Post 23 - April 3, 2020
Day 23…
Lots of things in the news yesterday set me a bit off.
The 1,000 bed USNS Comfort that was dispatched to New York City to relieve the hospitals currently has 20 patients on board. The other ship that was sent to Los Angeles, the Mercy, currently has 15 patients on board.
These ships are war-time trauma hospitals. If you are a 20-year-old soldier who has just been shot in the leg, they can help. However, if you are an older citizen suffering from something else, then the narrow military-style bunks the patients are bedded in are probably not going to help.
There are 49 conditions, including COVD-19, that the ship will NOT accept. Ambulances are required to take patients to local hospitals first for testing for all of these other conditions before patients can be transferred to the ship.
So much for relieving local hospitals but thank you for the message of hope.
Arizona Governor Doug Ducey finally issued some stay-at-home guidelines and issued the order that non-essential services close. NOT included in those orders are, strangely, nail and hair salons and golf courses. Under the Arizona law, the Mayors of Phoenix and other Arizona cities are powerless to close these businesses themselves. This means that if the nail and hair salons close voluntarily that they will not be eligible for any state aid so, in effect, are being forced to stay open.
If Governor Cuomo in New York is the bright shining beacon of leadership in these dark times then Governor Rick DeSantis of Florida is the dark oozing polar opposite of that. Finally, on Wednesday - two days ago after letting spring break go ahead as planned and packing Florida’s beaches - DeSantis finally issued a state-wide stay-at-home order.
He exempted Churches.
There are 2,900 Baptist churches in Florida. That’s just the Baptists.
Seven of the 100 largest churches in the country with attendance at greater than 5,500 are in Florida.
Yesterday, he then issued a second order which takes away individual cities ability to put in stronger restrictions than the state has mandated. In other words, those Mayors who are trying to properly fight against the virus in their own cities now, like in Arizona, have their hands tied.
Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota had no stay-at-home orders at all as of yesterday. Texas does not have a state-wide mandate - instead Governor Greg Abbot has left it to individual Mayors and County officials to establish guidelines. This seems to also be the case in Oklahoma, Missouri, Utah and in South Carolina where only the cities of Charleston and Columbia are under stay-at-home orders.
Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia announced yesterday that he had JUST found out that asymptomatic people could be carrying the virus which is why he finally issued his state’s Shelter in Place order YESTERDAY. Where the heck has he been?
There is meme working its way through Facebook which says, “Having some states lock down and some states not lock down is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.”
This virus is pretty much everywhere.
There are NO states without any cases.
It is traveling through our entire population.
We need strong, intelligent FEDERAL leadership to coordinate the response to COVID-19.
The President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner appeared at the White House press briefing yesterday and said (referring to medical supplies), “The notion of the federal stockpile is that it Is supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be state’s stockpiles that they then use.”
Um… WHAT?
The federal government is an umbrella structure connecting the states. It isn’t a thing or a population in and of itself. It has no population. Does Kushner think that the stockpile of supplies is for his family in the White House?
Andrew Yang, the erstwhile Democratic Presidential candidate said this yesterday, “We Asian Americans need to embrace and show our American-ness in ways we never have before. We need to step up, help our neighbors, donate gear, vote, wear red white and blue, volunteer, fund aid organizations, and do everything in our power to accelerate the end of this crisis. We should show without a shadow of a doubt that we are Americans who will do our part for our country in this time of need.”
Again… WHAT?
Asian-American citizens need to prove to the rest of the population that they aren’t the virus? Are you kidding me?
Our f&%$ing PRESIDENT needs to do that.
He needs to stop calling it the Chinese virus RIGHT NOW.
We need a national LEADER.
We do not have one.
We not only do not have National leadership, we have a government that is actually turning us against each other when it should be uniting us.
At the moment, sad to say, there’s not very much we can do about the failings of our government except to speak up about them.
Listen to leaders who are talking sense.
We need to unite ourselves despite the obstacles.
Unite by staying at home and urging our friends and family to do the same.
Wherever you are in the world, when you do go out to buy food, go to the doctor or exercise BY YOURSELF, physically distance yourself from everybody that you aren’t currently living with.
When you go into a store, or the doctor wear a mask.
Not a N95 mask - those should be given to hospitals, but any other kind.
Go online and learn how to make one if you can’t find them.
Harvey Fierstein is a one-man factory!
You can actually occasionally find masks in some small local NYC stores, you just have to search a bit sometimes.
Reach out to people who are on their own.
Skype, Facetime, Zoom are amazing resources in this extremely strange new age.
We went to a surprise birthday party the day before yesterday in Los Angeles and hung out with a whole bunch of friends, each in their own homes, for a couple of hours and never left our couch.
When you get angry at things that are happening around you, don’t let it lead you to fear or despair.
We are weeks into this and we are doing OK.
We are figuring it out.
We are getting through this.
Help by staying positive.
It is, actually a choice.
Find something good and focus on that.
Anything.
Your cat or dog.
A TV show. A good book.
Plant some seeds.
Anything.
We will get there.
We really will.
We ARE getting there.