Tag Archives for: "2020 Pandemic NYC Blog"

Nature is saying
It’s time to rebuilt your fort
Because if I can take your house of cards down so easily
It’s not well made
It’s not secure it doesn’t work for survival
It doesn’t function well
It doesn’t have enough equipment to save everyone to assure the security and the right to be protected by a government. Your governments fail. All of them
Your economy collapsed
What you live by and for everyday
Maybe it’s time to rethink
The basis of what we fill our days with
Business
Some are essential but most aren’t
Business has ruled the world, corporations
But it fails at sustaining one of the basis of what a society is created for. Protecting each other, protecting everyone. Germany is way better prepared, so was South Korea. But so far, most of Western Europe and America has failed. NYC is about to run out of ventilators this weekend. With 500 people dying everyday when we still have enough to cover everyone who needs one. So this number is going to exponentially grow this weekend. All this while sending all the medical field on the front lines completely unprotected. They are asked to take in the load of their dismissing the primary reason

Everyone’s home on a Friday night in New York City
That just never happens. Even during a blizzard or a hurricane. And we’ve had them.

Exponential
You got to grasp the meaning of this word
Metaphorically we will always be a step behind
Literally everything that happened, just now or time ago distance away any type of measurement that is supposed to be equal if calculated will be more.

We will have our city back
Nature sends us a message
We ought to listen
All of us be attentive
Make it to the next day
We will have our city back

Making music alone or online
Is not the same
What will we let go and what will remain

On animal time
You watch you play you eat sit and reflect
You hunt
Groundhog Day

And it teaches you
When it tried to show you that you could die any day with a big bold message
Sirens and alarms and lowering us to our knees incapacitated in a modern world
There are those who left
There are those things you can’t let go of
But a lot of unnecessary business comes to an end
Manicure pedicure

Listen to every sound that is being made
Offered to your senses
Watch her instinct listen to your instinct
If you should be scared if it’s nothing
If it feels good or bad if you want to take a chance maybe fall

And sometimes you keep searching
Like it’s Groundhog Day

Cats don’t like microwaves
Their instinct is to fear and flee

When we want to dance we dance
Smokey’s gone fishing
How to navigate
All the information
Coming from all sides
Opposite information

But when we want to dance we dance
To find some fun out of life
That feeling it’s a gut feeling
This is how we navigate

Imagine aerosols flying out of singers mouths

And we are now all wearing a mask
Dodging the facial recognition technologies everywhere
Scored
Will we all end up with masks
Like an avatar or the comédie del Arte
Jokers and clowns
All of us
Or keep it functional practical
Surgical masks for everyone
Green in summer and blue in winter

Like in medieval times
All the warriors up on their horses
Wore armors and masks
Only coming through were the eyes
You can read a lot in people’s eyes
The face of society might be changed
For a while

It’s a monster maybe 50 years if it were like the plague
Or 1 or 3 if it’s more likely to be like the spanish flu
We don’t know

So really I’m just gonna chill and take it day by day
Make it through the next
And the next
We all will
This magma of will
All of us
That’s what we do
To survive

All I need is here
All I want maybe somewhere
Is it so
When you start craving the physical closeness, the interaction could it be where we stay strong
Or when we just want to dance we dance

Family is the weak link of the transmission chain
Time of exposure to a virus is a huge factor. Larger amounts of virus results in a stronger hit
It only makes sense

It is terrible news for the medical field who are constantly exposed
But what can we do doctor

It’s the most touristic places in the world that got the most infection, as well as countries who’s people travel a lot.

Muslim countries relatively got not much infections so far, but not to the point where we could say wearing a veil or burka saved them more.

Warm countries, pretty much all Southern Hemisphere got less infection so far, but not the point we could say for sure the virus dies with the heat.

However since it’s the case for the majority but a few come to kick that factor to the curb, we could maybe evaluate if these exceptions are created by particularly touristic areas compared to the rest of the panel.

The more touristic area the higher infection rate.

The most efficient health care hospital system the lower the death rate. The least efficient health care hospital system the higher death rate.

Straight out of a 1980s movie
3 days after the blow
The ringing bells
We went back in time
Where things were just less busy
Non crowded streets
People hanging at street corner
Smoking dope or crack
That a week ago was a gentrified neighborhood
With $3000 rent for a one bedroom.
3 days is all it took
For all the rich to flee
And leave our city
It’s not just that
People staying in
Only those who can’t are out
Those who are bored to their mind and can take no authority
Or just have nothing to loose
Straight out of a 1980s movie
We went back in time
At that time the world was a bit different
Less cars in the streets
Isolation as we consider it today apparently
Social distancing as we see it now was normal socializing
Among friends and acquaintances
Family is the weak link
Today is our pandemic
So everyday life in 1980
In the streets of New York City
Looked like one of our social distancing day
More or less you get my point

The grocery store. What a scene. Most people wearing masks all kind of different ones because no one is really prepared and so we grab what we can. From a scarf to dust, medical, to full blown chemical warfare masks people are wearing whatever they can find. Gloves, and you can read the anxiety in those who are alone mainly and unprepared. Those who maybe just moved to the city and find themselves in the middle of this situation. Those older folks, who normally makes me rave about this city, today are roaming the aisles as well, disoriented and lost to say the least.

If this is like the Spanish flu 2/3 of us will get it in a 2 to 3 years span. The models calculate and predict 50% of us will get it, on the brighter end, and 2/3 on the worse end. So that’s a lot of chances of getting it. At some point when we get a hang of it, that we have enough ventilators and masks and all the needed stuff to try to save the most, then when we get it, we have even more than 98% chances of surviving it. That isn’t much chances of dying, relatively not much more than car accidents maybe. So when we are at this point, we should probably get on with living life as we used to know it.

This is only temporary because we are in shortage of the needed supply and so medical workers get infected, they need to make those inconceivable choices daily between people who’s going to die and who’s going to live. So we need to solve that problem fast. Or their resilience may wear out fast. Civilians turned from one day to the next, all over the world’s hospitals into the most critical part of saving lives. That’s what they do everyday regardless of the situation. But now they are probably overworked, have to deal with their kids not at school for many, and confronted to more death in a day then they may have in a month or year prior to this. Obviously risking their own lives at an alarming rate daily, being at the contact of a virus that we know so little about. Without enough protection, equipment, nor sleep. We need to lift the weight of their shoulders. All of us, must help these people and alleviate their pain. By trying the best we can to dodge the virus. Thats what our species does, we help each other survive.

For the first time
I can be no different nor weird
Because everyone is doing it
Some don’t like it, but it’s not the point
I’m not particularly happy about it being that way, I’m not happy at all about it being what it is
But I can take a deep breath and not feel rushed by time
Yes I am, we can always be
Or let it go

Don’t expect anything more than time
And all the things you can do with time
Dive into the people who surround you if you have this chance
Dive into a project or learning something
Dive into trying to resolve or help out in this crisis
You have a chance to do things differently
I think everybody feels it
Who aren’t directly affected by that crisis

Because right now today, maybe not tomorrow since there is a lot of uncertainty in tomorrow,
I’ll eat, I’ll be alive, I’ll do most of the things I did 2 weeks ago. But differently.

If we can obscure the dark cloud
The weight of having to make ends meet
And dodging an invisible bullet,
It is very feasible
Stop the dark cloud from becoming real
Spend less, make sure we have enough savings, enough to eat, to make it through a certain amount of time.

We will resolve the problem somehow
Some relief will show up
We will make it to the next day
Maybe it will be really hard
Or not but not all is lost
Some continue to work, they take more risk if they are working at a grocery store than if they remain employed or are an exécutive at a large company working from home. Risks of contracting and spreading the virus, therefore maybe dying or just being under more financial strain.

I got locked in once for 4 or 5 days. At first I didn’t know how long it would be. They said it could be a week or more or a couple days. Once I heard a couple days, everything I did, my daily goal was to get out of there ASAP. So I did everything I could to do so. Whatever, whoever they wanted me to do or to be, make things happen. Goal was get me out of here.

And I finally did. But during my time there, I couldn’t help but notice that surrounded by people, even though they were all considered off by society, in which way or form, they needed to be locked down and helped, and so was I. With or without people I don’t think is the point.

Some people though to escape at the last minute. They now just have to quarantine for 14 days. Basically just doing the same somewhere else because quarantine is what we are doing. With a few breaches. Those breaches are the leaks. But there is no perfect control. Making the city less dense isn’t bad. So if you can leave without spreading the virus around you, do it. However if you don’t know then you are bringing it somewhere else. But you would still have infected people staying.

The time of being a parent when you used to hustle everyday at your job
It’s like everyone learns new ways of doing things

In the 2,000,000,000,000 (2 trillions) dollars relief package…

500,000,000,000 (500 billions) for large corporations

350,000,000,000 (350 billions) for small businesses

84,000,000,000 (84 billions) for the people*. That is the total of the $1200 check per household who ears less than $75,000 a year that we would receive. More or less, add $500 per kid. They would need to pay this $1200 sum per month for 6 months to each household to equal the large corporations bailout.

So find the error.

On a different note, the pigeons of New York City must all be wondering where the hell we all went.

* This was calculated based on 57% of US’s households earning $75,000 or less a year. It amounts to 70,000,000 (70 Millions) households, out of 121,000,000 (121 Millions) total households in the US.
Update 03/31/2020 : the package offers $1200 per adult and not per households earning 75k or less a year. So I got to redo the calculation based on that slight difference. But hopefully you get the point.

Watch out they are coming
I’m not trying to divide by implying them vs. us
Not trying to politicize
But I have to situate myself
In order to make the right choice when the decision comes
Here’s a power play entering the game
Corporations vs the people
We have a puppet at the lead
Who will get swayed by a brush of wind
Back and forth, up and down
Not only the message is disastrous
But the swaying all makes us sick

They are coming for our location data and more, privacy.
The democrats have rejected a bill
And so it goes, let the wolves unleash
Threaten to kill millions of people vs. trying to save them
The wolves are out
They want their piece of the pie back

And now in order to not kill these people, we ought to toss all our privacy rights at the window. South Koreans gave it all up. If they can, so can we. They tracked everyone over there to monitor the outbreak, a fully functioning surveillance machine. Are you ready for this?

Is that the choice you will make. Give up all your rights to privacy, to not be tracked 24/7, to not have all your moves monitored, to not have recorded every second of your life, to not get fined thousands of dollars for stepping out of your apartment when you shouldn’t have done so, for running the risk of having all this information exposed out in the wide compromising family… To « save » the economy.

At this point the damage is done. I mean maybe if tomorrow we resume everything, pretend nothing happened and just go on with our lives and jobs, the damage will most likely be less than if it lasted 3 months of closed businesses. But in that hush decision, we are not only condemning to death more people, but who does this profits.
The larger corporations. Some of them are expecting a 1,5 trillion dollars bailout.
They won’t even feel it.
The smaller businesses, restaurants, hotels, for the biggest and the smallest pretty much every other businesses aside from food, construction, banks, medical supplies did I forget one, yes most of silicone valley giants. But these are now in the first category. Does this profit them. Is a question.
A large chunk of the population won’t profit from giving up their rights to privacy.
More importantly, a large chunk of the people so far got nothing, just promises of a $1000 check. I think I did the calculation earlier of how much that 1.5 trillion would come to for each one of us if divided that way rather than in between corporations, banks etc. It would be more than $1000 each. But we get the short end of the stick. If we even get it at this point, these were just promises. The debate has turned to the bigger fish in the pond.

And unfortunately right now bureaucratically we are in this for at least another 2 weeks. So that’s impossible.

In 2 weeks, we will be totally screwed, if not laden with more debts. It would be worse in 2 months. But you wouldn’t be subjected to loosing your rights to privacy. If you set your conditions on what you expect. If you don’t want to be another statistic start by wearing a mask.

And let them play their games.

Help out your neighbor or do what it takes to get you to the next day.

Let them figure out their mess. You take care of attending to the people. Those we are trying to save. Because without us too, they are screwed. The ones that make the statistic difference we are all talking about. They are people.

Not money or business. And this is what we are trying to save first.

Morally and ethically. Things that our puppet in place can’t recognize.

We have given up a lot for this already. Let it crash.
We are fed up.

A big propaganda machine.

Where you draw the line is up to you to decide. You are responsible. Maybe that kind of privacy, or rights aren’t important to you. But think thoroughly about it. In either case you won’t benefit from the situation. But this is the game that is playing out. Behind the curtain of the virus.

Yes let the doctors decide of the turning of our society. Nature will reward us. No don’t let the corporations and business decide of our future, sentencing all these people to death.

We need to maintain a moral compass in our societies. Or the weakest will get devoured by the strongest.

The democrats are fighting to get us a 2 trillion aid package. That would probably work better for us. If you should support this. Support the game.

Ultimately, it is a test of nature.

How long before we go mad. Its only day 1.
Isolation.

Once in a century or so, nature tests our survival skills. As a specie. Can we save each other. As Individuals. Reminding us how we ought to use our intuition and senses to navigate the invisible. Trust your guts to survive.

Think for yourself. I don’t mean selfishly. I mean if the government, health care officials tells you its ok to go to the supermarket or to take a walk, don’t make it about you, to make a point of taking 20 walks in the day just because they said you can do it. They are trying to avoid locking us in entirely. They are trying to keep the core economy (food, construction etc…) at a minimum level as to reduce the humongous impact that this whole situation has imposed on our societies. They are trying to slow it down in order to have enough medical supplies, infrastructure to save the most people. They are trying to protect those who risk their lives to save us all.

When they say don’t wear masks to us as a mass, its because there aren’t enough for everyone. And so even though it is obviously best to wear a mask, such message would spread panic and fear among us. But it makes total sense that covering your mouth and nose (and eyes) with the denser fabric possible would keep most of the risk of a virus loaded droplet from entering your system. And even more importantly, if we all wore masks as Asian cultures do, then the silent carriers of the virus would do so too. Likewise when they say to only use N95 respiratory masks because they are proven to work 99%, or 70% degree alcohol to disinfect, these are facts. But a dense fabric would still be better than nothing. So find something that can work, and cover your mouth and nose. And if you only have 40% alcohol, rub it in for 2 minutes instead of 20 seconds.

The virus doesn’t care if you are a full family, a group of friends, or total strangers. It just tries to spread. It doesn’t try, it just does. So obviously if you aren’t infected yet, your best chances are to have contact with no one and nothing. But that’s impossible. Or not, the choice is yours where you draw the line.

Limit to 2 people gathering, husband and wife, or a whole family. Obviously separating a whole family would be difficult and heartbreaking and probably not necessary in most cases. But you can definitely separate physically from most people for 2 months. We are in this, some of us will die, not much more than usual statistically.

We can have data from past countries who has dealt with it ahead of us. Statistics help us learn lessons from it. And not reproduce the failures.

China is 30 times the size of Italy in superficie and counts 23 times more habitants. The population density is however the highest in South Korea, with 507 people per square kilometers, more than twice Italy’s population density, and 3.4 times more dense than China.

If we cannot compare the scale of Italy to the one of China, we can compare it to South Korea.

We know statistically that Italy has so far- not having reached the peak of the virus outbreak yet- 8.8 out of 10,000 * people infected. China has, at the end of their first peak or outbreak, 5.7 out of 10,000 people infected. And South Korea only 1.7 out of 10,000.

We have to take population density as a logical factor, however South Korea shows us that the answer may lay elsewhere. China had the strictest lockdown rules, but South Korea has a lower infection rate per habitants. Both China and South Korea made it mandatory to wear a face mask, and because they are already widely accepted in asian culture, everyone wore one. Italy didn’t. The lockdown rules were also way less drastic than those of China.

So we should try to reproduce as much as possible how South Korea dealt with the crisis, as it is feasible. And learn the hard lessons from Italy. That in a western democracy, restricting people’s liberties, no matter the reasons, isn’t easy to implement. Bureaucratically and we also aren’t used to this.

We are good at protecting ourselves. With a couple guidelines, especially if they are easily followed. The problem is the resulting state of the world. But as individuals, as humanity we most absolutely will survive this. Almost all of us will.

 
* Data on 03/22/2020 : confirmed cases in Italy 53000; China 80000; South Korea: 8900. Update 03/28/2020 : Italy now counts 92472 confirmed cases with 15.4 per 10,000 people infected. – Source

In the United States, the White House recently spoke with Google, Facebook and other tech companies about potentially using aggregated location data captured from Americans’ mobile phones for public health surveillance of the virus.

Several members of Congress subsequently wrote a letter urging President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to protect any virus-related data that companies collected from Americans. – New York Times

Angela Merkel :

“Our own behavior is currently the most effective antidote we have: to reduce public life as much as is possible, to reduce contact with people through whom the virus could be transmitted. In short, that’s how we save lives.”
In a direct appeal to those who have taken a casual approach to social distancing, the chancellor said: “Please all join in. Do what is right for out country. Show reason and heart […] I am convinced this collective spirit, this ‘we stand for each other,’ will carry us through this difficult time.” – New York Times

“Closing all schools may not make sense unless there is documented widespread community transmission, which we’re not seeing in most of the country,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former C.D.C. director under President Barack Obama.

But closing whole school districts can seriously disrupt a city’s ability to fight an outbreak. With their children stuck at home, nurses, doctors, police officers and other emergency medical workers cannot come to work.
Also, many children in low-income families depend on the meals they eat at schools.

Mr. de Blasio said that playgrounds will remain open for now, but warned that they aren’t regularly disinfected. Parents must take “full responsibility” for keeping their child healthy and away from other children, the mayor said. – New York Times

The Asian approach is less about data than it is about crowd psychology, experts explained.

“In Asia, where they went through SARS, people understand the danger,” Dr. Heymann said. “It’s instilled in the population that you’ve got to do the right thing.” – New York Times

The rules I set for myself to live by for the next who knows how long…

#1 : Always wash hands before touching face. No matter when, no matter where.
#2 : Daily Contact with 5 people max. The less the better, keep it at one if possible.
#3 : Grocery store once a week. Its hopefully only for 2 months. The less trips you make there, the more you reduce your chances of catching and spreading the virus. It also makes space for other people. If we all respect that, stores will be less crowded and thus less likely to be a pole for spreading it. Take a non crowded nature walk instead.
#4 : Wear a double layer of cotton facemask when in contact with other people than those designated safe. Like at the grocery store. Possibly gloves. If wearing gloves, wash them with soap after every use.
#5 : Walk daily and exercise (hopefully will continue after its all over)
#6 : If someone I know gets sick and needs assistance, i’ll take care of this person while protecting myself with one of the 2 respiratory masks I just found in my closet from working in the woodshop some years ago. The second one I would give to the sick person. Bring food, I’ll drive to a hospital if necessary, if that means finding a hospital in a different state or somewhere less crowded.

Day 3
People are starting to realize
More people are leaving
No one wants to catch this
If you can be in the wilderness
Or in less dense community
Will make it easier
To survive to live to go day by day
With a yard, space
When the hours blur
And this is your confined space
Assigned to you for the next 2 months
You won’t have the possibility to go beyond that
Or it will be difficult
So our choices are made
Stay put go to your family if you have or you can
Survive how you can
From dying from the virus
Statistically the easiest thing to do
Not catching it the chances are slim
So go where you won’t catch it
If you can
There you are that much more isolated
But what does isolation means
When you remove the hush
or the expectation to be close
Just slow down that time and enjoy every minute
Breath
We’re alive we cannot loose this

So last year I spent 6 months in isolation
Or 4 maybe depending how you define isolation
Hermit times
You have contact with only a couple people a week
You go to the grocery store to feed yourself
And you do a physical activity a couple times a week
The rest of the time you are in the same room or apartment or house.
You work from home
It was an enjoyable time.
So aside from the fear of not making ends meet
That you have to dodge an invisible bullet everyday
The anxiety created by the pandemic
If you are lucky enough to have enough savings to ride through it
The luxury to not need to interact with too many
Then all this is just time to pass.
But if you’ve been laid off
Have no savings
And to top it off living in a densely populated city in a crappy little room with no windows then things aren’t looking so good. Especially if you have no safety net. No family to go to. Brace for it. Get ready in survival mode. Do whatever gets you to the next day. Until the next.
Until you make it through.
We are stronger than we think

Right now we are all trying to do the online thing
If you can do it online do it, from yesterday
My niece was having a dance class online
I took my drum lesson online
If we continue to do whatever of those things we use to do, now online and still exchange products services businesses parts of them, most of them? Online then we are saving a part of the economy. And every little part of it counts. Support everyone and everything you can after providing for yourself

All you can do today is follow your guts feeling
And tomorrow is another day

I could think of all these scenarios
Where Facebook or other Silicon Valley giants implanted the virus or a government did, or it is just a test from one, a big propaganda, a médiatique ploy.
But bottom line it is a test of nature, one that reveals who we are, what defines us as human, as a society as people. A true test to see where we stand.

Can we pull together. Undoubtably. By helping every one and another. Because it is our nature.

Rambling I should make the effort of framing all this. But everything is going to be ok.

A week ago this would have sounded like hell
A world where we all operate online only
Where we aren’t allowed to go out socialise be with people temporarily or for longer
We can’t interact too much with family either because the weak link is the physical closeness. What we are trying to avoid
So we have stepped into it
With no warning from one day to the next
We are social distancing. Anti social ?
To what extend can we distance from each other to save the planet but find closeness
It goes back to the gamble on the people
Build circles of trust
At some point you say within a family how much are we not going to be close. You can’t say that to your kids
Everyone stays 6 foot apart

If the Chinese could do it so can we
They put their country to halt to save a very small amount of them
We all judged it extreme
And yet here we are
Following the lead
Because there is no alternative
It’s the only moral thing to do
We probably didn’t understand that then
Did we change
Or is it characteristic of our humanity
To try to save each other in time of crisis
Will we put our planet first
After the blow and our lessons learned

If you can do it online choose this option
2 weeks ago I would have chosen the other without hesitation
This is the tip of an iceberg made of massive layoffs
With everything coming to a halt
We are learning to live without a job.
Because realistically the chances of getting a new one are slim.
If you live day by day paycheck to paycheck we are asked to make this sacrifice. We gladly do rather then the alternative. There is no alternative. We must figure it out. Survive
We are not offered 1.5 trillion directly
Just the hope that at some point we will get some help until then we figure it out. So far so good I’ve made it through another day, for some.
Suddenly this homeless man feels closer
That is the way he lives everyday while we are passing by.
He right now gets the help of no one either, like everyday he doesn’t have a job and tries to survive in this city.
But right now, very temporarily we hope, we don’t have a job either or close to, a matter of months
A massive amount of us suddenly
In the whole world too

I wonder how they would send individuals each a paycheck. Logistically where do you start. There is no entry point for such a measure. How do you reach every single one of us.
And then there are companies more or less big that choose to go more in debt to sustain those dozen of jobs people depend on.
Hopefully making the gamble on the people is the right one to do.
That we can help out each other

That maybe with 1.5 trillions we could give the knowledge to make the virus test and financial help to each country who would then each select a X amount of medical labs to produce the virus test. In a matter of one month we could have a lot if not all the people of the planet be tested. Quarantaine those who are affected, let the virus die there and let the other ones free. A month is probably feasible for a lot of us. Definitely not all. But it could save the economy. And that sounds a bit more hopeful. That for sure it won’t last too long. Suddenly the message lessen the level of anxiety. It is moral and if ethically raising up to this can put us in a better place it lessen the crisis. It is idealistic but there is really no reason why we can’t do it. My friend Aaron came up with this great plan, it deserves to be heard.

And then there are all these other things of life, those that matter that you can still do. Love and spread positive vibes. That’s one thing. A daily ritual, making coffee, a routine, a corner of street you pass everyday. With a different scent, a different sight, a new sound, with new eyes. We are made of humanity and can still find enjoyment while being submitted to a test, that all things considered is given to us by nature.

We can place blame that we should have been prepared that someone will have to be accountable or we can see the positive changes that this force imposed on us.

Maybe the online option will save our earth. Limit our mobility but in the end, is it such a bad thing if we continue to exist. As a society. As we know it but with some changes. That are reversible. For our grand kids. A sacrifice I am willing to make. Loosing physical daily closeness to each other for a while or for longer, until we find a better way to heal our planet, is worth the trade.

« you either get busy livin’ or you get busy dyin’ »
The pleasures of life
Some remain, find them.
Tomorrow is another day