Weekend Update: Premature Emancipation?

It takes as little as a dog walk around the neighborhood to feel it: a lot of people are done with this.  The Covid Crisis is over because they want it to be.  But public health experts definitely do not agree.

Media reports dramatize the growing partisan divide over covid restrictions, with a belligerent and sometimes armed but small minority against a cautious majority.  Somewhat apart from this however is the mood that seems to be growing that staying at home is over, and with that, a decrease in obeying state and local laws mandating masks in indoor public places, and even a slippage in physical distancing.  That last one is the key to why this feels different. The consensus is eroding fast, and with it the respect for others.

Meanwhile the news on the actual state of the covid pandemic in the US is mixed.  Last week a former FDA commissioner testified that there were statistical signs that it was slowing.  But Politico quoted the current CDC director that the US is on track to pass 100,000 deaths by June 1, with mortality indicators trending upwards.

The New York Times reports that as of Friday, new cases were decreasing in 19 states, increasing in 3, with the rest staying pretty much the same.  This is what public health officials hoped would happen after weeks of sequestration, including major limits on travel.  But they now expect increases where sequestration ends, and with travel resuming.  These may not show up for a couple of weeks.

The current paradox and confusion is exemplified even here in Humboldt County, where there has been not one official covid death.  After weeks of almost no one testing positive for infection, there has been a flood of positives--9 in just the last two days.  Many are linked to a senior living facility, both staff and patients.  But not all.

Arcata Market before Covid Crisis

Meanwhile California, still with stringent restrictions, is allowing businesses to reopen at minimal levels, with differences in different parts of the state linked to their capacities to handle an outbreak, if not to a low positive trend.

 The cautious re-opening of the Arcata Farmers Market is an instructive example.  Humboldt mandates face masks and social distancing, and the Market did their own due diligence.  Media reports that most people respected the laws and limitation but some conspicuously and aggressively did not.  Now the Market is trying to figure out if it can overcome this threat to everyone with technical changes.  Elsewhere, when belligerent customers violated norms and even threatened, hit and in a couple of cases, shot and killed employees, those businesses promptly shut down again.

Humboldt County Public Health did something significant last week--they opened covid virus and antibody testing to the public, so the first testing of people without symptoms is happening.  There's not enough data yet to say whether the increase in positives reveals a previously undetected asymptomatic spread, but it seems likely. (The percentage of positives among people tested has gone up.)   Still, there have been only 77 positive tests, and 20 known active cases, with 13 of the 77 total designated as "community spread," that is, not related to travel or contact with a known case.  Almost 4,000 people have been tested.

Arcata has lost or is losing almost half of its population, as HSU students who stuck around now leave. The entire CSU system, of which Humboldt is a part, announced that it will resume with virtual classes only in the fall, although HSU has petitioned for a combination of virtual and actual classes.  So we have no idea how many students will return.

The confusion and defiance of restrictions is due in part to the national leadership vacuum.  As President Obama told graduating college students,“More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that the folks in charge know what they’re doing. A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge.” The Washington Post notes the consequences of a hollowed out federal government.  Meanwhile, various localities see conflict between elected officials (usually based on party and 2020 electoral politics) and between elected officials and police officials when they side with the AlwaysTrumpers.

Besides covid crisis fatigue itself, there's possibly another factor. I've been agnostic on the question of hostility towards older people, but I'm beginning to sense there's something there.  I was certainly surprised last week to read the latest report by the science-based David Wallace-Wells asserting that since covid 19 targets the elderly, so should "prevention efforts," without acknowledging once that younger people are carriers, and they too can become sick and die.  While his argument is sound--that universal restrictions was a blunt instrument that could have been avoided with more competent federal leadership--an impact of the piece is to support the sense that the only consequences of disregarding restrictions is death to expendable elders.

But probably by June 1, we'll see what the actual consequences are.

Very locally, we remain well and sequestered, with everything being delivered.  The NYT Spelling Bee continues to be a mainstay of my day. To my run of hitting genius level and getting the Pangram (which must be close to 200 straight days by now) I've added a new challenge for myself--to see how early in the game I can get the Pangram--the word that uses all seven letters.  This past week or so I got it on the first word in five out of six games, and before that, twice on the second word.  Yesterday's was my personal best--I got pangrams on my first three words.  Love those games with "ly" and "e."  Rare as either of them are.