2020 Lockdown - A Pandemic Journal

It has been two weeks since the Diamond Princess was quarantined in Yokohama, Japan, and the authorities had no idea how bad it could really get. There are 428 Americans on that ship and the US is finally getting them out of there, 20+ are infected now. By the time this drama ends, over 600 inflected on a ship carrying 3500+ people. I would be furious to sit there waiting for rescue. Some people can't believe we would deliberately bring infected people into our country, but they are Americans!! This is their country and they deserve to be rescued! (Nowadays, I think I would be called a "Liberal" for saying that, but I consider myself a patriot.) There are now 1669 dead from the virus, now called COVID-19, and 69,000 cases worldwide. China is starting their lockdowns in Beijing and other major cities. The economic impact is becoming a very real concern. I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around the economics of this, as this is a major problem if it goes ...

It's Valentines Day and there are over 1300 deaths in China. This is what China is telling us, anyway. People are beginning to talk about how it's "probably 10 times worse than what they are telling us." They say that China is a very proud country and do not want to admit anything negative. Rumors on the internet talk about how they tried to silence the young doctor who tried to sound the alarm about the virus in the first place. He was a 34 year old Opthamologist and he is dead now. There are videos now of citizens who must need to be taken to the hospital. (Or maybe they are whistleblowers?) They are being forcibly removed from those sealed apartments. Then there are the spraying trucks going down the streets of Wuhan trying to kill the virus that way. The scale of it is terrifying! There are 11 million people in that one city. The most positive scene I saw was of people helping people, getting food to the quarantined. The ladies would send their buckets down of...

I finally broke down and went to the doctor today. I figured I better at least get the ear checked out in case I have an infection. The absolute last place I want to be is in a doctor's office! And my doctor is located in an affluent area where lots of Chinese people live in million dollar mansions. I am being paranoid now - but if people are traveling from China to the U.S., don't I have the right to be paranoid? They made me wear a mask at the office. I guess I am compromised, but I'm not coughing, and frankly it freaked me out! The doctor checked me over and didn't see any sign of infection. I told her how I had tried several cold meds and nothing was working. She said, "Diana, you just got all plugged up in there and you need to hydrate well and blow that honker out!" She's a bit of a character. She advised me to take whatever can of salty soup and a of herbs to it, have 4 cups a day and 2 cups of sugary soda like 7up. This hydrates you like an IV....

Ever since 1999 I've been a little bit paranoid of major catastrophes. You see, I worked in Technology at the time and was responsible for the computers in a law firm. I was sent to numerous conferences in order to plan and deal with the upcoming Y2K bug. It was believed that we could have complete failures of systems worldwide including financial, shipping and airlines.  I was fairly convinced we were going to have some issues when the clock struck 12:01 on January 1, 2000.  Of course, we know now it was all for naught; lucky us! Growing up in "earthquake country" didn't help my paranoia. I watched the news of my old neighborhood near Northridge, CA being flattened by the quake in 1994. I had moved to Phoenix two weeks prior; dodged that bullet! My relatives scattered around the San Fernando Valley were without power or running water for two weeks, boiling water from their pools to cook. My mother always had a stock of canned goods growing up. You just never knew w...

I'm sick - again! This time it's all in my sinuses and I can barely hear out of my right ear. The cough is back, or never truly went away. This never happens to me! And I've hardly been out and about. In fact, I've spent way too much time following the China Coronavirus on Facebook and news sources. Today I saw a video from World Today on Facebook. The summary said "Chinese officials seal more communities where they found Corona Virus cases to prevent spread of infection in Hubei province." This video is the stuff of science fiction. It is terrifying. It starts as men in full protective garments use a piece of tape to place a seal on the door to the doorjamb, that should tear if the residents open it.  These must be the cooperative quarantined. Next, the video switches to people yelling at the authorities who are literally barring them into their apartments to prevent them from leaving. Obviously someone is sick in there, so now they are all quarantined toge...