Day 10 of Societal Isolation

Current method of Social Isolation.

I don't know if I am embarrassed on behalf of humanity or proud. On one hand, our ability to mass implode as a civilization is unprecedented. I had the feeling this shit was getting real when Starbucks started offering only Drive-Thru service. We nearly shut down Starbucks!

Then it got stupid(er) when they shut down our 8 acre neighbourhood dog park, which I've never seen more than 10 people in on a good day, due to the COVID19!!! It's a goddamn 8 acre park that dogs poop in during the winter and kid leagues play soccer and T-Ball in during April and May.

Keep in mind that I live in a community of about 1000 people. There are more people that walk on the streets than go into this park. I mean, if we are following this current thought, why aren't the mailboxes taped off? There's at least 50 boxes that can be infected with COVID19!!!

But that is what this has come to. I'm tired of saying it's the flu, yes, it's highly contagious. It kills off the old and weak, Yes, that sucks. But that's what flus have always done. Yes, I understand that people are dying. That's nature. We don't live forever.

And until the rich and famous start dying off, in other words, those that can afford health care, then I'm not really worried about it.

At least, physically. Mentally, I'm drained. I'm trying to live in a 'Keep Calm and Carry On' world but everyone else is making it tough. We need t-shirts to differentiate us, to help us remind each other that we're not alone in thinking we're over-reacting. We need to Keep on Keepin' On.

Economically, I'm okay with my 2 weeks emergency funds and our 'Essential Services' jobs. I'm not like a lot of others out there. Thankfully, being perpetually poor prepared me really well for doing limited things on limited funds. I even might splurge this weekend and go for a non-essential drive what with gas at 94.9 cents (British Columbia, represent). That represents a savings of nearly 30 cents/litre in less than a month. How are the oil companies surviving?

And let's not talk about the credit card companies, who have been pretty silent on their whole 'we are still charging you 20% interest on any charges you incur.'

I am reminded of the saying "There is nothing to Fear but Fear Itself" and as a society, we are doing a bang-up job of living in fear. It will be a strange world to come back to, especially economically. Will our standard of living go down? Will there be a new iPhone release for this year? Where will ex-Prince Harry and Markie live? 

Self-quarantine Day 4

Day #4 of the national self-quarantine aka Spring Break 2020. 

While I jest, this is where we are at. I don't know if things would be much different for us to be honest. The kids are doing what they are doing; nothing different from their previous school holidays, barring the fact my daughter's Stay At Home class was cancelled and, as of yesterday, so are our weekly firehall practice.

We are still planning to go into town today; my oldest 2 have a bowling date with Grampa, who is willing to risk the chance of infection to spend some time with the kids.

I bought my oldest a bass; today I plan to go into pawn shops to see if I can find a cheap amp. My daughter is missing a sketch book so we will buy another one. My youngest is happy that his leprecaun trap has netted four hats and golden chocolate bar.

Still off Facebook, and now Yahoo is starting to send me emails about it; Greg shared this, Ken shared that...

I'm reading Stephen King's On Writing and Wings of Fire, recommended by my daughter. It's a fairly straight forward dystopian rebellion tale, but with dragon/insects. It's not very subtle. For example, the bad guys are wasps and when the protagonists are deciding where to find the Rebellion, they have a choice between Yellowjacket Hive, Bloodworm Hive or Jewel Hive. Not hard to guess where they're going.

But she's reading and I love her and I will finish it. As per King's On Writing; Reading bad writing makes you more aware of your own bad writing. I'm not saying Wings of Fire is bad; it's meant for a particular audience.

Nobody died last night from CoronaVirus, keeping the Canadian death toll at 4 in a population of 38 million people. We talked a little at the dinner table with the kids. They seem mostly oblivious however the older one isn't saying much.

Emotion is Contagious (this didn't age well)

So I'm wrong but will keep this up for some humble pie.

Aug 15, update; there are over 174,000 dead in US (#1) and 9000 in Canada (#24)

Conspiracies are all the rage right now, masks are semi-voluntary, the US election is nowhere near the same amount of hype/hysteria as it was 4 years ago so at least we have that going for us. 

PANDEMIC!

Coronavirus is all the news nowadays. As far as I'm concerned it's a variation of the flu and I fear that I am the only one who remembers the media panic of SARS, the bird flu, avian flu, ebola and flesh-eating disease that ran their course over the last two decades.

Emotion is contagious; if one of us laughs, others laugh. That is why comedies feel so much funnier in theaters; stand-up comedy is done in front of an audience instead of one by one. Funerals are where people gather to feel sad. We avoid funerals so we don't feel sad(der).
Weddings make us happy. Winning as a group, losing as a group, it makes us feel emotions that are increased by the amount of people we are sharing that emotion with.

This is the basis of mob mentality; our emotions, heightened by others, make us do things that we would not otherwise do as individuals.

And the current emotion running through society is fear, pushed by social media and a large international organization called WHO.

Beware of Coronavirus.

For some reason, this is worse than all the others most of us have lived through before. And because we are now a world that thrives on fear, we relish the opportunity to do what we are told because of flu epidemic that hit a country on the other side of the globe

We are flourishing on fear, our leaders are showing each other what we are made of. And this is what we have shown;

All international travel is highly discouraged.
If you do travel, you are to self-quarantine yourself for two weeks before returning to your employment. Nobody will check up on this - you are to police yourself. WE are counting on you to be honest about your travels.
All events or gatherings of more than 250 people is forbidden.
That means ALL sports, from the NHL to the local ringette end-of-season dinner has been postponed/cancelled.
School districts are shutting down despite no children having been diagnosed.
Churches are closing their doors (read that one again and note the hypocrisy)
St. Paddy day parades cancelled!
There is an increasing push to create work-from-home scenarios so people don't have to go into work.
There is a big public information push to wash your hands.
There is an unfathomable, unexplainable rush on toilet paper.
Athletes are offering to pay the wages of stadium employees who would otherwise be serving over-priced food and beverages to their fans.
Big businesses are spamming emails, declaring how they 'are navigating' this pandemic which has KILLED 62 people in the US (of 331 million) and 1 person in Canada (of 37 million). Yes, it will be more but that's it as of March 15th, 2020.

To date, according to https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ there have been 6000 deaths world-wide. 76,000 have recovered. The breakdwown of the age of fatalities is broken down on this page; https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/ . According to CNN, the average age is 80. No child has died from coronavirus.

There are over 7.7 billion people in the world.

7.7 billion.

Do the math. This is not a pandemic; this is nature. Sickness kills off the old and the weak. It is nothing personal, it's saying your time is up. Time to move over, shuffle off this mortal coil, face the music, pay your tab, check your balance, meet your maker, etc. etc. etc.

Yet here we are. Two weeks into March. The Apocalypse is upon us.

I have logged off Facebook. I found it to be part of the problem instead of part of the solution. 

I am sure there are sane people among us; plenty in health care. Yet our self-isolation cuts away that sense of group rationality. FB does the same. Funny memes or videos on Toilet paper mobs do nothing buy hype the situation, only help stoke the flames of fear. We have been told to self-quarantine and so most of us will. We are obedient sheep and all it took was a little snowball to create this avalanche of fear. Much like AIDS, SARS, Bird flu, swine flu etc.

I am old enough to remember this situation playing out so many times before. News clips of everyone wearing face masks, nobody in our social circle having any personal experience of said deadly disease and then we continued on as if it never happened.

The difference this time is how influential social media has become; it not only pushes the snowball but creates more of them. It is our most trusted news source.

And this is the Catch 22 of our times; the argument will be that thanks to these restrictions, the pandemic never happened. If we didn't have these restrictions, we'd have deaths in the millions. We can't prove that wouldn't happen as we are not given the opportunity.

It's like saying those day-glow head-to-toe uniforms traffic control people wear keep them safer as opposed to only wearing a day-glow jacket. You can't argue with safety.

Group mentality wins out. Nobody is brave enough to call bullshit because YOU ARE THREATENING SOMEONE'S LIFE!

Yet, if Death is going to happen, it's going to happen. Your time is up; be it from an elderly driver behind the wheel, cardiac arrest, ski jump, or a 7 year old with a runny nose.

Yet here we are. 1 person dead in Canada has ground near everything to a halt except the Internet.

I especially love that the Houses of God are encouraging their parishioners not to gather there. There's a huge irony in that.

Good luck, everyone.