Days of the Virus: Week Two

Today marks the beginning of the second week of quarantine for my family and me.  The most striking thing about that is two things:  how dramatically things changed in that time and how quickly it became the new normal. 

In the last week, the number of cases of COVID-19 has grown an order of magnitude:  from a few dozen cases to nearly 250 in Maryland and from ~3,000 to nearly 33,000 nationwide*.  Some state and local governments appear to be taking the situation seriously and are responding as proactively as possible, given the late start, while the Federal government's responses continue to range from impotent to nonsensical.  At the beginning of the week, droves of young immortals flooded beaches and bars as spring break erupted; this weekend it seems that at least some of them have been chastened, although I presume it's too little too late. 

My cul-de-sac has been filled with cars and children playing and people walking their dogs; it appears everyone is either out of work or working from home (although I haven't actually asked, as my relationships with my neighbors has been limited to friendly waves and an occasional respectful note asking them not to park in front of our house).  Normally, a drone shot of my circle would clearly indicate whether the photo was taken on a weekday or a weekend, but no more; every day is the same, with the only changes the occasional delivery van popping by. 

I've been conducting therapy via videoconference since Saturday the 14th.  Patients' responses to the transition ranged mostly from grateful to tolerant and everyone who took the plunge expressed surprise at how transparent it becomes even a few minutes into the session, rather like getting lost in the screen at the movies.  The first week was a challenge for me, though, for two reasons:  setup meant scheduling extra time outside of patients' sessions to get the system tested with each person (then there was the snafu with my original platform, prompting a last-minute port) and, unexpectedly, my desk chair proved to be problematic after an hour or two of sitting in it.  This week however, neither of these should be an issue, as the former was a front-end problem now resolved and the latter was replaced by my office chair 💖 gratefully retrieved today. 

By Thursday, it actually started to feel natural to sit at the computer waiting for patients to log on, to be able to replenish my drink at the end of a session simply by walking downstairs (and saying hello to my wife and mother while I'm there), to disassemble my "office" at the end of the day and return my music studio to its natural state -- and to scan the headlines in the morning and the evening to see what fresh, unforeseen horrors have arisen and how many lives have fallen since my last scan. 

Still, a week is nothing.  I believe we are very much at the leading edge of the pandemic here in the US.  The first 20, 50, even 70 miles of a cycling century, if you've trained well, feel like a breeze -- "I could do this all day!" I've thought to myself almost every time.  It's miles 85 and up that are the the hard part -- and we don't actually know how many miles we have to go. 

Pace yourself.