Quarantine

Looks like another occasion where what might otherwise be writer’s block is rescued by some huge problem which merits some discussion.   The COVID19/corona virus shitstorm has resulted in a quarantine here in the US.   Ideally, stay home.  If you do go out, try minimizing such excursions and stay at least 6 feet away from everyone.  Then go home and catch up on whatever it is you could do at home were it not for having to be out 40 hours a week working.

My own job is an attorney, in a firm by myself, an office manager (Vietnamese woman old enough to have met Japanese officers as a little girl during WWII), and a secretary who is as difficult and headstrong as she is attractive (actually, considerably more so).   Part of my practice is personal injury, meaning I can call insurance adjusters from home and try to settle cases.   Ultimately, many of my cases require some form of court appearance, whether be a status hearing to set a case for trial, a one-and-done traffic or misdemeanor case, a one-and-done 341 hearing on a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, or a simple uncontested hearing on a divorce.  The local courts have removed most cases from the docket for the time being, subject to being rescheduled later. 

As of yet, I don’t feel any aches, pains, fevers, chills or any other illness.  Just the last week I went to the ER for a tongue infection, though I was discharged that day with a prescription.   That issue is healed.  I live alone, in a huge condo building.   My mom is in an assisted living building 30 minutes northwest (Herndon), and that building is taking the sensible precaution of prohibiting visitors, so I call my Mom and talk to her on the phone.   My brother lives not too far away, in Centreville, with a wife and three kids.  They are all stuck in the house together.   Last time I visited, though, I found the local parks and trails within walking distance of his house.

Despite the obvious temptation to bring up the ever-popular plague, there are huge differences.  First off, corona-virus is…a virus (!) whereas the plague is caused by bacteria.  As such the latter can be treated with anti-biotics.  It’s usually caused by rats and fleas, which means in normal First World environments the sanitation system is inhospitable for the plague and we rarely see it.  Back in the Middle Ages, when sewer systems weren’t always around, and anti-biotics were nonexistent, the plague would have been a much bigger problem.

Even so, “quarantine” still applied.  A map of Europe in the mid 1300s appears to show that Poland was relatively little affected, allegedly because the king, Casimir the Great, quarantined Poland from the rest of Europe.  In practice, this seems to be an oversimplification and difficult to verify.   The truth is that Poland did suffer the plague, but less than surrounding countries, and we really don’t know why.   However, with 3 of my 4 grandparents originating from Poland, to the extent that the plague was not as serious there as elsewhere, to the extent 3 of my ancestors survived a disease which might otherwise have killed them, making my own existence impossible, I have to thank God that this was in fact the case, to the extent it was and for whatever reason.

As of April 2020, I am staying home most of the time, wearing a mask when I do go out, and catching up on Rick & Morty (season 4) and Ozark (finished season 1).  As yet I know of no one I know personally who has contracted the virus, but I would hope and expect that the geniuses are at work on a vaccine which will address the issue.  

I’m still unclear as to what anyone is doing about keeping these viruses to spring forth from the Wuhan market in China, which seems to breed these viruses from the exotic animals kept in close proximity.  The experts agree that the virus was not man-made, but to the extent the PRC is a totalitarian dictatorship which could summarily shut down the market if it cared to do so, I’d say the Chinese government’s willful inaction amounts to de facto germ warfare, by default, against the rest of the planet.  

Likewise, I won't blame our own Orange Fuhrer for having developed this disease himself.   But you would think that he would at least have consulted with experts and managed the crisis here a little better:  giving us accurate information about the threat the virus poses and what we should do about it.  Firing the team, ignoring his own experts, and dismissing the whole thing as a hoax was criminally stupid.  I'm not particularly impressed by the Democratic challengers in 2020, but even the dumbest of them (most likely Biden) would have enough brain cells to manage this whole thing more competently than the current yahoo.  He can Make America Great Again by resigning, effective immediately, as even Pence can tie his shoelaces better than his own boss.