Update: Mar. 26, 2020 Since writing this I have stopped going to the grocery store and am using the delivery service from our large market Fred Meyers (a Kroger store). I have my second order in. It takes about five day for delivery.
I am not going into any of the building in the complex and socializing with people on the street of duplexes where I live, keeping at least a physical distance of six feet.
I walk the dogs everyday and usually run into a few people to chat with.
Like everyone living here I’m looking forward to the warmer weather so I can get out more.
I live in a CCRC, which stands for continuing care retirement community. It is also sometimes called a life plan community. It is a senior community where a continuum of aging care needs—from independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing care is all provided in one facility. Mine is a complex of connected buildings and free standing duplexes on a large lovely campus. There are about 500 residents here and an excellent staff to resident ratio.
We have an excellent quarantine plan which was brushed off and updated from a norovirus outbreak we had 10 years ago. It was explained in depth in a meeting in our auditorium on March 5th to a standing room only crowd of about 400 residents. This went totally against the meeting ban announced a few days ago.
We are certainly a high risk group for coronavirus with the majority of residents being between the ages of 70 and 90, and a goodly number over 90 and even a few over 100. Obviously with this age group many of them have medical problems so there is a risk for severe illness and death.
We live with death all the time here and the longer one lives here the more people you are friends with or acquainted with will die. Death and politics used to be two of the main topics of conversation here until Trump came along and overshadowed death as a topic in the decidedly progressive community.
I feel a vague but real sense of overall anxiety about the prospect of my coming down with coronavirus and this certainly influences why I decided to isolate myself from people here as much as possible. However, cognitively it makes sense to do so out of an abundance of caution because of the nature of my living environment.
I’ve only been really sick a few times in my life, generally with the flu or a severe upper respiratory infection. I admire those people who handle their own illnesses well. I don’t. For 40 years when I was married I had someone to care about me when I was sick, and to a lesser extent for me. My wife wasn’t much into being a doting nurse but I sure appreciated her being there. For the last 10 years when I got sick I had to depend on myself for in-person emotional support and of course I managed to care for myself no matter how miserable my symptoms made me feel.
When my wife was dying she made me promise to stay alive to take care of Mac and Duff. I made this solemn promise not really knowing how often I’d think about it in the following few years of intense grief. Now, at 76, my own death is that much closer but I still want the grim reaper to stay away until the dogs have died. Then all bets are off. Even my friend who agreed to care for the dogs if I die before them can’t get here because she lives in Massachusetts. The plan was for her to fly here and take my car and drive back with them.
The governor of Oregon, Kate Brown, and the mayor of Portland have instituted states of emergency and banned gatherings of more that 250, as has Washington. The governor says that people shouldn’t stand less than three feet apart. A credible medical website puts the safe distance at six feet. The governor of Ohio banned gatherings of more than 100 people and New York put the number at 500.
There is news about how long the virus remains active on surfaces, and we all have heard how risky it is to touch someone who is sick. It has been reported according to laboratory tests run by a team of federal and academic scientists in the US. that the coronavirus appears able to linger in the air for up to three hours and on plastic and stainless steel surfaces for two to three days.
All of the science tells me it is prudent to socially isolate myself by avoiding going indoors because of concentration of people here.
Fortunately I can still take walks with the dogs (right) and I feel that it is safe to talk to other residents while we are outdoors.
On Monday I went to the grocery story just after it opened when hardly anybody was there and stocked up on food, adding to my earthquake emergency supply, even though staff here will assure that nobody goes hungry if they are quarantined. I like to be self-sufficient and because I am capable of feeding myself I figure why add to the burden of the staff.
I went up to our little take-out food marketplace to pick up some lunch yesterday to take home and saw lots of residents in the dining areas sitting a lot closer than three feet apart. I wondered to myself whether I was overreacting if they seemed to be taking such a cavalier attitude about potential contagion. Perhaps they are trusting our administration to tell them when these gatherings are no longer permitted.
We have yet to have any reports of anyone coming down with coronavirus symptoms here. When we do I expect many residents will begin to socially isolate themselves. Once someone has symptoms it will be a particular challenge to quarantine the spouses of those who are ill. We have a few guest apartments but if they are all taken I assume other arrangements will have to be made to move them off-campus.
(Meanwhile just now, on MSNBC Barney Frank, who went to Harvard Law not Harvard Med., says he sees no need for everyone to stay home and not go to work instead of saying, as I think he should have, to listen to medical experts before making this decision.)