Brave New World: Are you adjusting to the pandemic yet?
On Dec. 31, 2019 China notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about an unknown virus causing a SARS-like disease originating in the Wuhan province. Wuhan is the most populous city in Central China with over 11 million people. Until recently, the Wuhan Tianhe International Airport had 500 daily international flights. On January 3, 2020 Singapore started temperature screening all arriving passengers from Wuhan, China. Then on Jan. 7, the World Health Organization announced that China had a new coronavirus outbreak. So it’s not like we didn’t know this was coming. We discovered the first case of COVID-19 in the United States on Jan. 21, when a man from Washington state returned home after a trip to Wuhan and got sick.
California was the first state to issue a shelter-in-place order and that wasn’t until March 21, a full two months after the coronavirus outbreak in the United States was detected. Even with Gov. Newsom’s decree, we’re behind the eight ball. There’s a reason the United States has almost as many coronavirus cases as Spain, Italy and Germany combined. We got in the game late and many of us believe in our individual freedoms and rights more than the public’s health. As of Saturday, there are still eight states (Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Wyoming) who have still not issued statewide shelter-in-place orders. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds actually said, “Maybe (Dr. Fauci) doesn’t have all the information.” Anyone wanna guess which political party those governors belong to?
This reminds me of the gay politics of the early ’80s. If you’ve read Randy Shilts’ book, “And the Band Played On,” he talked about how the gay community fought the public health officials in San Francisco and New York who wanted to shut down the bathhouses. Their gay sexual freedoms were more important and besides, no one could really tell us how this “gay cancer” (AIDS) was spreading. It wasn’t until tens of thousands died did the gay community realize it would have to change its lifestyle to survive. Today condoms are a given in the gay community. Just like we’re gonna be wearing masks out now in public.
Think about how our lives have changed in just these past two weeks. You now wait longer in line (six feet apart, please) to enter Costco and WinCo than to check out. The Post Office has a plastic sheet between the postal employees and the customers and the postal employee I dealt with was wearing rubber gloves and a face shield like you’d see with a doctor doing an autopsy. Hey, whatever works for you. My friends in L.A. are bragging about how clear the freeways are, which is something no L.A. person has ever said in my lifetime.
Right now a boring lifestyle is looking pretty good for the next few months. No jet-set international travels. No big dinner parties. No conventions. No banquets. I’ll miss the charity fundraisers though. Reading books is now sexy. Binge watching on Netflix or Amazon Prime whatever show you’ve always wanted to catch up on, but never had the time sounds fun and besides, you now have the time. Taking the dog for a walk or a long bike ride is now exciting. Can’t tell you how many people have told me about moving couches and vacuuming underneath them for the first time in years.
Dating and relationships have evolved with this crisis. People are now dating on FaceTime.
With many people now working out of their homes, I’ve heard that happy hour has moved up to 3 p.m. and some even tell me it’s now starting at noon. Plus the drink prices are cheaper at home. I predict that with this working out of your home, there will be a lot more divorces and more pregnancies in a few months. Zoom meetings are now the norm, although you gotta know that all the other people in your Zoom conference can see and hear what you’re doing. Poor Jennifer didn’t get this memo as she took her laptop into the bathroom with her to do her business and all her co-workers got to know her a whole lot better.
This is our new world for the next few months. Be safe.