Click here to enlarge the image I used above, Mac and Duff along the Willamette River near my house.
I woke to the news that Oregon had its first documented coronavirus case. It is the top story in the local news:
Lake Oswego is a town not too far from where I live. It’s where I take my dogs to the vet.
My first thought was that I am going to a big wedding at a ballroom in downtown Portland this afternoon where there will be guests from near and far. What a bummer! Hopefully it won’t put a damper on the festivities.
However this isn’t my first personal connection with coronavirus.
One of my best childhood friends from when we were toddlers and my next door neighbor was on the Diamond Princess with her husband on a cruise to celebrate her birthday. We were in contact via email several times during the crisis. Last a heard a few days ago they still were in quarantine in Texas.
They were interviewed several times on MSNBC. It was weird seeing my toddler “girlfriend” and her husband on my favorite TV station. The last time I saw her was about 15 years ago when she and her husband Phil visited my late wife and I in Massachusetts.
My friend Gay wrote an OpEd which was published in The Washington Post (excerpt below) and she was also interviewed for a NY Times article (‘We’re in a Petri Dish’: How a Coronavirus Ravaged a Cruise Ship”).
“Our cruise ship was quarantined for coronavirus. It’s been 9 days of surrealism,” in The Washington Post, By Gay Courter
Once the danger became apparent my friend wrote:
The luxury cruise was over. We were prisoners in a posh penitentiary.
The days since have slipped into one another. The captain’s voice has become wearier as he relays the grim statistics: 10 new cases of infection, another 10, 41. A total of 64, then 135, then 218. With each new infection, I become more anxious. Our ship gets daily bulletins from the U.S. Consulate in Tokyo, but no one offers what we most need: a jailbreak.
I am 75, and my husband is 77. With my insulin supply dwindling, I tried to order more through the ship but got nowhere for a week. Luckily, our phones and Internet work, and a doctor friend in Florida shipped a refill to our floating penitentiary. After delays in customs, my medication reached me on Friday.
So far, my lowest point has not been my medication anxiety but, instead, seeing a bus pull up and fire trucks line up to block media coverage of a partial evacuation. Reports have suggested that men in their 70s are at high risk for infection. There is no telling who is next to be released — or next to fall ill.
This is the latest from my friend in The Washington Post this morning:
Our cruise ship was quarantined. Now we’re on an Air Force base. But the end is in sight. By Gay Courter.
Excerpt:
Federal marshals (in Texas quarantine facility) guard a perimeter marked by a chain-link fence and portable lighting. We aren’t supposed to leave our room, but everyone does for a few minutes each day. Guards in uniform and protective gear frown, at least from what I can see above their face masks. Poorly fueled by biscuits and gravy and mystery meat, a rebellious spark flared this week as we strolled along the fence. Phil noted its zip-tie fastenings and the sandbags holding it upright.
“Why don’t we stage a coup?,” I said, imagining marshaling our fellow boomer cruisers. “We could use our walking sticks as swords, walkers as battering rams, the wheelchairs as cavalry. In the film, the soundtrack could be ‘Do You Hear the People Sing’ from ‘Les Mis’!”
For us, at least, the end is in sight. Rear Adm. Nancy Knight, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention division leading the medical side of our quarantine, has drilled us so much about “social distancing” and “proper hand washing” that her dictums about infection, prevention and control measures are lodged in my mind. The admiral has kept us safe. On the ship, cases escalated into the hundreds in a few days. Here, only single digits have shown symptoms or tested positive. Phil and I have remained negative the whole time. The admiral said they’re working on “de-mobing” our quarantine cohort next week — military-speak for what we want most: to go home.
From all indications pretty soon we will all have a personal connection to coronavirus.
Yesterday: Some images from around the web about the Trump response to the Coronavirus pandemic crisis and all my 1021 Daily Kos stories.