Grand Reopening?

So there we have it. President Trump, not quite understanding the Constitution he swore to uphold four years ago, is proclaiming he has “total” authority to reopen the country. The Governors push back saying it was the States who implemented the shutdown and stay-at-home orders and it will be they who decide when and how their individual States start making the return to whatever the new normal will look like.

I humbly submit that both the President and the nation’s Governors have it wrong.

It will be you and I, and millions of individual Americans, who will decide when and how the nation ‘reopens’. Perhaps you, like I, are starting to think about the level of risk you’re willing to accept going forward. The risk, of course, being catching the COVID-19 virus and possibly dying from it. There’s also the risk of passing it unknowingly to our loved ones as well as others in our communities.

My wife and I have been to the grocery store just twice in the last six weeks. We’ve supplemented that with ordering groceries online thereby transferring most of our personal risk to some Braver than We Instacart or Amazon shopper. How quickly will we regain our comfort level to return more frequently to our neighborhood grocery store? The President or the Governor of our great State can’t make that determination for us; only my wife and I can do that.

We haven’t eaten at a restaurant since late February. How soon will we be comfortable going back to our favorite eateries that more often than not before the Pandemic were standing room only. Neither Mr. Trump or Colorado Governor Polis can force us to start eating out again. There’s talk that when restaurants do reopen the wait staff will continue wearing PPE (masks and gloves) as they serve us and that establishments will take the temperature of their patrons before allowing them to enter. Yum.

The good news is that Apple and Google, those twin bastions when it comes to protecting our privacy, are developing phone apps that will alert you when you (or at least your phone) has been in close proximity to someone carrying COVID. Are you going to self quarantine every time your phone pings with an alert? How many times will that alert go off as you stroll down a crowded street? If it pings, how safe will you feel returning home to your family?

Do you have kids? What calculations are going through your mind as you try to determine what will make you feel ok about having them return to crowded classrooms, or after school soccer practice? Take your child to a packed daycare because your employer has reopened? I’d bet it’s not going to be automatic just because some government bureaucrat or even your boss insists its suddenly safe for the schools and daycares to reopen.

A tough calculus will come in the decision to return to your place of work once your employer says to come on back. There’s talk about continued social distancing in the workplace. Great. How are you going to get up to your office on the 10th floor? Use a crowded elevator? That contact tracing phone app that tells you you've been exposed to the virus - picture it going off on everyone's phone all at once in the elevator. Twenty people suddenly looking around wondering who's the Carrier.  Climb the slightly less crowded stairwell? Will you return to using Light Rail or public transit for your commute? How about attending all those lovely face to face meetings you’ve been missing so much?

The litmus test, the canary in the coal mine, for me will be when I feel comfortable going to, of all things, a movie theatre. Stadium seating, comfortable as it may be, is the antithesis of social distancing and I used to cringe long before COVID when the person sitting next to me was obviously under the weather. For you it might be returning to Coors Field or Empower at Mile High Stadium or the Pepsi Center. What’s going to make you feel safe crowded in with 80,000 of your closest friends? Just Mr. Trump's or your local elected official's say so?

I fear the last to gain back trust in their own sense of safety will be the elderly, especially those in assisted living and care facilities. I’m going out on a limb here but I’ll bet the directive from Big Brother to reopen will come way, way, way before it’s anywhere close to safe for us to resume visiting grandma and granddad in person again.

Of course, everyone is waiting for the promised vaccine for COVID. Yet no vaccine is 100% effective. 80-90% effectiveness would be considered outstanding but that leaves ten to twenty percent of us still at risk of catching this nasty bug. And if COVID has demonstrated anything its that it is not your grandaddy's flu.

On a societal level Mr. Trump may have a point when he argues the cure can’t be worse than the disease. Whether Americans are going to automatically trust his judgement about when things are safe enough to resume 'normal' activities is another question. Of course I could well be wrong. Lots of folks are just itching to get right back into the old swing of things. Heck, there's a sizable population of less than civic minded people who never stopped. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

Nor will we likely knee-jerk our acceptance of what Dr. Fauci or other Health officials tell us. Everyone, from Mr. Trump to the scientists, to government officials, to us as individual citizens, underestimated to some extent the severity of what was about to hit us.  The old adage says 'fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.' Ultimately the choices will not be  made by those who think they have the power to decide. Each of us, individually, in our own time and our own way will have to decide for ourselves. Collectively, over the next days, weeks, and months, we'll be making millions of these decisions. May they prove to be the right ones. America, lets look before we leap; the waters ahead are uncharted and likely to be deep.

Where are we now? Really?

Safeway still limiting ‘essential paper products’ to
one per customer as I wait patiently in line
this last Thursday 

This was the week Bernie Sanders dropped his bid for the Democratic nomination for President. While he apparently had a ton of support among the young, history has shown that being young and actually voting don’t always correlate. Among the older population there was widespread fear of what was purported to be Sanders’ socialist agenda. How much of a socialist Sanders really is is debatable, and I for one supported his ideas for widely available and affordable universal healthcare as one option, but perhaps America needs to take pause in light of the current pandecomomic crisis as to how much socialism we’re really ready to accept. Rightly or wrongly Americans facing dire economic uncertainty seem more than willing to accept all the government bailouts they can get. The Federal Reserve and Congress are spending trillions (what’s a trillion? A one followed by 12 zeroes- $1,000,000,000,000) to subsidize individuals, families and business enterprises.

I’m not disputing the need for this stimulus, but if that’s not socialism at its grandest I don’t know what is. My wife and I will apparently be receiving $2,400 as a couple. What that does in reality for us is cut our tax bill, now postponed until July, by about half. I’m one of those crazy fools who have always been happy to pay taxes. I like having armed forces to keep me free, police and fire and ambulance personnel to save my bacon if necessary, roads that are more asphalt than pothole, and good teachers to educate our children. In short, I’m willing to pay my share.

I’m not a Republican (or a Democrat for that matter) but I share their belief that I don’t want government overly involved in my life (the difference between the two parties seems to boil down in how you define ‘overly’). Like many of you who are old enough (o.k. Boomer!) I’ve lived through lots of economic upheavals - Y2K, 911, and the last “Great Recession” just as more recent examples. I look at the grief former President Obama has gotten for his bailout of the financial services (banks...) and auto industry during the last recession and can only chuckle as America puts its collective hand out for a historic hand out from the Federal government today. Again, I’m ok with that. I think the Federal government, along with State and local government, has a role to play beyond just telling us to wash our hands, stay home, and wear a mask. But perhaps we need to finally be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that we’re happy to be the model of Capitalism in good times but have definite socialist tendencies when the stuffing hits the fan.

On the good news front, now might be the time to invest some of that financial stimulus you receive in manufacturers of that uniquely human staple, toilet tissue. The demand for this spiked in mid-March as much as 845% according to NCSolutions, a data and analytics firm that tracks these important matters. And while we’re not hoarding in April at the same rate as in March, demand is expected to stay strong:

“Will the workforce go back to work like they did before? If people work from home, this (increased demand for toilet tissue) could be much more prolonged,” said NC-Solutions CEO Linda Dupree.

“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.” Winston Churchill in a speech to the British House of Commons, October 22, 1945

How are you doing?

I hope this blog finds you well. Staying at home and social distancing aren’t the worst things that could happen to us. Of course, if you’re one of the 17 million plus Americans that now find themselves unemployed, or if you’ve had COVID or lost someone close to you through the virus then  it’s a completely different story. Increasingly there seems to be consensus that there will not be some grand “reopening” of America and that we will face a slow rollout of reduced restrictions State by State, City by City, town by town through May and perhaps into the summer. I fear that some of our Federal leaders will knee-jerk their efforts to get the U.S. economy rolling as soon as the crisis in New York seems to be under control. While N.Y.C. is a crucial part of our country the worst of the pandemic may be ending there just as it starts to peak in other areas.

Wuhan, China is now under the microscope. As the original epicenter from which the virus spread starts to reopen everyone will watch to see if the virus returns for round two.

In the Denver Metro area folks have now taken to howling at 8:00 in a western rendition of what Italians started from their balconies several weeks ago. I guess if we can’t sing opera like the Italians we can howl, and yes, I and my two huskies have been known to howl together long before we had ever heard of COVID-19. I can do a passable howl but it’s really just to get them started. So it’s been second nature to chime in now that howling is all the rage.

We continue to get out for occasional walks in quiet areas we know. Most of the more popular parks and trails are still filled to capacity even during weekdays now but within a 15 minute drive of our house there are quieter places less visited. The video below is an example of a walk we took the other day. Granted we headed out early in the morning to beat whatever crowds might materialize but when we arrived we found we had the area all to ourselves. Hopefully you have access to one of these quiet spots to find solace. I mean, I can only garden in the back yard for so long. How about you?

A social distancing jaunt

Photo courtesy of Colorado Public Radio

As of this afternoon Governor Polis of Colorado has asked Colorado residents to wear face masks when out in public.

As I had mentioned in an earlier blog, my mother in law had been kind enough to sew us some masks which until today we hadn't felt like we really needed to wear. Thank goodness for her, as I'm no seamstress (seamstrer?). There is now a website, the Colorado Mask Project, that shows how to make do-it-yourself masks if you'd like to give it a try. You're probably aware that medical grade (N95) masks are in extremely short supply and are being reserved for first responders and medical staff. Up until now most of the guidance was that homemade masks did next to nothing to protect you but apparently the thought now is that some protection is better than no protection. Viruses are very tiny and can easily penetrate most handmade masks but the masks may in fact help catch the larger particle droplets containing the virus that folks breath and sneeze. And since many folks are not showing any symptoms of illness even when they are already contagious that healthy looking jogger or cyclist who is breathing hard may be expelling millions of virus-containing droplets. The masks may help sequester those droplets.

Anyway, I hadn't planned on this being a newsy blog but there you have it. What I had really intended was to share something a little more fun, especially if you are really not leaving your house even for exercise. My wife and I had taken a bike ride into Chatfield State Park the other day. It was early in the morning as we were trying to avoid as many people as possible and you'll see in the video the Park was fairly quiet at least compared to normal. So sit back and take a spin with us. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, we'll all be out in the great Colorado outdoors enjoying again what our State has to offer...

Uncharted territory

Like most (not all) guys I’ll drive around in circles before I stop to ask for directions. Drives my better half crazy (unintended benefit?). Unlike a lot of younger fellows, I still prefer a physical paper map in my hands to get my bearings rather than the sweet melodious voice of Miss Google telling me in no uncertain terms that I just passed my turn. Still, I routinely find myself physically and metaphorically in uncharted waters and when I do I turn to past experience to guide me. Not just my own experience but the collective experience of the past that is perhaps the best definition of wisdom. As attributed (perhaps incorrectly) to Mark Twain, “History may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes”.

Like most of you, I’m hoping for the best in the situation we find ourselves in today. Looking for that silver lining, grasping at any sign of good news, whatever ray of sunshine I can find. Of course, there’s that other adage we perhaps should not forget - “The darkest hour is just before the dawn” (attributed to an English historian by the name of Thomas Fuller in 1650; hmmm, pretty smart for way back then). Many experts, and yes, even our President who seems perennially late to this party, are telling us that the next couple of weeks may see the peak of deaths from the Corona Virus. They say that ‘best case’ may see as many as 240,000 of our friends, family, coworkers, and community members succumb to this horrific pandemic.

If the numbers of expected deaths don’t get your attention then the economic turmoil probably will. You may be working from home or heaven forbid have been furloughed or laid off. Bills still come due and stimulus package aside it will be increasingly difficult for millions of American families to make ends meet. Landlords and mortgage lenders may (or may not) be temporarily forgiving but sooner or later they will demand payment for what they are rightfully owed. When that day inevitably comes hopefully we’ll all be in a far better place than where we are now.

California and Seattle, Washington are reporting a slowing in the deaths from COVID-19. The pandemic seems to have run its course in its source country to the point where, according to a Denver Post article, the market where the virus originated has now been deemed safe enough to reopen. In this country that place might somehow have been memorialized given the staggering woe it has inflicted on the world, but our Chinese friends seem more pragmatic in their approach.

Still, the news shows footage of folks ignoring stay at home and social distancing mandates. One pastor of a mega-church was even arrested back east for continuing to hold standing-room only worship services. Talk about putting your faith in God...

Perhaps our elected leaders might have acted
sooner and wiser if they had watched this...

So, if all this doesn’t give you pause and make you acknowledge the seriousness of what we are facing, then I suggest you take an hour from your day and watch an episode of The PBS American Experience series that shows how America handled a very similar (eerily similar) pandemic 102 years ago. It originally aired several years ago and I appreciate that it wasn’t produced as a reaction to today’s crisis. Because of that, it hits closer to home than many of the specials being shown that are an immediate reaction to current events. Whatever lessons we learn (or fail to learn) from today’s pandemic are learned again simply because we forget to heed what has already been experienced by those who have come before. Be warned, the program will make you sit up and take notice. If it doesn’t, well, there’s that mega-church back east where you can put all your faith.

Where does the road lead from here?

My wife shared this from her Facebook feed.
What are you trying to tell me honey?

I’m sure you and your family are starting the “what if” thought process. With Mr. Trump (to his credit) extending the social distancing guidelines though April at the recommendation of his pandemic task force Americans are looking at working from home, teaching their kids at home, worshiping from home, exercising from home, doing almost everything from home for at least the next four weeks. In my household it’s just myself and my wife and this morning over breakfast (I made her a very nice omelette and toast, thank you very much) had a frank conversation about how to plan our days over the next several weeks so that we don’t drive each other crazy. I can only imagine what it’s like in families of two parents and one or more kids what the stress levels must already be, let alone what they’ll be like in a month of being together 24-7. My wife and I are still in love with each other (I know, TMI) after 30 years and we don’t want that to change because of an increasingly pesky virus. Private time is going to become very important is our household and we’ve both agreed that when we inevitably start snipping at each other we’ll head each to our separate corners for some alone time. Fortunately we have both shared interests as well as our own personal hobbies and I can buy my wife earplugs for when I drag out the guitar.

Exercise for us is our biggest stress reliever and our primary outdoor exercise comes in the form of cycling and walking the dogs. We’re clearly not unique in those activities as indicated by the number of folks out pedaling on the local bike paths and walking their canine companions. We had planned to ride toward downtown Denver yesterday along the South Platte River Trail but ultimately decided it was crazy to be riding TOWARDS a city center that is a hotbed of viral activity. Instead, we headed south into Chatfield State Park which thankfully is still open. Candidly though, riding the bike paths is becoming problematic. Though it is easy to maintain six feet of distance from those ahead and behind us that doesn’t solve the issue of when you pass, or are passed by, someone else. The paths don’t really allow people to pass with 6 feet of clearance and the thought occurred to me that in the short stint from Mineral and Santa Fe to the roads within Chatfield we came within too close proximity to more than a hundred people along the path. We had taken a tongue-in-cheek instagram picture of us decked out in our cycling attire and wearing face masks before the ride; next time I ride the paths I’ll keep the mask on instead of taking it off. We only saw two cyclists actually riding with face masks but that number will increase by at least two the next time we ride.

As an aside, they are building a huge housing development just outside the south entrance to Chatfield. We noticed that the six model homes are now nearly complete. Interestingly they are so closely built to each other that there barely seems to be six feet between them. What will Corona mean for urban planners of the future who up to now seemed intent on forcing us to live in increasingly densely populated areas? How can there not be ‘community spread’ when you can shake your neighbors hand from your bathroom window?

Though this is new to all of us, America has experienced a major pandemic in the past. If you didn’t see it in yesterday’s paper, the Denver Post had an excellent article about how Colorado handled the flu pandemic in 1918-1919. I didn’t realize that what was called the ‘Spanish’ flu actually originated in western Kansas. Who knew?

So we have reached a point where COVID-19 is more than an annoyance for most Americans. The number of infected is in the hundreds of thousands and those dying from the virus is in the thousands and growing. And from all accounts it sounds like it’s an equal opportunity virus hitting all segments of the population from infants to the elderly though those with underlying health issues remain most at risk. I for one have concluded that I don’t want to catch it. A month ago while working Spring Training Baseball in Arizona (talk about lots and lots of people contact) when Corona was just starting to make headlines I clearly remember thinking that we’d all probably catch it at some point so why not catch it and get it over with. Not now. We’ve reached a point where even healthcare workers, those charged with protecting us, are starting to succumb and if that doesn’t make me take this seriously then I really am as stupid as I sometimes suspect.

Stay safe, stay sane, and forgive me if I don’t recognize you on the bike path behind your mask.

Disconnected...

I’m feeling a little disconnected right now. Topsy Turvy doesn’t begin to describe the surreal situation we find ourselves in. Olympics postponed, Denver issuing a stay at home order (except for essential trips to places like grocery stores, medical services, the airport, and of course those twin staples of life in Colorado - liquor stores and marijuana shops), and our President saying the cure must not be worse than the problem as he considers “reopening” the country in the next week or two because the effect on the economy has been too severe. This despite warnings from senior health officials that the U.S. has not yet felt the worst of the pandemic.

Who’s right? The doomsday folks who think we’re in for a prolonged period of coping with Covid, or the President who seems to think, in his heart of hearts, that this is all much ado about nothing. He could be right; stranger things have happened, but it strains credulity to think that by mid-April we’ll be back to normal (whatever that means). If you’re an employer who’s just sent people home to work, or worse yet laid them off, are you going to feel comfortable resuming normal operations in the next two weeks? As an employee, are you comfortable returning to the office? I mean, who’s gonna take your spot in line at 6 a.m. as you wait for your 1 in a 1000 chance of scoring a roll of toilet paper at your neighborhood Walmart? And who’s going to watch the kiddos if the nation’s schools don’t reopen according to the schedule Mr. Trump has in mind?

Like I said, disconnected. I occasionally watch Governor Polis’s news conferences as he updates what efforts the State of Colorado is taking to combat Corona. You may or may not have voted for him but thus far he seems to be erring on the side of caution. As are most of the nation’s Governors in the absence of any real Federal leadership.

The thing is, I hope the President is right. I’m generally an optimist at heart but still believe in hoping for the best but being prepared for the worst. The next couple of weeks will tell. Stay tuned!

“I would my horse had the speed of your tongue”  Benedick Act 1 Scene 1 Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare