Day 3781

I got my stimulus money today. I noticed that the deposit was labeled as a tax refund by the IRS. Hmm. Does this mean that if I happen to get a refund next year, will the stimulus be deducted from my refund as funds already received? It wouldn't surprise me. The IRS doesn't do things accidentally. I'm sure there was a reason the stimulus money was labeled as a tax refund.

Texas starts to reopen today. The streets were certainly busier, but not a lot has changed. Very few restaurants will be opening soon. Most owners decided that with new limited occupancy rules, they'd lose more money opening than by staying closed. I only went out today to go to the post office. I needed stamps, but there was a long line of people spaced six feet apart waiting to get to the counter. Suddenly buying stamps didn't seem all that important. It might finally be time to start doing everything online. You can pay bills online. You can buy stamps online. You can even deposit checks in the bank online. I've resisted these things because I like going to the post office and the bank. These little outings keep me in touch with the neighborhood. I usually follow the path of least resistance though. It now seems easier to do almost everything from home.

I ordered some N-95 masks, thinking that I might want them if I fly to Florida for the Crew Dragon launch. I haven't heard anything from NASA about my press credentials, but I'm trying to stay optimistic. The airlines should still be pretty empty in late May, but I wouldn't be surprised if Southwest Airlines keeps canceling flights to Orlando until they can manage to fill up their few remaining planes. Wouldn't that be weird if nobody is flying, but the few planes still in the air are completely full. Again, this wouldn't surprise me.

I keep hearing that some people still want to stay in lockdown mode until a vaccine becomes available. At the same time I am hearing more and more people say that they definitely don't want to be the first to take this new vaccine. "Let the others go first," they say. There is still a lot of skepticism about vaccines out there. I've been vaccinated for just about everything, but I wouldn't want to be the first to try any new vaccine. It's a long and often rocky road to develop a vaccine that works. Early trials of a polio vaccine in 1935 were a disaster. Several test subjects died of polio and many more were paralyzed. Even Jonas Salk had problems with his successful vaccine when a bad batch from Cutter Laboratories started giving children polio in 1955. Polio vaccination was even suspended for a while while politicians argued about it's effectiveness. If you are waiting for a vaccine, you might have to wait a lot longer than you think. Almost all vaccine development programs are filled with failures and false starts.

I personally like the cleaner air and empty streets we experienced in April, but it seems pretty obvious to me that the world will reopen soon. The natives are getting restless. Unless another major city erupts like New York, we will begin to normalize the deaths and the media will start to talk about something else. I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but it's going to happen. You simply can't shut down the world indefinitely. Even the World Health Organization is saying that Sweden is a good model for the future now.

I've walked over 20,000 steps every day this week. A year ago I wouldn't have thought this was possible. Dawn continues to make us laugh. We've had many Dalmatians, but she is the funniest one. Such a bundle of quirky little habits.  She definitely came to us at the right time. I think I'm going to go ahead any upgrade my laptop. I should be concentrating on improving the house, but improving a computer is more my speed.

Betsy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3779

You know what I said yesterday. Yep. Same thing today. Even by my admittedly low standards, this quarantine life is getting monotonous. The weird thing is that unless you know someone personally who has gotten sick, the danger doesn't seem real. You hear these horrible things on the news, but it all seems distant, like the war in Syria or something.

Nobody I know well has gotten sick. Three people I've met at one point or another have been tested for the virus. One guy tested positive and the other two tested negative. All three showed exactly the same symptoms. To this day, the two people who tested negative remain convinced that they had the virus. They were never tested again though, because they weren't sick enough to be admitted to the ER and test kits were scarce.

Luckily, these three people all recovered without requiring hospitalization. The guy who actually tested positive spent fourteen days confined to his bedroom. The two who tested negative were free to go anywhere they wanted. Each of these experiences make me wonder about testing. Everybody admits that current tests frequently return false results, but still testing appears to be vitally important.

I'm sure that mass testing will greatly improve all the mathematical models and projections I keep seeing, but what does the test do for the individual being tested? If you test negative today, you could still test positive tomorrow. If you've actually had the virus and have acquired antibodies, nobody knows whether this means you are safe to reenter society. Some say that people with antibodies could still get sick again or even continue to infect others. So with this in mind, does a massive testing program remove any uncertainty at all? Not for me. I guess the best a testing program could do is find some of the asymptomatic people who actually have the virus and remove them from circulation.

If we do wind up with a massive tracking/surveillance program, I'd prefer the type of high-tech tracking being proposed by Apple and Google. I'm comfortable with my phone warning me that a sick person is nearby. I'm not very comfortable at all with an army of human trackers going door-to-door. Nobody in their right mind who lives in a city would open their door to a stranger who says "I'm from the government and I'm here to help." At best these people are probably Jehovah's Witnesses. At worst, they are planning a home invasion.

It will be interesting to see how all this develops. Right now it feels a lot like the blind leading the blind. When you read about the early day of polio or the Spanish Flu, the same thing happened. People were scared and many of the early remedies did nothing or even made matters worse. If you are unfamiliar with the history of polio, you should read about it. The first documented polio epidemic in the United States occurred in 1894. The disease wasn't eliminated in the Western Hemisphere until 1994. We live in an age of instant gratification. I don't think many of us are ready for a hundred year war on the coronavirus.

It's a safe bet that nobody is going to find a solution tomorrow. I'll continue walking and see how many days I can continue my 20,000 step streak. Last night's violent storms weren't as bad as everyone expected. I removed the water from the roof today and am ready for the next storm. I'm still thinking of upgrading all my computers to solid state drives. If I can't go out for breakfast on Friday morning anymore, it might take a fast computer to keep me happy.

Parker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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