May 7, 2020
Day 47
People are back to barreling up and down the dodgy road into town even though the road maintenance crew hasn’t devoted any time to grading or spreading fresh gravel for over six weeks. It is slick when wet and dicey when dry and its back to business as usual now. Same in the grocery stores. I’m still the only person wearing a mask and social distancing lingers mostly in people’s memory. You can see them thinking about it when they get a look at me as I pause to wait for them to move or for a space to present itself so that I can go around them. The meanderthals (yes, still spelled with an ‘m’) are back in force, parking their carts on the opposite side of an aisle and then blocking the other half while they compare best values or wonder why they’re there in the first place. Only the checkers with their blue gloves and disinfectant wipes at the ready still hold the line against a complete return to the good old bad old days.
Latest buzz is that New Zealand will be moving to Level 2 some time in the near future. The news is full of stories about what that will look like for travel, the hospitality business, shops, salons, bars and bistros, but no one is saying when the move will take place. Gatherings of less than a hundred people will be okay but no more than that. Sports events will be held but without spectators. Schools will reopen but with some sort of social distancing enforced or implied, whichever turns out to be more practicable. There is still talk of opening the Tasman border so that folks from Oz can visit here and vice versa.
New Zealand has done well so far and more power to us, but I hope the powers that be are keeping a weather eye on the appearance of unexplained community transmission. There’s going to be a fine line between too much and too little control and I hope we err on the side of conservatism.
Elsewhere in the world there seems to be a deadly fatigue setting in as countries, cities and communities try to come to grips with the fact that the cure (inefficient, poorly maintained and apparently unenforceable lockdown policies) is worse than the disease, literally. In those areas where first steps were not taken quickly enough and clusters of hot spots took hold and grew unchecked, most people seem resigned to taking their chances one way or another. They need to work and shutting down the whole country for the sake of the few young who will die, the larger number of obese people and the even greater number of ‘older’ people destined to lose their lives doesn’t seem to them, at this juncture, to have been worth it. They think all the hospitals know what’s in the wind if they find themselves in a hot zone and no one seems to be thinking about walking in the shoes of the health workers at the front lines of these battles. People are bored and broke, sometimes clueless, often conscientious, tired of being under the gun of Covid-19 and under the thumb of governments telling them what they can and cannot do. Never mind that what they’re being told to do is, on average, fairly sane policy.
\
In trying to find some clarity re lockdowns versus no lockdowns I found the following Youtube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdIOvzOfQPc on the subject. I am not buying into any of the conclusions made in it nor am I saying you should watch it. I only put it in here to show you the producers take on the two sides of this still flipping coin. I did read all 223 comments and found them to be most interesting. We are still in the early days.
Speaking of days, here are this one’s numbers…
1 New case. 16 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active case is 89%. Two Zeroes on the board.
So what is the answer? Is it lockdown hard and make it work, as New Zealand appears to be on track for?
Or is it what some might say is the more sensible, real world, solidly pragmatic Swedish approach?
Which one you believe is more effective will probably depend greatly on your age and/or whether you have other traits that increase your susceptibility to the Covid-19 virus. I’ve been living the New Zealand plan and I like my odds, now and in the future. I hope for the very best for Sweden, but I have to wonder at the cost. As for the American plan(s), well, I’d rather not say.
(Carol, Russell? You guys okay?)
ironwoodwind 