Riding up the COVID Bell Curve as Best We Can

Sunday, March 29, 2020

The surreal situation, we are now living through a pandemic that has:

• Put millions of people out of work because businesses have been closed;
• Overwhelmed medical hospitals as they try to keep their staff healthy while testing and treating those sick with this highly contagious illness; (There is not enough protective equipment.)
• Orders coming over our cell phones telling everyone 65 and older to stay home!  Shutter in place, don't go out unless it is essential; What is considered essential is grocery trips, pharmacy trips, and exercise in the fresh air.

Thank goodness we can go outside and exercise!

This amount of allowed (or recommended) activity is so much MORE freedom of movement than what Ann Frank experienced.  Ann Frank and her family were stuck inside in an attic hiding from the Nazis for 470 days.

And they had to do it quietly.  

For us today, there are no enforcement of the shelter-in-place recommendations, just civic duty.  Of course, we are all different and some don't have a civic-duty part of the brain.  There are a few that were probably dropped on their head when they were kids.

I have now been seeing signs like this around.  "Wash Your Hands" and "Cover Your Cough".

 The other day a few of us neighbors were spread out chatting around the mailboxes.  I was sitting on my trike at least 8 feet from anyone.  I sneezed into my elbow (I am glad that time I remembered the elbow and not the hand... that isn't always the case).   Everyone looked nervous as I apologized.  Then one of the others coughed a deep full cough.

Oh, ya, time to go.  I rolled away.  Don't know if a breeze can carry that virus further than six feet.  Ha ha.  All in good fun, but we have to be careful.
 
We get to exercise which is great for both our physical and emotional health.

We miss having the Withlacoochee Trail open.  But we are seeing people on the trail.  In fact yesterday there was a front page picture of a couple walking on the trail right past the "Trail Closed" sign.  There are stories by some bikers of being kicked off the trail by the park Ranger.  But others say they have been riding every day and not been told to get off the trail.

Many in our bike group have started driving down to Brooksville to ride the Good Neighbor Trail. It is a 10-mile paved county park and has remained open.  They closed up the bathrooms but, thank you very much, have provided a porta-potty with hand sanitizer in it.

My friends Margaret and Zip and I rode the Good Neighbor trail and then had our picnics with a wide gap between us... social distancing is an important part of stopping the spread of the virus.

We had a great time and saw several other Withlacoochee Riders on the trail including my next-door neighbors, Mari and Jerry.

Our neighborhood pool is still open.  We keep our distance but are able to cool off and chat.  I think that if someone in our neighborhood contracts the virus the board will decide to close down the pool and clubhouse.  But for now, we socialize but at a distance.

So even in the early parts of the pandemic, when tears sometimes hover close to the surface, I am feeling fortunate and enjoying life.

Pandemic Update

I found an VERY interesting and telling chart on the CDC website about the number of cases in the United States and it's territories.    If you go to this site and scroll down you will see a chart that starts with 1/12/2020 and zero cases.  Then 1/13/2020 and zero cases.  As you scroll two cases are found, then it stays at that for a long time and then a little more and a little more and then it starts to jump, big numbers, bigger jumps, every day.

That is exponential growth.

When numbers are going up the steep side of the bell curve we don't know when it will start leveling off.  We are on this side of history.

I have taken to writing the number of cases in the US and the number of deaths on my calendar.  Yesterday it was 103,321 cases and 1,668 deaths.  Today it was reported 122,653 cases and 2,112 deaths.

WeeRoll Progress

This morning while the dew was still on everything, I went down to the corral where my Weeroll is parked.

 My friends, Bill and Christine, gave me a battery they no longer used.  I don't know what I will use it for, I don't expect I will be camping without power the first year... at least not in my plans, but who knows, maybe I will use parking lots in my travels and will need a way to charge my phone.

Bill also gave me the case for the battery.  Do I need to store the battery in the case?

I had borrowed a cordless drill from my friend Regis.  I drilled a hole in the bottom of the attached tool box so I can run the DC wires from under the Weeroll up to the battery.

 I had bought a bunch of curtain rods and I was going to hang them while I had the drill.  But then... I just didn't want to put all those holes in the wall.  I mean, what if I change my mind?  I have been known to change my mind a few times. 

What if I decide to velcro on a curtain?  I can use command hooks with the strong tape, can't I?

I put the drill away.

Next I hung my magnetic door screen.

The top and sides stick to the wall with velcro.  The middle strip is held together with magnets for an easy in and out.

 The screen is way too long.  I am thinking I will glue a metal (stainless steel) strip to the aluminum threshold and hem some magnets in the bottom of the screen.

After that I cleaned up some plastic three-drawer cabinets that I got for free.

I grabbed the bag of veggie scraps I have been saving.  Since I was driving 8 miles down to Floral City to return the drill to Regis, I might as well just keep going to Townsen park near Istachatah.  From there I would walk maybe 1/2 a mile to where the goats are by the Withlacoochee Trail.

They like the collard green stems and banana peels, but don't like watermelon skin.