An on-line story I didn’t read had a headline about the difficulties of wearing a mask in the South. It was easy to imagine its contents. I’d overhead two men in the post office talking about the problems late in the day when their beards regrew.
It comes to mind now, when afternoon temperatures are near 90, and I have to wear a mask in the house because of the smoke from fires. The problems began around May 18 with fires in Mexico. [1] By June 12, the weather bureau map was showing intense smoke south of Yuma; a San Jose, California, newspaper said the fires were east of Tia Juana. [2]
The biggest culprit according to the Mercury News was the smoke from fires in the Gila National Forest around Silverado. Today two are burning a total of 18,169 acres. There’s also one near Magdalena that’s grown to 2,827 acres. [3]
Then, this week a fire broke out around Truth or Consequences. The Mims fire wasn’t that large, 125 acres, but its smoke came up the river valley. The weather bureau issued air quality alerts Thursday and Friday.
As I’ve said before, I didn’t begin by looking for news about fires. I began having problems with my stomach and breathing that forced me to put on a mask.
Now, I look at the map [4] in the morning to determine if it’s safe to go out, or if I have to don what we now call "personal protective gear." As if making if sound like sports equipment makes it more acceptable.
I prefer the paper masks, because they let more air through. They are comfortable enough that I can wear them when I’m sleeping. And yes, with the smoke, I have to do that.
This week they weren’t enough. I had to resort to the three-ply Chinese ones I mentioned in the post for June 1. I’ve learned to knot the elastic ear loops to make them fit. That just reduced the air flow and made them hotter to wear. They’re so close to my skin, they burn my lips.
I can imagine how much worse masks are when humidity is added to heat.
I’ve begun to wonder why we’ve fixated on masks as the method to stopping the spread of the Coronavirus. I saw a photograph of someone in Germany wearing a modified welder’s mask, a plexiglass face shield. It might not stop the virus from coming in at the sides, but it would be much more comfortable than a mask for extended periods of time. Besides, the longer one wears a non-medical mask, the less protective it becomes.
I suppose we began assuming the virus would come and go. When something is temporary, one finds the cheapest solutions that are easily available. The methods used by medical professionals were promoted for all of us. It’s what we saw in photographs from Asia in previous viral epidemics.
But, now, we know we’re in this for a while. Rio Arriba County had 13 new cases in the past two days, for a total of 25 in the past 14 days.
It’s probably denial that makes us continue to use temporary solutions. It’s a kind of white magic to delay changing our behavior in hopes a problem will disappear.
One model we haven’t considered is the veil used by Islamic women. They may have had patriarchal origins, but they evolved in hot, arid climates where dust was a problem. They would be as good as the face shield, and cheaper to make. One could do it oneself.
Americans, of course, wouldn’t consider them. People have had enough problems with policemen who think their masks signified nefarious intent. Their reactions to anything from the Middle East would be much worse.
So we suffer through problems we make for ourselves through our reactions to crises and to our aversion to things "not invented here." And, meantime, we have our highest number of active Coronavirus cases so far.
Sources:
1. I mentioned the problems with smoke in the post for 19 May 2020.
2. Bay Area News Group. "Wildfire Smoke over Much of Southern California." The [San Jose, California] Mercury News website. 12 June 2020.
3. NM Fire Info website. Updated daily. The fires are the Tadpole and Good in the Gila National Forest, and the Vics Peak Fire in the Cibola National Forest.
4. The weather bureau (NOAA) air quality website is: https://airquality.weather.gov/sectors/southrockies.php
5. Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Updated 20 June 2020.
Saturday, June 20, 2020
Friday, June 19, 2020
Journal of a Plague Year, Thursday, June 18
The number of Coronavirus cases in Rio Arriba County jumped again today, with six new reports. [1] The daily number had dropped to one, and the 14 day total was dropping. Now it’s back to 14 active cases in the past two weeks.
Six isn’t much when reads about the increases elsewhere. Tuesday three states recorded new highs: Florida had 2,783 new cases, Texas had 2,622, and Arizona had 2,392. [2] Two of those border New Mexico.
To get some perspective on those numbers, the total number of cases reported so far in McKinley County is 2,987. In San Juan County, it’s 2,148. That’s the total since the first case was reported, not the number for a single day.
Those are states with large numbers of Spanish-speaking residents. Politico reported today that many of the new cases are Latinos of working age. Laura Barrón-López was writing about states like Maryland and North Carolina, where people who speak Spanish often are recent migrants. [3]
These are people who work in meat processing plants, hospitality, and construction. The immigrant men I met in Santa Fé were skilled tradesmen, and their wives often worked as maids.
As anyone knows who has spent any time in the valley, it is a journalistic convenience to assume everyone who speaks Spanish has the same cultural and historic background. Recent migrants to North Carolina are different from those in Florida, and both differ from Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
As one example of the easy generalization, Barrón-López mentioned the greater presence of underlying health problems among "Latinos," without being specific. The assumption with African-Americans is that poor health is related to economics and diet.
We know in the valley that the centuries of intermarrying in isolated communities before 1848 created special genetic problems, of which diabetes is one of the most serious results. Superficially, we sound like the national sample, but in fact our medical profile is unique.
One thing she mentioned that is common here is the hesitancy to seek medical help, either from lack of insurance or distrust. The patients in North Carolina were very ill when they finally came to an emergency room.
The positive side, and one that contradicts the assumptions about poor health and diet, is that the death rate among Spanish-speaking patients is lower than the national average. That was attributed to the fact they were younger, and thus able to fight off the disease.
These generalizations reinforced my view of the situation here in Rio Arriba County, where I’ve wondered if the number of cases was misleading. If people who become ill don’t get tested, and recover, they don’t become statistics.
One thing I’ve noticed in my recent trips into town is that different people are working at counters. I’m sure this is partly because individuals don’t make careers of running cash registers.
I stopped at one of the hardware stores to buy six cinder blocks. It was the third day for the yard man. This is not an easy job. Cinder blocks weigh between 30 and 35 pounds. Six isn’t a lot, but people usually buy more. Lifting heavy objects, and he said some of 16' lengths of lumber are heavier than the blocks, is grueling.
I hope the new faces don’t mean some of the people I saw in the early weeks of the contagion got sick. One rarely knows their names, but I recognize their faces because they do their jobs better than most. They may not be friends, but they no longer are strangers.
Sources:
1. Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Updated 18 June 2020.
2. Nick Visser. "3 States See Record High In Daily Coronavirus Infections After Reopening." Huffington Post website. 17 June 2020.
3. Laura Barrón-López. "Rising Coronavirus Cases among Latinos Alarm Public Health Experts." Politico website. 18 June 2020.
Six isn’t much when reads about the increases elsewhere. Tuesday three states recorded new highs: Florida had 2,783 new cases, Texas had 2,622, and Arizona had 2,392. [2] Two of those border New Mexico.
To get some perspective on those numbers, the total number of cases reported so far in McKinley County is 2,987. In San Juan County, it’s 2,148. That’s the total since the first case was reported, not the number for a single day.
Those are states with large numbers of Spanish-speaking residents. Politico reported today that many of the new cases are Latinos of working age. Laura Barrón-López was writing about states like Maryland and North Carolina, where people who speak Spanish often are recent migrants. [3]
These are people who work in meat processing plants, hospitality, and construction. The immigrant men I met in Santa Fé were skilled tradesmen, and their wives often worked as maids.
As anyone knows who has spent any time in the valley, it is a journalistic convenience to assume everyone who speaks Spanish has the same cultural and historic background. Recent migrants to North Carolina are different from those in Florida, and both differ from Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
As one example of the easy generalization, Barrón-López mentioned the greater presence of underlying health problems among "Latinos," without being specific. The assumption with African-Americans is that poor health is related to economics and diet.
We know in the valley that the centuries of intermarrying in isolated communities before 1848 created special genetic problems, of which diabetes is one of the most serious results. Superficially, we sound like the national sample, but in fact our medical profile is unique.
One thing she mentioned that is common here is the hesitancy to seek medical help, either from lack of insurance or distrust. The patients in North Carolina were very ill when they finally came to an emergency room.
The positive side, and one that contradicts the assumptions about poor health and diet, is that the death rate among Spanish-speaking patients is lower than the national average. That was attributed to the fact they were younger, and thus able to fight off the disease.
These generalizations reinforced my view of the situation here in Rio Arriba County, where I’ve wondered if the number of cases was misleading. If people who become ill don’t get tested, and recover, they don’t become statistics.
One thing I’ve noticed in my recent trips into town is that different people are working at counters. I’m sure this is partly because individuals don’t make careers of running cash registers.
I stopped at one of the hardware stores to buy six cinder blocks. It was the third day for the yard man. This is not an easy job. Cinder blocks weigh between 30 and 35 pounds. Six isn’t a lot, but people usually buy more. Lifting heavy objects, and he said some of 16' lengths of lumber are heavier than the blocks, is grueling.
I hope the new faces don’t mean some of the people I saw in the early weeks of the contagion got sick. One rarely knows their names, but I recognize their faces because they do their jobs better than most. They may not be friends, but they no longer are strangers.
Sources:
1. Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Updated 18 June 2020.
2. Nick Visser. "3 States See Record High In Daily Coronavirus Infections After Reopening." Huffington Post website. 17 June 2020.
3. Laura Barrón-López. "Rising Coronavirus Cases among Latinos Alarm Public Health Experts." Politico website. 18 June 2020.
Tuesday, June 09, 2020
Journal of a Plague Year, Monday, June 8
Businesses are reopening across the country. The immediate impact of that for me is that Amazon is returning to normal.
I ordered popcorn on March 20, just as the panic was setting in. Amazon was overwhelmed, and giving priority to its Prime customers. I didn’t receive it until the first of May. A six week delay.
I had learned you can’t have two open orders with Amazon, unless you’re willing to have them combined. If that’s a small package that’s OK. Popcorn is too heavy to be combined with anything else, but their computer would do it anyway.
As soon as I got a shipping notice, I tried to order popcorn again. My brand no longer was available. The order I placed May 8 didn’t ship until the first of June. The month’s wait was a little longer than it had been before the crisis, when Amazon seemed to be delaying shipping on items to non-Prime customers.
As soon as that order shipped, I ordered again on June 2. That one was shipped on June 5. Amazon was back to normal, and I may finally have enough on hand to survive until the new crop is harvested in the fall.
My local grocery store is not as lucky. It still has areas with empty shelves, but at least two men were reloading shelves when I was there today.
Restocking is the last step in reopening businesses. Food production companies have to reopen first. Few produce only one item, so decisions are made about the order of items to schedule in their lines. Then, they have to decide how to allocate the production. No doubt, small, independent grocers come after large chains.
As I drove from my home to the grocery and on to the post office, I saw the parking lots of all the restaurants were about half full. That is, they were as full as they allowed to be under the current restraints on occupancy.
I don’t know if restaurants will have the same problems as the local grocery in getting supplies. They began with the foods they had in storage when they closed. Frozen items were still there; perishable ones have to be replaced daily.
These restaurants are probably our only local businesses, besides the grocers and a drug store. Small clothing and electronic stores disappeared a long time ago. They’ve been replaced by the big box and dollar stores, which never closed, and by the second-hand stores, which were not deemed essential.
The restaurants are more than local businesses. Until the arrival of the casinos, they were the only centers for community life. When I moved here, people knew the names of the cooks, and swore by them. Then, Rio Grande Café and Angelina’s on the middle bridge road were the favorites.
While reopening businesses at the national level has meant more goods in local stores, it has been accompanied with increases in the number of new cases of coronavirus. New Mexico is one of 14 states to see its "highest-ever seven-day average of new virus cases at the start of June." [1]
Rio Arriba County continues to see new cases nearly every day. Memorial Day was May 25. In the next week, 11 people tested positive for coronavirus, and we had our first death. Since June 2, we’ve had 9 new reports. [2]
As I’ve indicated in my post for May 29, I have no idea what that increase bodes, because of the sheer size of Rio Arriba County.
I suspect the problem isn’t infections passed between neighbors. The lockdown stopped that kind of transmission.
People have adjusted to the new rules. Most people I saw today were wearing masks. Many of those were fabric. Individuals understand the necessity of social distancing, even if their habits of space utilization sometimes overrule caution.
What the lockdown couldn’t stop was travel. San Felipe was the one pueblo to have a high incidence of coronavirus. [3] I never saw any explanation, like the ones provided for the outbreak on Navajo lands. I suspect the cause was their gas station on the main highway between Albuquerque and Santa Fé
Reopening means tourists passing through Española on their way elsewhere. The gas station convenience stores and fast food restaurants are the ones most vulnerable to people traveling while ill. They’re more likely to stop at the big box for supplies than the local stores.
People who work for businesses that serve outsiders have entered a more dangerous time, while the rest of us face the possibility of catching the virus from one of them before they feel ill.
Sources:
1. Jamie Ross. "Fourteen States Record Highest-Ever Weekly COVID-19 Infection Rate, Says Report." The Daily Beast website. 9 June 2007.
2. Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Updated daily.
3. Dan Boyd. "Tribes Feeling Brunt of Coronavirus Impact in NM." Albuquerque Journal website. 14 April 2020.
I ordered popcorn on March 20, just as the panic was setting in. Amazon was overwhelmed, and giving priority to its Prime customers. I didn’t receive it until the first of May. A six week delay.
I had learned you can’t have two open orders with Amazon, unless you’re willing to have them combined. If that’s a small package that’s OK. Popcorn is too heavy to be combined with anything else, but their computer would do it anyway.
As soon as I got a shipping notice, I tried to order popcorn again. My brand no longer was available. The order I placed May 8 didn’t ship until the first of June. The month’s wait was a little longer than it had been before the crisis, when Amazon seemed to be delaying shipping on items to non-Prime customers.
As soon as that order shipped, I ordered again on June 2. That one was shipped on June 5. Amazon was back to normal, and I may finally have enough on hand to survive until the new crop is harvested in the fall.
My local grocery store is not as lucky. It still has areas with empty shelves, but at least two men were reloading shelves when I was there today.
Restocking is the last step in reopening businesses. Food production companies have to reopen first. Few produce only one item, so decisions are made about the order of items to schedule in their lines. Then, they have to decide how to allocate the production. No doubt, small, independent grocers come after large chains.
As I drove from my home to the grocery and on to the post office, I saw the parking lots of all the restaurants were about half full. That is, they were as full as they allowed to be under the current restraints on occupancy.
I don’t know if restaurants will have the same problems as the local grocery in getting supplies. They began with the foods they had in storage when they closed. Frozen items were still there; perishable ones have to be replaced daily.
These restaurants are probably our only local businesses, besides the grocers and a drug store. Small clothing and electronic stores disappeared a long time ago. They’ve been replaced by the big box and dollar stores, which never closed, and by the second-hand stores, which were not deemed essential.
The restaurants are more than local businesses. Until the arrival of the casinos, they were the only centers for community life. When I moved here, people knew the names of the cooks, and swore by them. Then, Rio Grande Café and Angelina’s on the middle bridge road were the favorites.
While reopening businesses at the national level has meant more goods in local stores, it has been accompanied with increases in the number of new cases of coronavirus. New Mexico is one of 14 states to see its "highest-ever seven-day average of new virus cases at the start of June." [1]
Rio Arriba County continues to see new cases nearly every day. Memorial Day was May 25. In the next week, 11 people tested positive for coronavirus, and we had our first death. Since June 2, we’ve had 9 new reports. [2]
As I’ve indicated in my post for May 29, I have no idea what that increase bodes, because of the sheer size of Rio Arriba County.
I suspect the problem isn’t infections passed between neighbors. The lockdown stopped that kind of transmission.
People have adjusted to the new rules. Most people I saw today were wearing masks. Many of those were fabric. Individuals understand the necessity of social distancing, even if their habits of space utilization sometimes overrule caution.
What the lockdown couldn’t stop was travel. San Felipe was the one pueblo to have a high incidence of coronavirus. [3] I never saw any explanation, like the ones provided for the outbreak on Navajo lands. I suspect the cause was their gas station on the main highway between Albuquerque and Santa Fé
Reopening means tourists passing through Española on their way elsewhere. The gas station convenience stores and fast food restaurants are the ones most vulnerable to people traveling while ill. They’re more likely to stop at the big box for supplies than the local stores.
People who work for businesses that serve outsiders have entered a more dangerous time, while the rest of us face the possibility of catching the virus from one of them before they feel ill.
Sources:
1. Jamie Ross. "Fourteen States Record Highest-Ever Weekly COVID-19 Infection Rate, Says Report." The Daily Beast website. 9 June 2007.
2. Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Updated daily.
3. Dan Boyd. "Tribes Feeling Brunt of Coronavirus Impact in NM." Albuquerque Journal website. 14 April 2020.
Tuesday, June 02, 2020
Journal of a Plague Year, Monday, June 1
Today’s trip to the post office coincided with the first day of the next phase of the pandemic. Restaurants and stores are able to open, but need to limit the number of people they serve.
I didn’t notice anything new open on Riverside, but I’ll admit I was paying more attention to traffic.
What I did see was that one of the strip developments had plywood boards over all its windows. Its retail spaces never were completely filled, and what ones were used were not essential businesses. I don’t know if each of them failed, or if the owner wasn’t able to pay his creditors.
One thing the slow down in business has revealed is the precarious nature of many companies. The big ones that filed for bankruptcy, like Hertz and some retailers, had been purchased by vulture capitalists and had so much debt their demises were a matter of time. Coronavirus simply speeded up the inevitable. [1]
One other thing I saw was a truck in front of one of the restaurants filled with tables and chairs. I assume the restaurant was sending furniture into storage to make it easier to comply with the rules about occupancy and table spacing.
I stopped at one drug store to see if they had something back in stock. They didn’t. When I was there May 15 the cashier still wasn’t wearing a mask and wasn’t protected by a plexiglass shield. Today, that had changed.
It’s hard to find out the exact conditions for reopening. I’m sure business owners have drilled down on websites and read documents. I learned more from an announcement on the radio than I did looking on the internet. The radio said people were required to wear masks when they were out in public. That may be what finally forced the drug store to act.
More people were wearing masks. The exceptions included the usual young men alone or with other young men. If they were with women, they seemed to have on masks.
The other group I saw without masks were in the parking lot of a dollar store. Economics is still a factor. My latest box of fifty masks cost $23.39. If one is poor or has had household members lose jobs, that’s a lot of money.
In addition, there’s the problem of availability. I bought mine from Amazon. To do that, I had to have a computer, a computer connection, and a credit card. If you don’t have a computer, the public library used to be available, but isn’t due to the lock down.
I didn’t bother to see if the drug store had any for sale. The effect of the virus is to curtail my curiosity. I go in, pick up what I intend, and leave as quickly as possible.
The masks should have been an improvement over my paper ones. They claimed to be composed of three layers. But of what? It wasn’t on the box. It was made in China and didn’t have to conform to our labeling requirements.
I found a slip of paper at the bottom labeled "certificate." It indicated the "non-medical disposable mask" was composed of "non-woven fabric, melt-blown fabric." That tells me something about the manufacturing process of Zhenjiang Fox Outdoor Products, but nothing about the raw materials.
It didn’t fit as well as my paper one. It was made for a bigger head. It sagged from the ear loops and the piece that’s supposed to pinch down over the nose didn’t work well. I managed to make it reasonably tight at the the top, but I couldn’t do anything about the opening at the bottom.
When I was standing outside the lobby in the post office, the woman six-feet behind me complained about the smell of a disinfectant. I didn’t smell anything. Either the mask was filtering out odors, or my nose had stuffed up as soon as it detected a problem. It tends to do that.
I did notice, though, that my lips were beginning to burn.
I was wearing my usual going-to-town duds, that included a sweatshirt and rubber gloves. I picked up a long box that I had to hold with both my hands. I set it on the ground to open the trunk of my car. It contained popcorn that I couldn’t get locally, and certainly wasn’t going to be damaged by being dropped.
As soon as I got home, I changed clothes. Then, I brought in the box. By the time I had it in the house, a distance of about thirty feet, I had rashes on both my arms where they had touched the box. I immediately washed them with powdered soap.
Meantime, the area around my lips was beginning to swell. When wiping them with a sanitizing hand wipe didn’t work, I rubbed neosporin antibiotic ointment in the area.
I have no idea what I got into. If it were just my arms, it could have come from the post office parking lot pavement. It it were just my lips, it could have been the unidentified fabric in the masks or an allergic reaction to something I ate. When I eat something that contains traces of penicillin I break out, often fairly quickly. I still suspicious of the generic cheese I’m eating because brown rice isn’t available.
There was nothing on the web about a chemical leak; such information only appears when the consequences are obvious. There were no reports of fires that would have required dropping chemicals. And, so far as I know, no place in the immediate area has been firing teargas at protestors.
The only possibility is that the woman behind me in the post office was right, that some chemical was or had been used. I opened the box that contained food, and hoped all the layers of cardboard protected the contents.
Wikipedia reported four new cases of coronavirus in Rio Arriba county. [2] That brings the total to 48, with 15 in the past fourteen days. It took until April 28 to reach that accumulated number, and we did it again in two weeks.
Sources:
1. Ford Motor sold Hertz in 2004 and Carl Ichan became involved in 2014. JC Crew was bought by TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners in 2011. Neiman Marcus was taken over by Ares Management and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in 2013.
David Welch. "O.J., Accounting Fraud, Icahn: the Story of Hertz Going Bust." Bloomberg News website. 26 May 2020.
Chris Isidore and Nathaniel Meyersohn. "J.Crew Has Filed for Bankruptcy." CNN website. 4 May 2020.
Nathaniel Meyersohn and Chris Isidore. "Neiman Marcus Files for Bankruptcy." CNN website. 7 May 2020.
2. Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Updated 1 June 2020.
I didn’t notice anything new open on Riverside, but I’ll admit I was paying more attention to traffic.
What I did see was that one of the strip developments had plywood boards over all its windows. Its retail spaces never were completely filled, and what ones were used were not essential businesses. I don’t know if each of them failed, or if the owner wasn’t able to pay his creditors.
One thing the slow down in business has revealed is the precarious nature of many companies. The big ones that filed for bankruptcy, like Hertz and some retailers, had been purchased by vulture capitalists and had so much debt their demises were a matter of time. Coronavirus simply speeded up the inevitable. [1]
One other thing I saw was a truck in front of one of the restaurants filled with tables and chairs. I assume the restaurant was sending furniture into storage to make it easier to comply with the rules about occupancy and table spacing.
I stopped at one drug store to see if they had something back in stock. They didn’t. When I was there May 15 the cashier still wasn’t wearing a mask and wasn’t protected by a plexiglass shield. Today, that had changed.
It’s hard to find out the exact conditions for reopening. I’m sure business owners have drilled down on websites and read documents. I learned more from an announcement on the radio than I did looking on the internet. The radio said people were required to wear masks when they were out in public. That may be what finally forced the drug store to act.
More people were wearing masks. The exceptions included the usual young men alone or with other young men. If they were with women, they seemed to have on masks.
The other group I saw without masks were in the parking lot of a dollar store. Economics is still a factor. My latest box of fifty masks cost $23.39. If one is poor or has had household members lose jobs, that’s a lot of money.
In addition, there’s the problem of availability. I bought mine from Amazon. To do that, I had to have a computer, a computer connection, and a credit card. If you don’t have a computer, the public library used to be available, but isn’t due to the lock down.
I didn’t bother to see if the drug store had any for sale. The effect of the virus is to curtail my curiosity. I go in, pick up what I intend, and leave as quickly as possible.
The masks should have been an improvement over my paper ones. They claimed to be composed of three layers. But of what? It wasn’t on the box. It was made in China and didn’t have to conform to our labeling requirements.
I found a slip of paper at the bottom labeled "certificate." It indicated the "non-medical disposable mask" was composed of "non-woven fabric, melt-blown fabric." That tells me something about the manufacturing process of Zhenjiang Fox Outdoor Products, but nothing about the raw materials.
It didn’t fit as well as my paper one. It was made for a bigger head. It sagged from the ear loops and the piece that’s supposed to pinch down over the nose didn’t work well. I managed to make it reasonably tight at the the top, but I couldn’t do anything about the opening at the bottom.
When I was standing outside the lobby in the post office, the woman six-feet behind me complained about the smell of a disinfectant. I didn’t smell anything. Either the mask was filtering out odors, or my nose had stuffed up as soon as it detected a problem. It tends to do that.
I did notice, though, that my lips were beginning to burn.
I was wearing my usual going-to-town duds, that included a sweatshirt and rubber gloves. I picked up a long box that I had to hold with both my hands. I set it on the ground to open the trunk of my car. It contained popcorn that I couldn’t get locally, and certainly wasn’t going to be damaged by being dropped.
As soon as I got home, I changed clothes. Then, I brought in the box. By the time I had it in the house, a distance of about thirty feet, I had rashes on both my arms where they had touched the box. I immediately washed them with powdered soap.
Meantime, the area around my lips was beginning to swell. When wiping them with a sanitizing hand wipe didn’t work, I rubbed neosporin antibiotic ointment in the area.
I have no idea what I got into. If it were just my arms, it could have come from the post office parking lot pavement. It it were just my lips, it could have been the unidentified fabric in the masks or an allergic reaction to something I ate. When I eat something that contains traces of penicillin I break out, often fairly quickly. I still suspicious of the generic cheese I’m eating because brown rice isn’t available.
There was nothing on the web about a chemical leak; such information only appears when the consequences are obvious. There were no reports of fires that would have required dropping chemicals. And, so far as I know, no place in the immediate area has been firing teargas at protestors.
The only possibility is that the woman behind me in the post office was right, that some chemical was or had been used. I opened the box that contained food, and hoped all the layers of cardboard protected the contents.
Wikipedia reported four new cases of coronavirus in Rio Arriba county. [2] That brings the total to 48, with 15 in the past fourteen days. It took until April 28 to reach that accumulated number, and we did it again in two weeks.
Sources:
1. Ford Motor sold Hertz in 2004 and Carl Ichan became involved in 2014. JC Crew was bought by TPG Capital and Leonard Green & Partners in 2011. Neiman Marcus was taken over by Ares Management and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board in 2013.
David Welch. "O.J., Accounting Fraud, Icahn: the Story of Hertz Going Bust." Bloomberg News website. 26 May 2020.
Chris Isidore and Nathaniel Meyersohn. "J.Crew Has Filed for Bankruptcy." CNN website. 4 May 2020.
Nathaniel Meyersohn and Chris Isidore. "Neiman Marcus Files for Bankruptcy." CNN website. 7 May 2020.
2. Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Updated 1 June 2020.
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