose any more.

Here in Santa Cruz County, we’re sheltering in place as of midnight last night, though it’s not what you might imagine. The county supervisor sent us a note with about six hours notice saying, Everyone has to stay indoors for three weeks starting at midnight, details here, the last word being a link to the official proclamation. I had just gotten home for work and was exhausted, worried about not being able to work, furious about rotting in my house with the ocean so nearby, and flummoxed by how we could acquire three weeks of supplies by midnight.

My husband and I immediately walked to the ocean, commandeered a bench, and called our son in San Francisco to tell us what it was like. He said it was not so bad; he could go grocery shopping and exercise outside. So we went home and clicked on the link, after which I felt much better.

For starters, all healthcare providers are allowed to stay open, so I can work as long as my chiro can get patients to come in. This being California, the definition of healthcare provider is broad, including acupuncturists and energy healers, really any provider for whom patients express need, as well as veterinarians. Grocery stores and drug stores are open, and we are allowed to visit them, though we are supposed to do so infrequently. We can walk our dogs and exercise outside so long as we maintain social distance. Restaurants are open for takeout and delivery.

Worried about home repair? Plumbers, electricians, and handymen can work.  Don’t have a car? Public transportation will operate. Trash won’t pile up, because sanitation workers are on the job, and of course policemen and firemen will not have a rest.

Today I walked around to assess. Fewer people were on the streets, though certainly far from zero. Gyms are closed, as are hairdressers, some restaurants, and some specialty stores, but not all. A sign informed me that the bike store was providing limited services for patrons who would be so kind as to go around to the back door and ring. Many businesses have limited hours. Schools are the biggest category of closure, since everyone’s kids are home, but I didn’t see any kids. Maybe they were all home-schooling.

There is no perceivable change in the number of people surfing.