Welcome to Week 12...and a look at the numbers:
Worldwide: ,7,514,500 infections; 421,460 deaths
US: 2,043,500 infections; 114,000 deaths
SA: 58,568 infections; 1285 deaths
In the 1989 movie, “A Dry White Season,” the South African lawyer played by Marlon Brando says that, in [apartheid] South Africa, law and justice are from the same family but “they’ve not been on speaking terms for years.”
Not to trivialize South Africa’s past, but I’m reminded of this line as I grapple with Lockdown. Real reality and human/my reality are from the same family, but not on speaking terms for, well, at least 66 days!
Lockdown Day 66 – 28 May – was the day Lockdown reality began to penetrate my Lockdown denial. Until then, I’d stayed busy, developed minor obsessions, whatever it took. Unconsciously, I’d deluded myself that a few weeks of laying low and,
poof, coronavirus would lose its lethality. I’d hop on a plane and return to my houseboat, life on the water, summer.
Maintaining psychological balance was a challenge but not impossible.
I would, you know, overcome…
Twelve days later, coronavirus reality is overcoming me.
Denial is hard to maintain.
I am, you are, we’re all amid a perfect storm of historical events – and few of us are equipped effectively to respond.
We humans are ill-equipped to address/confront real reality; we lag way behind the moment. We resort to habit, the familiar. We lose the plot when faced with a slowly unfolding catastrophe.
Ditto elected leaders. Most appear incapable of addressing the moment. Many are still in denial - their equivalent of Day 66 hasn’t arrived, or they ignored it when it did.
Ramaphosa seldom appears in public.
Others - Trump, Bolsonaro – have thrown in the towel and pretend the pandemic is over, finished and
klaar, “embers and ashes.”
We, the People discover systems we took for granted, that we thought securely in place, no longer work – perhaps never did.
Historically,
now is a delicate moment, the kind of moment history teaches can go either way: more fascistic or more progressive.
Which will it be?
It is up to you, to me, to our friends and family.
News blues…
Notable successes during the pandemic:
New Zealand. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the country coronavirus-free. New Zealand also saw very few COVID-related deaths.
The cornerstone of a pandemic response for every country must be to find, test, isolate, and care for every case, and to trace and quarantine every contact… That is every country's best defense against COVID-19 and it is how New Zealand succeeded in overcoming COVID-19. Stopping the virus also means the country can begin its economic recovery sooner.”
Ardern said the economy would now operate at just 3.8% below normal. "We now have a head start on economic recovery because at level one we become one of the most open, if not the most open, economies in the world."
Iceland: Vigilant tracing and strict quarantine resulted in Iceland beating the virus.
Iceland never imposed a lockdown. Only a few types of businesses—night clubs and hair salons, for example—were ever ordered closed. Hardly anyone in ReykjavÃk wears a mask. And yet, by mid-May … the tracing team had almost no one left to track. During the previous week, in all of Iceland, only two new coronavirus cases had been confirmed. The country hadn’t just managed to flatten the curve; it had, it seemed, virtually eliminated it.
True, both countries are isolated islands with relatively small populations. But more importantly their leaders responded fast and with honesty about the way forward.
Is it significant that both countries are led by women with children?
Prime minister of Iceland: KatrÃn Jakobsdóttir;
PM of New Zealand: Jacinda Ardern.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Overnight temperature dropped toward freezing early this morning. This overnight trend continues through the next several days.
The early freeze of late May (Day 66?) damaged succulents leaves and flower buds. With time on my hands, last night I covered beds of succulents with sheets of plastic.
After struggling to pull on my stiff-with-cold gum boots early this morning, I removed the plastic. Succulents appear frost-burn-free. (None thanked me for my service – perhaps, like my gum boots, too cold.)
Yes, I know it is ridiculous to protect outdoor indigenous plants from frost. But I’ve the time and the inclination so why not? Tonight, I’ll cover them again. (Perhaps they’ll figure out how to express their thanks?)
***
Remember toilet paper mania (TPM), way back at the beginning of the pandemic? Stores ran out of toilet paper with the result a modern-day
tulip mania (looking at you, Australia).
Naturally, entrepreneurs capitalized on TPM:
Japanese company PooPaint presents toilet paper for people with time on their hands. (I’ll pass – at least for now. I recommend PooPaint conduct a no-holds-barred marketing campaign in Australia.)
Manias come and go, and capitalism will never end.
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