Best COVID-19 advice so far: Don’t be stupid
Clinical research to support this assertion won’t be available for years, but when scientists study the onset of COVID-19 on the American populace in early 2020, they will conclude, unavoidably, that it made us all dumber.
Did you know, for example, that you can get a sprained ankle from the coronavirus?
It’s true; I have one. I’m pretty sure it’s the first reported case in Allegheny County because, c’mon, who else could be this stupid?
I was out on my standard 2-mile walk on Saturday, a walk on which I might see 10 people in good weather during a pandemic, so social distancing is just about effortless. I stopped near the tennis courts to talk with a neighbor from a neighborly distance of about 15 feet, more than twice the social distance prescribed. Just as I bid him a Pittsburgh au revoir (“have a goo’ one,”) I noted the approach from my right of a woman with her dog.
She was not close to me as I rounded the courts to my left, but after completing a short loop around the two enclosed courts, it struck me that I’d lost sight of her. Looking back to make sure she hadn’t somehow sneaked to within 6 feet of me, I stepped off the sidewalk and all but faceplanted in the grass. Up at the count of four, I completed the walk because my ankle hadn’t swollen into a grapefruit yet, but that’s how you get a sprained ankle from the coronavirus. You’re welcome.
If you contract a sprained ankle, it’s time to elevate it and watch a movie. I recommend “Godzilla,” which made more than $500 million for Thomas Tull’s Legendary Pictures in 2014, and which somehow fits the current American vibe. I recommend interspersing things President Donald Trump would have said about the approach of Godzilla.
“We acted very early, did a great job, banning Pacific Rim monsters of more than 50 feet. It’s going to disappear. We have it totally under control. In theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away. I felt he was King of the Monsters long before he was called King of the Monsters. Where the hell is Jared!?”
Oh, like you could resist. While this ankle incident is 100% my fault, it had its roots in a well-placed fear established in a couple of prior grocery runs. Most of the citizenry does a good job of maintaining the 6-foot cushion, but there’s a significant percentage of humans who do not know what 6 feet is and a smaller percentage who just don’t care. They should run for governor of Georgia.
Here are a couple of rules of thumb regarding the 6 feet of separation:
Six feet is the approximate length of an average to slightly above average human. So if the human approaching you would clearly make contact with you if he or she stupidly twisted an ankle and fell, then that person is too close. It’s easy.
Six feet is at best a guess as to how far the virus can travel in the air in front of you before it settles. In times of global pandemic, I generally refer to the highest authority of deadly contagions — Surfer Magazine. My subscription has lapsed, but I still get the emails, so that’s where I found out that an ocean breeze can carry the virus a lot farther than 6 feet. According to UC San Diego atmospheric scientist Kim Prather, who studies how viruses and bacteria can be transmitted in the ocean, your 6-foot bubble is inadequate when you enter a breezy environment, as the ocean and beaches frequently are. This is how you know that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp does not read Surfer Magazine. He opened the beaches last Thursday, one day after he said that the coronavirus getting transmitted asymptomatically was something that “we didn’t know until the last 24 hours.”
That would be a criminally flagrant butt -shielding abuse of the editorial “we” right there.
I don’t think Brian Kemp reads a lot. He should run for president.
The assault on our collective IQ from the coronavirus is not concentrated against governors of states and pastors of churches and in-laws of Mr. Trump, at least not when you judge by the optics.
Monday on Twitter, a Mr. Stephen Ubl, president and CEO of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), noted that he had met over the weekend with “leading executives and researchers from four of our member companies to discuss our industry’s response to fighting COVID-19 . ... Our companies are working around the clock to research and develop new vaccines and treatments, as well as test existing medicines to help those infected with the virus. And we continue to meet with administration officials and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle to keep them updated on our progress.”
He also tweeted a photo of said meeting — five executives seated shoulder to shoulder at a table facing an audience jammed into chairs set shoulder to shoulder. These people should run for White House Coronavirus Task Force. Every day on the task force, the people leading the American response to a deadly virus stand within breathing distance and weave between each other to the podium like wedding guests trying to reach the open bar. What happened to 6 feet? And what are these people going to do about the first known case of humanto-cat transmission? How could I make that up? This happened at the Bronx Zoo over the weekend, in case you missed it. A 4-year-old Malayan tiger named Nadia is sick with COVID19. She apparently got it from a zoo employee. Several lions and tigers have shown symptoms of respiratory illness.
The good news there was that they were adjusting quite easily to being told they can’t leave the house.