Twenty weeks! And I know a fellow quilter with whom I spent time in Texas in February who has been in her own Boston hermitage for 21 weeks. She's 81 and had a cousin die with covid-19 very early on in the pandemic. As for my own 88-year-old mother, her assisted living facility continues covid-free. The same cannot be said of the rehabilitation center where she spent six months before moving to assisted living. They now have five staff members and two residents who have tested positive. The story came out when a CNA quit after having been told to report for a double shift even though she had covid-19 symptoms and was going to be tested. She did test positive and is quite thankful, now, that she stuck to her gut feelings and did not go in to work. She said that were it not for the pandemic raging, she likely would have chalked her symptoms up to allergies, popped some Allegra, and gone to work anyway. She made a very good call.
There is another local senior-care facility, the Cedars, that may be setting records covid-19 records. They have had 96 residents and 44 staff members test positive. You read that correctly--140 total cases. There have been 17 deaths so far. I read things like that and offer thanks to the deities that my mom's facility has taken such good care to stay covid-free. That said, one single staff member could still come in having the virus but showing no symptoms and set off an outbreak. Here's hoping those deities stay with me on this.
I spent some pandemic-free time reading Mary Trump's book Too Much and Never Enough. It was a quick and easy read. I wouldn't buy it, but if you can borrow it or check it out of a library, you might take a look at it. Is there really any new information there? No. Did it make me more sympathetic to HWSNBN because his father was as large a piece of s*** as he is? No. The whole family is what people in polite circles might call "a piece of work." The whole book can pretty much be summed up as "like father, like son." How much might have been nature vs. nurture (or lack thereof), I would not want to guess.
Older son and I did our Sunday morning walk at the park with the family dog this morning. A church is now using one of the shelters for what appears to be a service and a social. Two weeks ago, no one there seemed to be wearing a mask. Now that the county has instituted new covid-19 mitigation measures, there were a lot more masks this morning. Not on every adult, but on enough of them to be noticeable. None of the kids were wearing masks, but the regs say kids under 10 aren't required to wear a mask.
I have been remiss in not mentioning that The Washington Post again has a daily sports section. This morning's contained an interesting article about a conference call between administrators, coaches, and some football players from the Southeastern Conference held to address concerns about the upcoming season. The players were told to consider it "a given" that players on each team would develop covid-19. When one player pointed out that while right now the teams can operate in a bubble, once all the other students return, that bubble is popped mightily. One of the higher-ups noted something I've thought all along: If those other students don't come back, there's no way football could be played.
And while the bubble theory appears to be working for the NBA, WNBA, and major league soccer, the abbreviated Major League Baseball season may be headed down the drain. The NFL has canceled all pre-season games. Will they end up doing the same for the regular-season games? Do people care? I enjoyed the organized sports I did (I helped break the gender barrier in high school cross country and tennis back in the early days of the 1970s), but I never did them with any thoughts of continuing to compete in anything but intramurals when I moved on to college. That may disqualify me from making judgmental statements about continuing organized sports during a pandemic, but I would say that the only collegiate sports that should have any microscopic chance of being held are those with limited or no interpersonal contact. Sports such as tennis or golf. Cross country could count if there are staggered starts to the races. And even with those, there should be serious discussion of are they needed. What is their purpose? If they are to be held without spectators, you can't even make the argument that they offer a diversion or entertainment. Pro sports can argue that television justifies their existence, but the same would not be true of college. At least not to me.
Time to get off my soapbox and go empty the dryer that just beeped at me that the clothes in it are dry.
No comments:
Post a Comment