Post 232 - October 29, 2020

Day 232…

It is well and truly raining here today. It’s meant to last all day and continue on into tomorrow. And it’s cold.

A perfect day for the couch, but I think I’m too restless to stay inside all day.

Michael is heading downtown for his Law and Order shoot so it will just be me and the cat like it was when we were quarantining. Michael will have to take a second rapid test before he’s allowed onto the set. He tested negative two days ago so I am sure he will be fine.

Mayor DeBlasio, in his daily briefing yesterday, reported that there were 552 new cases of the virus. That’s two cases above what was set as the safety threshold. The other two metrics, new hospitalizations and percentage of people testing positive remained below their thresholds, but, even so, it is still worrying.

The Mayor assured everyone this morning that an uptick in just one of the indicators should not be a cause for alarm.

If we do get a surge, New York City’s Health and Hospitals system is better prepared than they were back in the spring. They have a three-month supply of PPE stockpiled. The city, apparently, has also amassed a stockpile of their own. They have tripled, and in some cases, quadrupled their ICU space and safety upgrades have been added throughout.

I don’t want to say that Michael and I are hoarding, but we are shoring up our supplies as well. If nothing happens, it’s all stuff that we will use anyway.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been working on a new virtual project and one of the people involved has been living in France since all of this began.

In a televised address yesterday, President Emmanuel Macron announced that he was shutting France back down starting on Friday. “The virus is circulating at a speed that not even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated. Like all our neighbors, we are submerged by the sudden acceleration of the virus. We are all in the same position: overrun by a second wave which we know will be harder, more deadly than the first. I have decided that we need to return to the lockdown which stopped the virus.”

French citizens will be required to stay at home except for trips out to buy essential goods, seek medical attention or exercise for up to an hour a day. They can work if what they do cannot be done from home. Strangely, schools will remain open. Like the initial lockdown, anyone outside of their homes will need to carry a document that justifies them being outside.

As soon as this announcement went out, the person we’ve been working with booked a flight home to England.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, also announced strict measures yesterday. Bars, restaurants and theatres in Germany will be closed from November 2-30. Stores will be able to stay open with strict limitations and, again, like in France, schools will stay open.

The Italian Premier, Giuseppe Conte, shut down gyms, pools and theatres on Sunday for at least a month. He imposed a curfew on restaurants and bars. He has also instituted a national mask-wearing mandate. As opposed to the initial shut-down which was crippling to their economy, this time around, the moves in Italy are designed to hopefully strike a balance between economic safety and personal safety.

Restaurant and bar owners have already lodged their complaints about the new restrictions. The Premier’s response was, "If this November we respect all these new rules we will be able to keep the epidemic curve under control… and face December, and the Christmas holidays with greater serenity.”

All three countries have ear marked billions of Euros in governmental aid to offset the losses.

A study by Imperial College London estimates that the number of British subjects becoming infected is now doubling every nine days. Reported cases in England are averaging twenty to thirty thousand a day. The study suggests that the real number is likely to be closer to 100,000 a day.

Rather than closing down the entire country again, they are trying to institute a regional three-tiered system. Instead of a national blanket policy, each region will impose restrictions based on their specific numbers.

France has seen a surge in their average new cases that is above 36,000 a day.

In contrast to that, the US is averaging 74,000 new cases each day.

All of these European countries are attempting to get through this crisis by implementing policy that tries to balance the safety of the individual with the health of their economies. Not everyone is happy with it, but, for better or for worse, these European leaders are actually leading.

Our system of government is different from all of theirs. Great Britain is an uneasy alliance of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Then there are other regions such as the Isle of Man, Jersey and Gurnsey. Each of those areas has a certain amount of autonomous power. France, Germany and Italy are a single unit.

The United States, however, is a union of 50 separate governments. States have enough power that national mandates can be more difficult to impose.

The President often has to lead by example rather than by imposing actual legislation. This President has done neither.

In an interview today, Dr Fauci said “If things do not change, if they continue on the course we’re on, there’s gonna be a whole lot of pain in this country with regard to additional cases and hospitalizations, and deaths.”

The areas that were hardest hit in the spring, like us up here in the northeast, were better prepared to meet this crisis than the areas being hit hard now are. Hospitalizations are rising in alarming numbers throughout the Midwest. Some areas are even discussing having to ration healthcare - something we watched in horror as it unfolded in Italy earlier this year. As their numbers continue to rise, having to make those choices seems unavoidable.

Meanwhile, early voting continues to break new records. Over 78 million people have already cast their votes around the country and there are still five days left to go. That is already over half of all the votes that were cast in total during the 2016 election.

Two major Supreme Court cases have insured that mail-in votes will continue to be counted in Pennsylvania and North Carolina after the election date.

The Pennsylvania Republican Party had asked the court to hear a case right away that would nullify the three-day extension for receiving properly postmarked ballots and counting the votes. The Court refused to hear the case, saying that there was not enough time to properly adjudicate it. They did leave open the possibility of hearing it later so Pennsylvania is going to count those votes but keep them separate in case the court invalidates them at some future point.

The court also refused to block a 9-day extension that the North Carolina state election board put in place there. Votes, there, will be counted for nine days as long as they are postmarked by November 3rd.

It is notable that the newly minted Justice recused herself from either vote. Her vote in either case could have swayed the decision. In an official statement, the Court’s press office said that she did not have time to fully review the briefs and did not want to delay decisions that needed to be made swiftly.

The rain is clattering down on the air conditioners. I can hear the traffic down on the street motorboating through water.

It’s windy, too. The trees outside our windows are in constant movement. Their leaves have just started to turn yellow. The rain is bringing down the ones that have already turned.

There is going to be solid masses of soaking wet leaves on the sidewalks for weeks. So much for the joy of kicking through them.

If you have not already mailed your ballot in, you should now drop it off, in person, instead.

Anyone who’s elderly or incapacitated in any way should know that there is a much shorter easier line to get into the polling stations for you. Don’t let the long lines and stories of long waits be a deterrent. If you’re just dropping off your ballot, you don’t need to wait at all. You can just walk right up and drop it in.

As a country, we can do better than we are doing now.

We are doing nothing now. Anything is better than that.

As Americans, we have never avoided a fight. That’s not who we are. We’ve stood up to everybody and everything that has ever threatened us. Until now.

This President waved the white flag before he fired a single shot.

Putting aside everything else you can say about this man, he is simply a coward. Americans are many things, but we are not cowards. We should not be being led by one.

Let’s get rid of this spineless, craven idiot once and for all and get into this fight properly.

We can do this.