I am neither capable nor qualified to fill all those holes. I wasn’t even good at the basic lifing I should have been doing before all this. And now…
It’s too much. It’s like when they were newborns. I think there’s something wrong with me that I didn’t enjoy the newborn stage. I was crushed by the overwhelming sense that not only was I 100% responsible for this helpless creature, but I was definitely for sure without-a-doubt failing. No matter how much I loved them, or how hard I tried. I just wasn’t enough.
At those times, it was post-partum depression, and meds and time and eventually getting to sleep a reasonable amount did wonders.
But now… The girls fight, I’m short-tempered because I feel like I’m being squeezed from all sides, all the time, for weeks now, and I’m supposed to shepherd Heather through her schoolwork, keep Corinne working on her letters and writing, do science experiments, involve them in daily chores, teach Corinne to poop in the potty (which I haven’t managed in 5 years, so I already have an A+ there), get them outside, make art, some religious instruction would probably be good now that we’re down to zero in that department, read together, get their bodies moving so they will actually sleep at bedtime, play games, referee arguments, help manage emotions, oh, and satisfy Corinne’s insatiable demands for both food and one-on-one play.
And, of course, I have no right at all to complain. We’re healthy. We have a safe, comfortable home to shelter in. We stocked up on necessary supplies before this all hit. Kyle is working from home. (And if you know him at all, you already know that he is…I’m too stressed to find good words. He’s the best. I don’t have to explain; you already know.) I have the luxury of being home with the girls during this. (We’re all home, but you know what I mean. I’m not trying to work a full-time job at the same time as all the above, like so many people.) We have a yard for the girls to play in. There are so many resources available at this time to make this all easier, and we are using them. (The girls are in doing Cosmic Kids Yoga on YouTube right now.) Really, I don’t think we could be in a better situation for all this. I have no right to feel as awful as I do.
Sports wherein people touch shared equipment must be limited to same-family games only.
Tighter restrictions on what “essential business” means.
“Essential businesses” must shutdown all non-essential activities.
“Essential businesses” must create and post a social distancing protocol.
No more than 10 people at a funeral.
It looks like the modeling I posted yesterday is being updated nightly. It’s trending towards worse today.
Not a lot happening today overall. Corinne and I played hide-and-seek last night (me hiding, her seeking). She is suddenly a lot better at the game than the last time we played (which was probably a month ago or so). She remembered all my hiding places and would check them each methodically. She thought it was lots of fun to actually find me instead of wandering around the house until I made enough noise to give away my position.
Temporary Hospital constructed in Central Park, NYC.
Navy hospital ship arrives in NYC.
National social-distancing guidelines extended through April 30 (no enforcement).
Alameda County shelter-at-home order extended through April 30 (has force of law). California’s statewide order is indefinite.
Regular reports of various events centers around the country being converted to temporary medical space.
Dr. Fauci (public face of national medical response) estimates 100,000-200,000 U.S. deaths from COVID-19 (which would be a huge win over initial estimates).
Alameda County cases: 264; deaths: 7
U.S. cases: 140,000+; deaths: 2,400+
A note on those top-line numbers I’ve been giving on Alameda County and U.S. overall. The Alameda County numbers I’m getting from the website for the Alameda County Public Health Department. The national numbers are coming from the CDC website. There’s a fair bit of variance depending on which tracker you use, so for those top-line updates I’ve been using, and will continue to use, those sources consistently.
Apparently the new propaganda plan to cover for the Trump administration’s failure to respond to this crisis is to blame hospitals. In a press conference on Sunday Trump suggested hospitals are reselling their supplies instead of using them to treat patients. What a tool.
The University of Washington has a website up providing modeling on a national and state level. Based on that modeling, California’s going to do pretty well, likely as a result of the early action. New England, however, is going to have a very hard time.
This data suggests California still has 3.5 weeks to go before hitting peak infection. At peak it suggests ~100 deaths/day in California. Critically, from a statewide viewpoint, we won’t run out of hospital beds. That, of course, may not be true of any particular locale within the state.
Here’s New York’s modeling:
They’re looking at hitting peak in just over a week with shortages of hospital beds in the tens of thousands. Almost 800 deaths per day at peak.
Here’s the nationwide modeling. It’s going to be even fuzzier simply because having lots of hospital space in Wyoming doesn’t help if the patients are in Florida. So it’s only useful for the really broad strokes.
Notably none of these models are showing a second-wave effect. It appears that the modeling is specifically looking at resource-utilization under an all-other-things-being-equal scenario. It’s not considering what happens as states begin loosening shelter-at-home directives or any other dynamic variables.
With that in mind, it represents a probable view of the near-term future but shouldn’t be relied on for anything past the first wave.
As a nation, months to go still before anything approaching “normal” will be seen again. Even then, if the medical catastrophe is wrapped up, is the drastic economic effects to be dealt with. Almost $3 trillion in relief/stimulus passed into law already, but whether that will be enough is entirely unknown.
On Sunday I gave myself a haircut, with some help from Jess for the troublesome spots on the back of my head that I can’t see. Shorter than I usually do, but it was the longest trimmer guard I had. Not too bad.
When I went to the store on the 21st there was a limit of 2 bread products. I bought a loaf of bread and a bag of bagels. We have some frozen hamburger patties, but no buns. So on Sunday I made hamburger buns.
I’ve never had a problem with over-baking the recipes in the book I’ve been using, so I put these in for the recommended time and figured I’d go from there. They ended up being a bit darker than I would have liked. The second batch I baked for 2-minutes less, but they were also a little too dark. Pretty good though.
We spent some time outside during the afternoon on Sunday and the girls rode around on their bikes. Corinne is getting quite good at balance (no pedals yet). She continues to show her much more risk-accepting behavior compared to Heather–she shows little concern for wobbling or losing control. The neighbors were also out riding bikes and it was a stressful time watching low-skilled kids twisting around and past each other. There was one collision, but no injuries. After a little off-bike time Heather did some more riding by herself and manage to turn too sharply and wipe out. Took a bunch of skin off her knee. We had expected to be hearing about her inability to move on her own for days, but she seems to be recovering psychologically pretty quickly this time compared to the past.
Amazingly, Heather is outside back on her bike right now. That’s a huge step for her in developing resiliency. When she rode into a the back of a parked car however long ago that was I think it was weeks before she would try her bike again. So this is actually pretty big for her to be getting over it this quickly. I think she’s been making notable progress on handling her anxieties. Her emotional development may finally be catching up to her intellectual development.
Mom & Dad are on day 12 of their post-airplane-travel quarantine and so far doing just fine.
Heather and Corinne both had video calls with their teachers today. I believe they were both purely to let the kids see their teachers and the kids in their classes. A chance to break up the monotony of being at home all day every day. I don’t think they were attempting to accomplish any meaningful teaching during the calls. Corinne got bored with hers pretty quickly. She was more interested in making faces at herself in the camera.
Ireland nationalizes hospitals and implements two-week nationwide lockdown.
Alameda County cases: 240; deaths: 6
U.S. cases: 103,000+; deaths: 1,600+
Another chilly, rainy day in Livermore. Jess and the girls watched Frozen. I baked baguettes that we’ll have with dinner. Paid the bills, filled out the census, did the dishes. Just another day in quarantine.
While my bread was rising I gave the girls some cups of water and food-coloring to play around with color mixing. Which then turned into Saturday Morning Chromatography Hour!
This postcard arrived in the mail last week. I find it notable because it seems to focus first on branding for Trump and secondarily on providing medical advice. Of course, no one should be taking medical advice from the guy who spent the first two months of this repeatedly saying it was nothing and no one should be concerned about it. I’d prefer to see this information branded as “From the Surgeon General, CDC, NIH, and WHO. You can help save millions of lives with these simple guidelines.”
Looking at positive-tests-per-capita by county suggests California’s early (by comparison) action may be paying off. Many states have counties with significantly higher per-capita rates than any in California. However, that is almost certainly heavily impacted by limited testing availability. Run 100 tests and get 20 positives in a county with 200 residents looks a lot worse than running 100 tests and getting 20 positives in a county with 200,000 residents. So, once again, our ability to respond intelligently is hampered by the massive failure in getting testing up and running.
Last week’s number of first-time unemployment applications released: ~3.3 million (previous max was ~700,000).
The Senate passed (Wed. night) a third massive stimulus/relief bill, $2.2 trillion; the House passed the bill Friday afternoon and Trump signed it.
More states (finally) enact shelter-at-home orders over the last few days: Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, Washington, West Virginia (and more, I think). The restrictions and enforcement vary, but the gist is still “stay home.”
South Africa announces 3-week nation-wide lockdown.
China is re-closing all movie theaters.
Trump orders GM to immediately begin producing ventilators under Defense Production Act authority.
Rhode Island and Florida have begun using border checkpoints to instruct travelers from out of the area that they must quarantine for 2 weeks.
Alameda county cases: 204; 4 deaths
U.S. cases 90,000+; 1,300+ deaths
I guess stunning headlines is the new normal because they hardly feel stunning. Within 2 days multiple major events that have never before happened in our country’s history, crazy. And these kinds of headlines will continue since the worst is still to come.
In an interview, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said he expected this $2.2 trillion package to stabilize the country for 3 months. But who knows, White House officials in the current administration have laid a long history of lying about anything and everything. So that number comes with a huge salt crystal attached. The problem with lying all the time–when your credibility suddenly really matters, you have none.
I’ve mentioned how the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has been doing a few times in this series, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned the bond market. On 3/25, the 1-, 2-, and 3-month Treasury Bonds all closed at 0.00%. 2-year bonds have been bouncing around 0.3% this week; with 10-year bonds around 0.8%. On 3/9 all Treasury bonds, from 1-month to 30-year closed below 1.0%. The 30-year bond has since “recovered” to ~1.4%. It’s absolutely bonkers. The thinnest of silver-linings here is that I expect we’ll be able to refinance our mortgage at around 2.5% at some point. We already have a 3.625% rate, so it wouldn’t be a monumental change, but would still save thousands of dollars over the life of the loan.
Yesterday (3/26) Ohio’s governor gave a press conference with Ohio Department of Health’s director Dr. Amy Acton which contained this exchange between Dr. Acton and a reporter (at about 38:40 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iQX-pagq9E):
Reporter: One quick clarification. You referred to this 6,000-8,000 cases– Dr. Acton: –at peak– Reporter: In what context? When? Is that what you perceive as the maximum? Dr. Acton: Yah, our modelers, based on the best data we have available in Ohio–umm, and, again, that data will get better and better and refined. And that’s why you’ll see, when you go and look online at our graph, it’s sort of shadowy because it’s from like our least amount to most; umm, that will be at the peak surge that we could be seeing that many cases a day. Reporter: You’re referring to 6,000-8,000 cases at the same time? Dr. Acton: A day. Reporter: A Day?! Dr. Acton: A day. [5-seconds silence] Reporter: New cases a day. Dr. Acton: Yes. Remember this is doubling–in New York right now it’s doubling every three days. Reporter: Do you agree around the May 1st time frame? Dr. Acton: That’s our best projection. And it’s really holding true; that’s some of the national modeling that had been done in the U.K. modeling and it’s looking from our preliminary look–our first look into Ohio’s data that we had at least enough to do that general forecasting–it’s looking like that. But everything we do–I know this sounds terrible, but the more we can push that surge off the better our hospitals are getting ready–they’re getting ready and building out their systems, so every day matters.
Here is the modeling graph she referred to:
As you can see, at least in Ohio, this is just beginning (since they have been mitigating spread). And that’s true of most, if not all, of the rest of the country too. I haven’t been able to find any modeling specifically for California.
From China, over the next couple of weeks we’ll begin to find out what happens after suppression measures are lifted. Their numbers had been looking under control (assuming the data can be trusted), but a re-closing of movie theaters may suggest they’re already seeing upticks in infection rates.
Jess ordered “Frozen II” as a quarantine monotony breaker which arrived today. So the girls have that to look forward to sometime in the next few days.
Erin had some fancy cookies delivered to us yesterday.
Heather and Corinne were able to spend some time outside on their bikes today. Corinne is working on figuring out the balance bike (no pedals). She’s picking it up pretty quickly.
I’ve modified my schedule this week. Due to consistently low-quality sleep for the last many days I’m no longer setting my alarm. I figure if I’m actually asleep in the morning it will be better to get that sleep than to force myself out of bed. With the girls needing attention it’s not like I can sleep in late anyway, but why add an extra intrusion to possible sleep? With that schedule change I’ve also been taking my daily walks at the end of my work day.
Earlier this week Jess braved the healthcare system to have some blood work done and to pick up her new migraine medication. She said there was a person doing screening outside the facility who would then mark a paper indicating your destination and that you’d been screened. It was question-based screening, not temperature-taking or anything.
Our wisteria looks like it’s going to have a ton of flowers this year. It seems to be regrowing pretty strongly after cutting it down to replace the pergola and clear the rotted sections.
