Squeaky steps in a ghostly state Capitol
My eyes are itchy. Is that a faint pounding behind my eyes? And is the drippy nose I’ve had for a month finally turning my lungs into a bubbly mess? Is that Mr. COVID come knocking?
Argh! And I’m not even a hypochondriac.
What is my right index finger doing in my left eye? Again. Am I just gonna keep scratching my cheek every three minutes? Is it time to wash my hands again?
I finally have kind of mastered the elbow tap and try to keep 6 feet away while talking with people. But until this week, I had never before written that brace of words: “mucous membranes.”
It was weird the other night at a concert in the College Street Music Hall in New Haven. There should have been 1,000 people there. Were there 150? Probably, but there were many more empty seats on what could have been an uplifting Americana show. We were sitting there, trying to have an inspiring night of music, but plagued by the shadow of doubt. Elsewhere in town, college students were fleeing.
What’s next?
The empty feeling in the pit of the stomach has been there on and off all week, and it’s probably a good thing to feel some anxiety about the invisible blizzard that is enveloping us. We’re all in our private R.M.S. Titanic, at the Southampton dock and the iceberg is out there, beyond the horizon. And like the deckhand in the crow’s nest that April night in 1912, we don’t have binoculars.
In fact, Dr. Matt Cartter, the state’s chief epidemiologist, put it in just those terms in a brief interview after the Friday update for reporters in the state’s Emergency Operations Center in the State Armory. The new number of those infected was 11, a number expected to double in six days.
“Remember, we can only measure the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “And so there are many more cases than that. It’s just like when we have influenza, we test people for influenza, but most people never get tested. We’re only confirming the most seriously ill at this point and those that are contacts, but there are many other people out there already infected.”
Yet life goes on, even if the school bus isn’t pulling up down the block at 7:05.
The dude in the low rider weaving in and out of parkway traffic at 80, on the way to the Capitol on Friday morning, actually used his turn signal. That’s unusual and practically a nod to the widespread social empathy we’re going to have to foster over the next few months while we try to flatten this corona curve.
We. Yes, that’s right. And it’s up to the younger people to help the older generation survive. Just because you’re
It’s hard to explain that we’re on a wave of a public-health emergency that’s going to kill people as it expands exponentially into the state’s 3.5 million.
27 and spiked a fever for a night doesn’t mean you shouldn’t shelter in place for a couple weeks.
It’s hard to explain that we’re on a wave of a publichealth emergency that’s going to kill people as it expands exponentially into the state’s 3.5 million.
The morning dude spouting Rush’s talking points on that ultra-con Hartford radio station made me laugh when he said it would be “glorious” if the General Assembly were to abandon the 2020 session and accomplish nothing.
The legislative session would be worth nothing at all if there weren’t one more chance for thousands of parents opposed to mandatory school vaccinations to mob the Capitol complex for a final denial of science. Elsewhere, the struggle and race to find a vaccine to battle the coronavirus becomes a matter of life and death.
The Capitol itself is weirdly quiet these days, as the four-day closure was extended until March 30, throwing off committee schedules and such under the statutory deadline of midnight May 6, which can be easily extended by calling a special session.
Instead of scurrying around covering committee meetings and votes, my shoes squeak in an echo on the marble floors. There is an aroma of disinfectant, as custodial crews deep clean.
It’s not quite surreal, because it’s a part-time legislature and the historic monument to the American Civil War is often empty. But Friday should have been a hive of activity. Instead, there are a handful of reporters and the custodial crew.
Back at my desk, in front of a stained glass window that was 40 years old during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, I’m scratching my face again. Again, my fingers are in my eyes, which until a few days ago I didn’t consider as mucous membranes.
It’s just spring pollen, I hope.