Our marvelous state of Florida is on lockdown now, unless you're a preacher with a deranged congregation - in that case, you can gather as much as you want. Seriously. The governor of Florida put out a clarifying order to his Stay at Home order stating that churches were necessary businesses and that they could meet in groups of any number. Part of his clarifying order included a provision that local leaders could not create orders that contradicted his order. Looks like the governor doesn't want to be re-elected. I think that these Stay at Home orders will keep getting looser and looser until one day, once all of us have had a bout of COVID-19, the orders will be rescinded and people will ask, "why was that still on the books?" That's how the "blue laws" were rescinded. Our federal government has been in the news for pilfering masks and ordering 3M not to fill orders outside the US. If there ever was a time to set aside nationalism, it is now, and yet, it proliferates. On politics, I will share this quote:
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. -- Winston Churchill
Ok, here's the numbers today. Worldwide - 1,162,834 cases with 62,489 deaths; US - 277,161 cases with 7,392 deaths; Florida - 10,268 cases with 191 deaths. The number of COVID-19 cases has increased by 13% since yesterday for the United States, and 14% for Florida. This is appreciably better than the 30-40% day over day growth rates in mid-March. It has extended the decade factor out to 12 days. The decade factor is the amount of time it takes for the number of cases to multiply by a factor of ten. I expect the US to be past one million cases during the next week.
The big picture on all the political moves is that we are trying to buy time. Not for a vaccine - even though the US is moving forward with two candidates, those will likely help the next generation. This generation will have to deal with 80% of the people contracting the virus, with 3% of that total dying from it. By buying time, we're trying to improve the mortality rate. We are hoping that there will be a hospital bed and a ventilator available when it's our turn. That's really the long and short of it. Unfortunately, there will be fewer health care professionals available as doctors and nurses themselves come down with COVID-19, which means that our limitation isn't the equipment or the facilities - it's the people. I do pray that should Wendy or I require hospitalization, that there are enough doctors and nurses to go around.
The DJIA is down this week, opening last Monday at 21,678 and closing Friday afternoon at 21,055. The price of gasoline nearby our home is $1.75/gal. Congress is working on a second stimulus bill, and we are due to receive our first check from the federal government in two weeks. I've read that our president wanted his signature on the checks - I'm glad that mine will be directly deposited.
I ventured into Sam's Club this past week looking for toilet paper. There weren't any of the usual brands - that area was clean. However, there were cases of the extra large mega rolls that restaurants and gas stations normally have. Near there, I struck up a conversation with another gentleman. He was also looking for toilet paper.Though I had no prejudice in picking up these industrial sized rolls, he certainly did. He asked one of the workers if they sold the dispensers for the extra large rolls. Hearing "No", he decided not to get it. Huge question marks appeared above my head - he came in here to get toilet paper and they had toilet paper, so he left with no toilet paper?! Who follows inane logic like that? Well, I've had a conversation with one guy that does.
I picked up a gizmo that allows us to put our laptop on the TV screen. It's a SharePro by Iogear. There's two pieces to it, a receiver that gets hooked up in the HDMI port on the TV and a transmitter that gets connected to the HDMI port of the laptop. It works great! We use it for meetings. Since becoming a recluse, I've desperately missed conversations with other humans. I get to see my wife, but there has been little contact outside of that. Now, when Wendy connects to meetings using Zoom, I can watch on the TV and see everyone and hear their interaction. It's very nice. Carl thought that he may try Zoom as a substitute for the breakfast he had panned for his 50th wedding anniversary. I think that would be great. Maybe I could have our daughter and grandkids join in. It would really be nice to see everyone, even if it's from a distance.
Long distance run around
Long time waiting to feel the sound
I still remember the dream there
I still remember the time you said goodbye
Did we really tell lies?
Letting in the sunshine
Did we really count to one hundred?
-- Jon Anderson, "Long Distance Run Around", Fragile, Yes, 1971
