Life in the Age of Corona
A Daily Diary
Wednesday, September 30th, 2020
Pop-up Band
How fun is that? 5 minutes ago a pop-up band appeared in our neighborhood, just a block from my house. As I am writing this, I can enjoy their music (Oh when the Saints, oh when the saints go marching in….)! I have no clue whose idea this was, but it is brilliant. Especially since the bipolar Maryland weather has reverted to sunny and a nice 20C, tempting me back outside. I had just started the process of dyeing my eyebrows, but as soon as the color came off, we scooted over and to check it out. Also, there was a great turn out of neighbors for this little socially distanced concert, which has also just been announced on the magic Listserv. People coming and going, some with a drink. So much fun and so unexpected. I did them set up as I was coming back from the pool earlier and had already wondered if someone had a birthday or wwas clebrating some other special occasion.
The pool as always as a lovely respite after a three hour call with four people trying to manipulate numbers or rather make sense of them via MS Teams. But we are getting there. After some prettying up I am hoping to submit what will be the teams final draft of the strategy, and given we have two distinctly different audiences it is more like two decks.
The media echo out form last nights debate was pretty damning for the Cheeto. Headlines read “The Debate from Hell” or “America is Cracking up”. Twitter had a field day with it too. My takeaway – the Cheeto was the bully everyone expected him to be. It was amazing Vice President Joe Biden got a word in edgewise. He could barely utter two sentences before he was interrupted. The moderator was completely out of his depth and found no way to reign the Cheeto in who of course did not abide by any of the rules the two campaigns had agreed upon for the debate. My most fervent wish throughout was: make him shut up! Give Biden a chance to say what he had to say. I was amazed that Biden remain mostly unfazed and could pick up on his train of thought time and again. At one point, Biden actually said “man, just shut up will you”. If there was any strategy the Cheeto was pursuing, it probably was debate destruction. Now there are calls for the moderator to be able to just shut the orange Cheeto’s mic. We shall see if that happens. I cannot help but wonder, what if Vice President Joe Biden had just walked out of this shitshow after say 30 minutes?
The key point Biden managed to consistently drive home was the poor Virus management and the Cheeto’s desire to cancel Obamacare with his supreme court appointee. 20 million people are currently insured under Obamacare and would immediately lose their health insurance if Obamacare were repealed. An additional 100 million would potentially not be able to afford health insurance as they have pre-existing conditions. And these are not just diabetes patients for instance, but include pregnancy, and yes, you guessed it, people who tested positive for COVID-19. Today that would mean an additional 7.44 million would have pre-existing conditions courtesy of the Virus.
And infections are still very much on the rise. Here is why. In the meantime Germany is battling the second wave; trying to avoid a nationwide lock down but rather focusing on restrictions in hot spots in addition to rigorous contact tracing and maintaining social distancing. Hoping that this will work as it may help reduce Corona fatigue and could become a model for other countries to follow. I believe Spain and France are currently pursuing a similar approach.
Finally, just because I am so anxious for partner practice to resume I worked through this article on whether or not Corona can be transmitted via sweat interesting. The article suggests that it is not sweat that transmits the virus, but rather the fact that when sweating people touch their face more often through which aerosols attach to their hands and are then transmitted. ...
