The greatest contribution you can make is: don’t gather together, don’t cause chaos, the Guangming Daily a Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda rag.

“The way we get ahead of it is, I want people to assume that we’re overreacting because if it looks like you’re overreacting you’re probably doing the right thing,”  Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. 

When the next pandemic occurs (and make no mistake, it will) and the federal government is unable to respond in a coordinated and effective fashion to protect the lives of US citizens and others, this decision by John Bolton and Donald Trump will be why. Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer upon the disbandment of the Pandemic Response Team by John Bolton in 2018.

Are there any nurses or doctors who are able to put in an IV in next half hour? Thank you. A message on the local neighborhood social networking service.

This post is sort of a coronavirus potpourri, starting with the good news. At last, a cold front is moving through California and it is cold and raining outside. I probably wouldn’t want to go out anyway, but, somehow, having to be inside is making this whole thing seem surreal and giving me cabin fever.

There is a voice in me that says: “What if this whole thing is really fake, well, not fake but blown up way out of proportion and I am sheltering in place for no real reason.” The problem is that, if staying away from people is not an overreaction, if there really is a pandemic, if staying at home really will help, then staying away from people will seem like it wasn’t really necessary because the pandemic will not be as powerful. This is called the paradox of preparation according to a Tweet by Chris Hayes.

This is obviously not something that the Trump administration expected, How could they, nobody expected it. They knew it was possible, just not likely, like “This has never happened before.” not likely. So the Trump Administration thought: Let’s save some money, which we can use elsewhere, by getting rid of the U.S. Pandemic Response Team. Which is exactly what they did, in 2018. One thing that I read, probably, twenty years ago is that successful people are gamblers and so are people who are now homeless, the difference in the result is often just a matter of luck. However, people who are responsible for the well being of others are usually not gamblers. Formula One is a large group of gamblers but the people on the F1 Emergency Medical Team are not and they will not let a race start in the fog because the medical helicopters can not fly in the fog. Trump may be gambling that a Global Pandemic won’t happen, just like they are gambling that Global Climate is not real, even Mark Esper, the Secretary of Defence, might not think either is real, but the people in the Pentagon who are responsible for long term planning, especially logistical planning, are basing their planning around Global Climate Change just like the engineers at Ensco or Transocean, who build and maintain oil drilling platforms, are building them high enough to accommodate sea rise.

For me, the biggest anxiety producer is the lack of facts, the uncertainty of the whole thing. We live in San Mateo County near the border to Santa Clara County, that’s close to being at the US epicenter of the pandemic. San Mateo has 64 cases and two deaths while Santa Clara has 138 cases with four deaths but I have no idea how many people have been tested. If one thousand people have been tested because they were out of the country or possibly exposed and only 202 have tested positive that is completely different than 205 people have been tested and 202 are positive. Because we’re still not testing – OK, we are testing on a very limited and selective basis – nobody has any idea of the percentage of positive readings compared to tests taken or percentage of the general population that have the virus.

I’m going to the drugstore today and I wonder how do I treat my prescriptions. I get a bottle of pills in a bag, the person that handed me the bag has handled it – and I get the bag should be disposed of once I get home – but they probably haven’t handled the bottles inside. Still, the pharmacist probably has. However, the pharmacist probably hasn’t touched the pills inside because a machine did the counting. Do I clean the pill jar? What are the chances it is contaminated? And what about a bag of frozen peas? Will the freezer kill the virus? And what about our mail? Will ripping the covers off of the magazines make them safe to read or should I just put them in the recycling?

In the meanwhile, try to stay safe. If you can, go outside alone and listen to the spring birds sing. The world is alive and it is inspiring.