Pandemic

I haven't been posting much; Christmas and its aftermath was very chaotic.  And now what we all thought was a sad epidemic in China is a global pandemic, and it's right here in my town, where everyone agrees with China that the best way to cope with it is for everyone to stay home and not mix with other people.

Part of the problem, of course, is that our brilliant government decided it didn't need a team of pandemic experts on standby (Trump fired them in 2018).  And when a real pandemic came along, they decided we should build our own test kits instead of using the ones from the WHO, like most other countries.  And because Trump has also been gutting the funding for the Centers for Disease Control, the first test kits they sent out were unusable because they were missing a part.  China's epidemic is tailing off, South Korea is testing hundreds of thousands of people, and the U.S. can't get off the ground.  California has almost 40 million people, and we have about 8,000 available test kits, some of which don't have all the necessary parts.  Who's the 3rd world country now? 

I may go crazy.  I don't usually put personal information in these posts, but I'll admit that I'm over 70 and I have asthma.  Treated and controlled asthma, but asthma.  So here I am, a prime target for the virus; and there's nothing I can do but wash my hands.  Which I do.  But I'm a very social person; I need to interact with people.  And the "stay home and shut up" advice is steadily shutting down all my options.  My chorus rehearsals - cancelled through the end of the month.  The concerts we had tickets for - cancelled.  If I'm stuck in the house, my solution is to read - I just learned that the city is closing all its libraries "until further notice."

The uncertainty of all this is not helping.  I'm a problem solver by nature; the pandemic is a problem I can't do one single thing about.  And nobody knows how long it will last.