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 They’ve been replaced by the big box and dollar stores, which never closed, and by the second-hand stores, which were not deemed essential.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.
Tuesday, June 09, 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.
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Journal of a Plague Year, Friday, May 29
I was numb after looking at Wikipedia’s coronavirus statistics for Rio Arriba county tonight. We had jumped from 37 reported positive tests on Tuesday, May 26, to 43 with our first death. That was six new cases in three days. It meant 15 active cases in the past 14 days, more than at any other time.
My first reaction was one of futility. We had managed to get through the beginning of the pandemic relatively unscathed. That may have been more because outsiders weren’t traveling through the town than our own proactive actions.
But now that the governor is beginning to let businesses open, all the dislocations suffered by our local businesses are for naught. We’re worse off than we’ve ever been.
Then I got angry about the lack of information. The state is only sending information to whatever source Wikipedia uses a few times a week. No more daily updates. There hasn’t been a comment posted on Rio Arriba county since May 2.
We have a weekly newspaper, which means anything it reports if out-of-date when it appears.
Rio Arriba is a large county. It’s larger than the states of Rhode Island, Delaware, and Connecticut. What does six new positive tests mean when they are spread over 5,896 square miles?
They may not even be in the Española valley. They could be in Abiquiu or Chimayó, which are more likely to attract outside visitors. Or, they could be up near Chama and Dulce, which are more than 80 miles away and closer to the Navajo outbreak.
Sometimes, just to get some perspective, I look at the statistics for my home county in Michigan. It has reported 366 cases and 22 deaths. When that number is divided by the county population, it means there have been 268 reports for 100,000 people. In Rio Arriba county, that number is now 108 per 100,000.
I have the same problems with getting information on my home county as Rio Arriba. The only daily newspaper now is owned by a chain, and keeps its website closed to non-subscribers. Like Rio Arriba county, it has no television stations, and never has.
It’s geographic size is much smaller, but it has three good sized towns or cities, plus several villages larger than anything in this county. When I tried to find out if any of the illnesses were in my hometown, I could find nothing online. I have no idea if anyone I know was affected or threatened.
Some in government think the less information it provides, the better off it is because it assumes we can’t be mad about what we don’t know. It doesn’t understand it’s the unknown that is so dangerous.
If I knew more about where the cases were in Rio Arriba county were I could act to avoid those areas. Since I don’t know, I have no choice but to be even more wary about going into town.
Sources:
Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Updated 29 May 2020. Wikipedia also was the source for other statistical information.
My first reaction was one of futility. We had managed to get through the beginning of the pandemic relatively unscathed. That may have been more because outsiders weren’t traveling through the town than our own proactive actions.
But now that the governor is beginning to let businesses open, all the dislocations suffered by our local businesses are for naught. We’re worse off than we’ve ever been.
Then I got angry about the lack of information. The state is only sending information to whatever source Wikipedia uses a few times a week. No more daily updates. There hasn’t been a comment posted on Rio Arriba county since May 2.
We have a weekly newspaper, which means anything it reports if out-of-date when it appears.
Rio Arriba is a large county. It’s larger than the states of Rhode Island, Delaware, and Connecticut. What does six new positive tests mean when they are spread over 5,896 square miles?
They may not even be in the Española valley. They could be in Abiquiu or Chimayó, which are more likely to attract outside visitors. Or, they could be up near Chama and Dulce, which are more than 80 miles away and closer to the Navajo outbreak.
Sometimes, just to get some perspective, I look at the statistics for my home county in Michigan. It has reported 366 cases and 22 deaths. When that number is divided by the county population, it means there have been 268 reports for 100,000 people. In Rio Arriba county, that number is now 108 per 100,000.
I have the same problems with getting information on my home county as Rio Arriba. The only daily newspaper now is owned by a chain, and keeps its website closed to non-subscribers. Like Rio Arriba county, it has no television stations, and never has.
It’s geographic size is much smaller, but it has three good sized towns or cities, plus several villages larger than anything in this county. When I tried to find out if any of the illnesses were in my hometown, I could find nothing online. I have no idea if anyone I know was affected or threatened.
Some in government think the less information it provides, the better off it is because it assumes we can’t be mad about what we don’t know. It doesn’t understand it’s the unknown that is so dangerous.
If I knew more about where the cases were in Rio Arriba county were I could act to avoid those areas. Since I don’t know, I have no choice but to be even more wary about going into town.
Sources:
Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Updated 29 May 2020. Wikipedia also was the source for other statistical information.
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Journal of a Plague Year, Tuesday, May 26
Today’s trip to the post office marked the beginning of the third billing cycle since the beginning of the lock down in New Mexico.
Last week when I went in, the two people ahead of me were buying money orders. In answer to some comment, the clerk said they had noticed an increase in that particular business.
Traffic seemed heavier on Riverside, and the drive-ins all were full around noon. The food truck that installed picnic tables had added more, and they all were full. Few people were in the grocery store.
People wore masks, but had no sense of distance. They follow the floor markers, but, if the tapes aren’t there, they crowd each other. It’s difficult to pass people in aisles when they still walk down the center.
I don’t think these are deliberate attempts to flout medical guidelines. I think people have no sense of space. When they drive, they are taught to maintain a safe distance between themselves and the car ahead. However, the cars on the sides are closer. They’re peripheral vision is used to moving in rectangles, not circles.
As of Sunday, Rio Arriba County had an accumulated total of 37 diagnosed cases of coronavirus, with 9 of those in the past two weeks. There had been four reports since May 19, or one a day.
Sources:
Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Reviewed today, May 26.
Last week when I went in, the two people ahead of me were buying money orders. In answer to some comment, the clerk said they had noticed an increase in that particular business.
Traffic seemed heavier on Riverside, and the drive-ins all were full around noon. The food truck that installed picnic tables had added more, and they all were full. Few people were in the grocery store.
People wore masks, but had no sense of distance. They follow the floor markers, but, if the tapes aren’t there, they crowd each other. It’s difficult to pass people in aisles when they still walk down the center.
I don’t think these are deliberate attempts to flout medical guidelines. I think people have no sense of space. When they drive, they are taught to maintain a safe distance between themselves and the car ahead. However, the cars on the sides are closer. They’re peripheral vision is used to moving in rectangles, not circles.
As of Sunday, Rio Arriba County had an accumulated total of 37 diagnosed cases of coronavirus, with 9 of those in the past two weeks. There had been four reports since May 19, or one a day.
Sources:
Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Reviewed today, May 26.
Saturday, May 23, 2020
Journal of a Plague Year, Thursday, May 21
I finally got the filters changed on my well today. It was more than two months after their annual change date and everything was encrusted with dirt.
When I tried to contact the company earlier, its voice mail was full. I mentioned Monday I had gotten put off when I called again. After I didn’t hear Tuesday morning, I tried again around noon. The person had gotten the note, but hadn’t bothered to call.
It’s not that they were that busy. She scheduled the service for the next morning. When no one showed up yesterday, I called at noon. Oh, they’d had an emergency, but hadn’t bothered to let me know. She thought he could come late in the day, but called later to say he couldn’t. I spent most of the day in the house waiting for the phone to ring.
He appeared this morning. I asked if the company had stayed open, and he said it was considered an essential business. During the time when people were shopping in a panic, he said the office got so many calls the service people couldn’t keep up. Individuals were afraid they wouldn’t have water.
It was the same irrational fear that led people to buy up the bottled water supply. My local grocery still has a limit of three bottles of drinking water per customer per visit.
Then, the reign of terror set in. The number of calls declined, and the company reduced its staff. He said people treated them with fear. One person sprayed him with disinfectant before he could enter the house. Those chemicals aren’t made for use on human beings.
After that, he said the company stopped servicing filtration units in homes. It did continue to do ones in wells, garages, and other outside places. He and his co-workers had no desire to be near strangers who could be carrying the coronavirus, and whose houses were unknown environments.
We agreed people couldn’t be trusted. It wasn’t just that they could be asymptomatic carriers. There were ones who would lie about their physical condition because they didn’t want to be inconvenienced.
He reminded me Santa Fé has a lot of wealthy people who constantly fly in and out. They are the ones who are most likely to be carriers, and often the most self-centered.
When last I checked, Santa Fé had had 126 people test positive for coronavirus and three die. We were still at a total of 33 on March 19, of which nine cases had appeared after May 1.
Things have calmed down now. The customers the service people see have settled into the coronavirus routine.
Service calls are still a bit like the meeting of two dogs. Each walks around the other, deciding if it’s safe to get closer.
I had on a mask when I opened the gate, both because of the bad air and the virus. He put his on as soon as he got ready to get out of the truck. I have no idea if he wore it in the well. I was elsewhere in the yard, within shouting distance if there was a problem.
I had to sign some paper before he started. Would I trust his pen, or did I want to supply my own? I didn’t have one with me, so took the chance. It’s not something I would have thought of, but he’d seen customers with varying levels of fear.
When I realized the company had been open all along, I mentioned the full voice mail. It was purchased by an out-of-state company some years ago, and its central office tried to handle answering the phones. I gather the local office staff was part of the reduction in forces.
Then he said there were problems with the phone system, which still weren’t resolved. He wasn’t sure if it was Century Link or ComCast. Working remotely has taxed the technical knowledge of many and uncovered limitations in their hardware and software.
I haven’t talked with anyone other than my one friend who has admitted having had the virus, or knowing someone who did. However, everyone I meet is either in the at-risk group or has a family member who is. The serviceman said his mother and mother-in-law were in that pool and his wife was close. In addition, there were children in the home.
He hadn’t much like working the past few weeks, but he had few options. He was a manager, not a technician, and had been pressed into service.
In the end, I didn’t get a receipt. Supposedly, someone will email me one. I foresee more phone calls at long distance rates to get services that should be routine.
Sources:
Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Checked on May 21, but last updated May 19.
When I tried to contact the company earlier, its voice mail was full. I mentioned Monday I had gotten put off when I called again. After I didn’t hear Tuesday morning, I tried again around noon. The person had gotten the note, but hadn’t bothered to call.
It’s not that they were that busy. She scheduled the service for the next morning. When no one showed up yesterday, I called at noon. Oh, they’d had an emergency, but hadn’t bothered to let me know. She thought he could come late in the day, but called later to say he couldn’t. I spent most of the day in the house waiting for the phone to ring.
He appeared this morning. I asked if the company had stayed open, and he said it was considered an essential business. During the time when people were shopping in a panic, he said the office got so many calls the service people couldn’t keep up. Individuals were afraid they wouldn’t have water.
It was the same irrational fear that led people to buy up the bottled water supply. My local grocery still has a limit of three bottles of drinking water per customer per visit.
Then, the reign of terror set in. The number of calls declined, and the company reduced its staff. He said people treated them with fear. One person sprayed him with disinfectant before he could enter the house. Those chemicals aren’t made for use on human beings.
After that, he said the company stopped servicing filtration units in homes. It did continue to do ones in wells, garages, and other outside places. He and his co-workers had no desire to be near strangers who could be carrying the coronavirus, and whose houses were unknown environments.
We agreed people couldn’t be trusted. It wasn’t just that they could be asymptomatic carriers. There were ones who would lie about their physical condition because they didn’t want to be inconvenienced.
He reminded me Santa Fé has a lot of wealthy people who constantly fly in and out. They are the ones who are most likely to be carriers, and often the most self-centered.
When last I checked, Santa Fé had had 126 people test positive for coronavirus and three die. We were still at a total of 33 on March 19, of which nine cases had appeared after May 1.
Things have calmed down now. The customers the service people see have settled into the coronavirus routine.
Service calls are still a bit like the meeting of two dogs. Each walks around the other, deciding if it’s safe to get closer.
I had on a mask when I opened the gate, both because of the bad air and the virus. He put his on as soon as he got ready to get out of the truck. I have no idea if he wore it in the well. I was elsewhere in the yard, within shouting distance if there was a problem.
I had to sign some paper before he started. Would I trust his pen, or did I want to supply my own? I didn’t have one with me, so took the chance. It’s not something I would have thought of, but he’d seen customers with varying levels of fear.
When I realized the company had been open all along, I mentioned the full voice mail. It was purchased by an out-of-state company some years ago, and its central office tried to handle answering the phones. I gather the local office staff was part of the reduction in forces.
Then he said there were problems with the phone system, which still weren’t resolved. He wasn’t sure if it was Century Link or ComCast. Working remotely has taxed the technical knowledge of many and uncovered limitations in their hardware and software.
I haven’t talked with anyone other than my one friend who has admitted having had the virus, or knowing someone who did. However, everyone I meet is either in the at-risk group or has a family member who is. The serviceman said his mother and mother-in-law were in that pool and his wife was close. In addition, there were children in the home.
He hadn’t much like working the past few weeks, but he had few options. He was a manager, not a technician, and had been pressed into service.
In the end, I didn’t get a receipt. Supposedly, someone will email me one. I foresee more phone calls at long distance rates to get services that should be routine.
Sources:
Wikipedia. "2020 Coronavirus Pandemic in New Mexico." Checked on May 21, but last updated May 19.
Friday, May 22, 2020
Journal of a Plague Year, Wednesday, May 20
I got a phone call from the ophthalmologist in Santa Fé. I suspect everyone whose job involves contact with people is feeling the effects of isolation. He talked more than I would have expected.
He first wanted to assure me it was safe to see him. He said everyone who came in the office had to be wearing a mask and had their temperature taken. Then, they had to wash their hands.
He also told me he has a UV/ozone system installed to clean the office that runs in the night. I’m not sure how effective that is—some reports on the internet indicated the procedure was used in laboratory conditions, but others indicated there were a great many scam companies. Whether or not it works, it was a signal he cared about his practice and that practice included the sort of upscale or New Age people who would be aware of such cleaning procedures.
Next, he told me he had just read an article that indicated there’s no evidence yet that the coronavirus has penetrated any of the cells in the eye. That told me he’s one of those doctors who seriously tries to keep up with the literature.
I told him I had been seeing someone in Española, but that Eye Associates had closed the office. I said I was looking for a new doctor because I didn’t fancy driving down from Los Alamos with dilated eyes.
He knew my doctor. I rather gather Angela Bratton is well known, and highly respected. He said he had seen her at various professional meetings. He also understood why I wouldn’t want to make the drive down the hill after seeing her.
He told me Eye Associates had had to shut down its Santa Fé office completely. There was no way it could enforce social distancing, and the lobby seating area was a real problem.
I’d been in it once, and knew it was carpeted with upholstered chairs. The place in Española had a vinyl tile floor and aluminum chairs with plastic seats.
Environment and sanitation are everything. I’ve gotten so I judge every store and office I enter by how easy it would be to keep it clean.
My greatest anxiety about seeing an eye doctor was all those machines they use. There’s the one where you place your chin in a particular location, and then press your forehead against a bar. That puts your face in the exact position of the last person there. If he or she were infected, it is likely you would be exposed to surviving droplets containing the coronavirus.
The other contraption is the one used to do the refraction. I wondered how one ever keep all those lenses clean. And then, there’s all those mechanical parts that hold them together. Again, it helps that things are sanitized at night, but the machine is only as safe as the people who were before me on that day.
I got the impression he might have been open, at least partially, during the lockdown. He mentioned some of his patients were beset by intense fears of the virus.
Someone recently died in his family (not from coronavirus), and I deduced that may be one reason the office is closed for a couple weeks.
The person had been in military and the cremated remains would be interred at the National Cemetery. Of course, there currently are no military funerals with Taps.
In addition, he said he was trying to get a mass said. Again, nothing could be public, rituals still matter.
I suspect every person with a private business is hurting. I have an appointment just a few days after he reopens in June.
He first wanted to assure me it was safe to see him. He said everyone who came in the office had to be wearing a mask and had their temperature taken. Then, they had to wash their hands.
He also told me he has a UV/ozone system installed to clean the office that runs in the night. I’m not sure how effective that is—some reports on the internet indicated the procedure was used in laboratory conditions, but others indicated there were a great many scam companies. Whether or not it works, it was a signal he cared about his practice and that practice included the sort of upscale or New Age people who would be aware of such cleaning procedures.
Next, he told me he had just read an article that indicated there’s no evidence yet that the coronavirus has penetrated any of the cells in the eye. That told me he’s one of those doctors who seriously tries to keep up with the literature.
I told him I had been seeing someone in Española, but that Eye Associates had closed the office. I said I was looking for a new doctor because I didn’t fancy driving down from Los Alamos with dilated eyes.
He knew my doctor. I rather gather Angela Bratton is well known, and highly respected. He said he had seen her at various professional meetings. He also understood why I wouldn’t want to make the drive down the hill after seeing her.
He told me Eye Associates had had to shut down its Santa Fé office completely. There was no way it could enforce social distancing, and the lobby seating area was a real problem.
I’d been in it once, and knew it was carpeted with upholstered chairs. The place in Española had a vinyl tile floor and aluminum chairs with plastic seats.
Environment and sanitation are everything. I’ve gotten so I judge every store and office I enter by how easy it would be to keep it clean.
My greatest anxiety about seeing an eye doctor was all those machines they use. There’s the one where you place your chin in a particular location, and then press your forehead against a bar. That puts your face in the exact position of the last person there. If he or she were infected, it is likely you would be exposed to surviving droplets containing the coronavirus.
The other contraption is the one used to do the refraction. I wondered how one ever keep all those lenses clean. And then, there’s all those mechanical parts that hold them together. Again, it helps that things are sanitized at night, but the machine is only as safe as the people who were before me on that day.
I got the impression he might have been open, at least partially, during the lockdown. He mentioned some of his patients were beset by intense fears of the virus.
Someone recently died in his family (not from coronavirus), and I deduced that may be one reason the office is closed for a couple weeks.
The person had been in military and the cremated remains would be interred at the National Cemetery. Of course, there currently are no military funerals with Taps.
In addition, he said he was trying to get a mass said. Again, nothing could be public, rituals still matter.
I suspect every person with a private business is hurting. I have an appointment just a few days after he reopens in June.
Thursday, May 21, 2020
Journal of a Plague Year, Tuesday, May 19
Air quality has been bad this week, as smoke as come with the winds from fires in México.
I first noticed the problem last Thursday, May 14, when I suddenly had problems breathing outside around 10:30 am. The next day I checked the air quality screen on the NOAA website, and saw vertical smoke was going into Texas.
Saturday, I woke up with breathing problems. I tried inhaling oxygen from one of those oxygen machines they sell to gym rats, but still had to take medicine. I finally had to put on a mask to be outside around 9:45 am. The NOAA map showed heavy smoke in west Texas.
Yesterday, NOAA’s map showed smoke was covering this area. I had to put a mask again around 7:30 pm, but this time in the house.
Today the map showed smoke still covered the area with a particularly thick plume west of the Rockies and a concentration of surface smoke around Albuquerque. I didn’t want to waste a mask, so stayed in the house.
Around 9:30 am, I had to put the mask on anyway, again when I was in the house.
I couldn’t let my low inventory of masks stop me from wearing one, so I ventured onto Amazon. I entered my usual band, and other brands came up. I didn’t much care who made it, so long as it worked.
None were being sold by Amazon, and none had inflated prices. I read Amazon was trying to remove those vendors from its marketplace.
Some of the third party vendors said they were shipping direct from China. That would take too long, and I wasn’t real sure they would arrive. Rumors persist the federal government is impounding masks and other protective gear from China, though I think that’s usually limited to medical grade.
I didn’t need something to protect me from the virus. Well, I do, but those aren’t available. What I need is something to protect me from dust, pollen, chemical fumes, and smoke. Scarcities caused by the coronavirus had made them impossible to get earlier.
I took a chance on a vendor with a relatively low customer approval rating. It actually claimed to ship the same day.
Since I’ve learned vendors sometimes create labels that trick Amazon into thinking they’ve shipped when they haven’t, I checked the Amazon website. The postal service tracing said it was delivered to a post office near Los Angeles and had been transferred to the City of Industry distribution center.
As they say, it’s in the mail, but one of the bottleneck areas.
Still, knowing the masks actually are coming means I can use the ones I have when I need them, without worrying about running out because of the virus.
This is a copy of the smoke map I made while I was preparing to post this. On Tuesday, that gray area covered New Mexico.
I first noticed the problem last Thursday, May 14, when I suddenly had problems breathing outside around 10:30 am. The next day I checked the air quality screen on the NOAA website, and saw vertical smoke was going into Texas.
Saturday, I woke up with breathing problems. I tried inhaling oxygen from one of those oxygen machines they sell to gym rats, but still had to take medicine. I finally had to put on a mask to be outside around 9:45 am. The NOAA map showed heavy smoke in west Texas.
Yesterday, NOAA’s map showed smoke was covering this area. I had to put a mask again around 7:30 pm, but this time in the house.
Today the map showed smoke still covered the area with a particularly thick plume west of the Rockies and a concentration of surface smoke around Albuquerque. I didn’t want to waste a mask, so stayed in the house.
Around 9:30 am, I had to put the mask on anyway, again when I was in the house.
I couldn’t let my low inventory of masks stop me from wearing one, so I ventured onto Amazon. I entered my usual band, and other brands came up. I didn’t much care who made it, so long as it worked.
None were being sold by Amazon, and none had inflated prices. I read Amazon was trying to remove those vendors from its marketplace.
Some of the third party vendors said they were shipping direct from China. That would take too long, and I wasn’t real sure they would arrive. Rumors persist the federal government is impounding masks and other protective gear from China, though I think that’s usually limited to medical grade.
I didn’t need something to protect me from the virus. Well, I do, but those aren’t available. What I need is something to protect me from dust, pollen, chemical fumes, and smoke. Scarcities caused by the coronavirus had made them impossible to get earlier.
I took a chance on a vendor with a relatively low customer approval rating. It actually claimed to ship the same day.
Since I’ve learned vendors sometimes create labels that trick Amazon into thinking they’ve shipped when they haven’t, I checked the Amazon website. The postal service tracing said it was delivered to a post office near Los Angeles and had been transferred to the City of Industry distribution center.
As they say, it’s in the mail, but one of the bottleneck areas.
Still, knowing the masks actually are coming means I can use the ones I have when I need them, without worrying about running out because of the virus.
This is a copy of the smoke map I made while I was preparing to post this. On Tuesday, that gray area covered New Mexico.
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