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We have a weekly newspaper, which means anything it reports if out-of-date when it appears.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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Journal of a Plague Year, Monday, May 18

The Santa Fé Attitude thrives despite the coronavirus.

That’s my term for the arrogance of many in that city who think that, because they have no competition, they can ignore their customers.

Now that businesses are being allowed to open up, I called two to make appointments.

One was the company that services my well. When I called some weeks ago, its voice mail was full. It was obvious no one was checking it.

Today when I called I was told the person who makes appointments was not available. The individual who answered said I could leave my number and someone would call back.

I would think they would be hungry for business and would have trained people to backup each other.

Then I called an ophthalmologist. The tape was much friendlier. It said to leave a message and someone would get back to me. The voice said they didn’t check daily, but did check.

The problem was that now that it’s possible to make appointments, they are closing the office from May 15 to June 8.

I really don’t have a problem with individuals wanting to extend their isolation for a longer period. The virus is still dangerous and much about its behavior isn’t known, and won’t be known until it’s been around a full year.

All I can do now is to wait to see if either bother to return my call, or if we’re back to business as usual when Espanola calls aren’t returned. Sometimes that’s because people forget to dial the area code, and sometimes I suspect its because they don’t want our business.

So far, the other eye doctor, whose office promised to call as soon as it was making appointments, hasn’t bothered.

Journal of a Plague Year, Friday, May 15

Maybe the $1,200 payment is having an affect. Today was the first time, since the lock down began, that there was a line in the post office so long someone came to handle just the package requests.

The postal clerk opened the top of the Dutch door outside the lobby to take slips, shut it, and disappeared. That was useful, but dangerous to the clerk because there was no protective barrier there like the plexiglass shields and barriers than enforce the 6' distance inside.

People were a bit friendlier in other places. Individuals rarely speak to strangers in Española or elsewhere. If someone does attempt a conversation, he or she is treated like a mad person to be avoided. It’s actually a pretty good way to enforce social distancing.

This time a woman in the grocery store asked if she could pass me. The aisles were so narrow, it was impossible to stay apart. Usually people just go by without thinking, leaving it to me to get as far away as possible from them.

I was hesitating at the head of another aisle when a man wanted to get through. He named what he was after, and I said I was trying to find the peanut butter. He didn’t recall exactly where it was but remembered it was with the honey on the right hand side near the back end of some aisle on the other side of the store. It was.

I left the grocery to get something from each of the drug stores. I noticed the long line of cars in the pharmacy pick-up line. I hope people weren’t waiting to get refills until they got money.

I passed a women in the second store who said she’d just seen me in the other.

While the shelves still were bare in the sections with paper goods and cleaning supplies, I noticed one business had a sign advertising it had toilet paper. Another had a notice saying it had "Masks for Sale."

By the way, the search for peanut butter wasn’t some whim. My fingernails got more brittle in the past week. I took that as a sign of protein problems, and that the white rice just wasn’t as good as the brown.

There were two alternatives: mozzarella cheese or peanut butter. I try to avoid dairy products because my doctor has concerns about my cholesterol levels. And, of course, there always are those chemical additives.

The grocery had all the major peanut butter brands, plus the house brand and one geared to the health conscious. In addition to the added sugar, they all had additional oils. Most used palm or cottonseed. The healthy alternative had flax seed oil. None of those added ingredients are healthy.

Pure peanut butter has two problems. The oil and solids separate, and one has to set a container on its lid for them to begin to mix. That’s the reason some chemicals are added to the popular brands.

The other problem is there is something in the peanut supply. I can use one jar with no problem, and react to the contents of another of the same brand. It’s always chance.

I ended up with the cheese, because I didn’t want to drive to Santa Fé just to buy a jar of peanut butter.