Life in the Age of Corona
A Daily Diary
Tuesday, April 21st, 2020
Dreaming
Woke up to the most beautiful spring day this morning. Maxi is back on duty, head butting me at 6:30am in lieu of the alarm. No idea what happened yesterday when he was remiss of this task and I, as a result, was almost late for my 8 am call despite having retired at 22:00 the night before.
Generally finding that there comes a point in the evening when we look at the watch wondering if it may be time to go sleep yet. Also we sleep longer. Wondering if this is happening to other people too. Speaking of, I am finding that I dream a lot more and tend to remember them when I wake up, rather than remembering that I did have a dream.
From what I read having more vivid dreams are a result of the pandemic or rather the social distancing that comes with the territory. Dreams are a way for people to understand themselves. Their main function is to process emotions, particularly emotional uncertainty because human beings are not very good at dealing with uncertainty, which for many people have been more intense during the pandemic. In life people see part of themselves in others. Due to social distancing this identification does not happen, so when we dream, the mind pulls up peopleand events from the past. There appears to be a whole lot of research centered around Corona dreams - an interesting side effect. Maybe they can also conduct research in dreaming in “sequences”. Something I have observed in myself over the years. While I dream, I am acutely aware of having had that particular dream before, except it is always like a continuation (and I know it as I am dreaming), which I find really very weird, both knowing I have dreamt this before and the fact that it is like a sequal. Sometimes there are years between these dreams, sometimes days. I have yet to meet someone who experiences a similar dream pattern. At times it makes for more interesting nights than the days, especially now with daily activities so limited.
As to limited activities, we still do our daily walks around the Hood and today I found a beautiful branch the wind must have torn of a sprouting tree. I brought it home and it is now in a vase on our dining room table. It reminded me of the olive branch the dove brought back to Noah's arch, even though I think we are far from a resolution of this crisis at least in this part of the world, where daily numbers continue to increase.
The count of reported cases worldwide today is at 2.42 million. This is an increase of only 20k compared to yesterday, a much smaller increase than we have seen on any other day so far. I am adding this to the “good news of the day” category.
Other noteworthy research published in recent days (yeah, I was about a week late catching it) is related to vaccines. As scientists scramble to find anything against the virus they are going back in time. In this case about 100 years and clinical tests with this vaccine are underway with first responders in the Netherlands and Australia among others. The vaccine in question is BCG, used to immunize against Tuberculosis, a disease of the lungs which had been almost extinct a few decades ago but has over the past ten years seen a come back.
In countries were TBC vaccinations of the population are mandatory, such as Portugal for instance, infection rates are far lower. Initial, not yet conclusive research, seems to suggest that the vaccine strengths the immune systems ability more broadly, enabling the body to put up a better fight against viruses of the respiratory system and earlier on. Considering myself lucky to have been vaccinated against TBC as a child, twice, at birth and with a booster shot sometime later in life. Not because my parents had visions of the future, but because half of my family died of this terrible disease before and during WWII and my mum as a young woman nearly did too. And because she had had TB, her damaged lungs are particularly vulnerable to Corona, which is why I worry so much about her. She is still far too adventurous for my liking. A trip to the post office (again) today. A trip to the doctor tomorrow, a game of cards with her also sequestered friends on Friday. While hoping clinical test may bring some good news, herd immunity seems to be a few decades away. Even with recent antibody studies showing that real infections may be as much as 50 times higher than officially known infections, immunity is currently at ~3%, so way to go. Makes me wonder what happened to the NIH antibody study I had volunteered to participate in. Need to check on that. It seems though there is a way to detect deficiencies early on: measuring oxygen levels. I might just go and invest in one of these. Definitely cannot harm.
Read a good piece about Portugal yesterday. Portugal has as many infected nationwide as Spain has reported deaths in a day - 567. So, what has Portugal done differently: Apart form the fact that TBC vaccination at birth is mandatory, all parties are cooperating to deal with the crisis. The opposition party is supporting the current ruling party. All immigrants have been given residency as long as an application for asylum had been on file at the outset of the crisis. As a result, all immigrants, like citizens, have access to health care and can be tested, isolated and treated. All medical examination of suspect cases is conducted in people’s homes in isolation to reduce the spread and testing is done out of the formal medical system to avoid contagion. And of course, a lock down is enforced. Would be worthwhile to study the Portuguese case in greater depth alongside New Zealand and Germany. Which leads to another thought: What do most of the countries doing well have in common? Women leaders and apparently countries under woman leaders are generally doing far better than the rest of the world. Even though Merkel hsa been taking a lot of flag for telling people to stop thinking about reopening "orgies", meaning that even if small steps are taken towards losening the lock down, life is far from getting back to how it ws befroe and people should just brace themselves.
On the subject of immigration. Immigration to US is to be suspended amid pandemic, which, while not condoning it, at some level I can at least understand. Clearly this country is not set up to treat and test people already here, much less people coming in. And those immigrants already here are stuck in detention centers which are presumably life threatening. Anywhere but there may well be a better option.
At least Maryland seems to be getting its act together as far as increased testing is concerned. Governor Hogan is married to a Korean-American and jointly they have procured 500.000 tests from Korea!
Lastly, I cam e across a fun read to be filed under “curiosities”. The 'last cruise ship on Earth' finally comes home. This ship was to cruise the world. It was largely ahead of the virus until they reached Tasmania at about the same time as the virus. So the captain made a call and did not allow anyone to disembark there or in Sydney or anywhere else (unless they wanted to take a flight home / not return to the ship). The cruise ended early and the ship sailed back to Europe without a single person disembarking. Everyone corona free upon arrival having had a ball while other were #stayhome
