Day 577 of the Pandemic

 Time flies so fast. I don't know how it got to be October when it feels like my father just passed away. In reality it has been two and a half months since he did, and a month since we laid him to rest in the Gulf of Mexico. Yet that feels like it was last week and I still expect him to get back from his trip anytime. Reality is just not real anymore. It is no more real than anything else I read on the internet or see on T.V. 

The Covid talk at work drives me crazy. There are numerous people that have had it and they must have earned a PHD in Covid while they were home for the two weeks. They all seem to be experts. At times now I have to walk away. I will not say what I know. You are not safe no one is. I don't believe the vaccine or anything else other than good hygiene and keeping my distance from large groups of people will keep me safe. And then part of me believes after being exposed to so many people that have had it how could I have not built up some immunity? 

I have found a new anxiety trigger in Covid. Like I needed another. But as little as a sneeze and I am going to die. Just like my dad. I know this seems extreme but if you don't know anxiety, it is a quick and slippery slope that gets me to a bad place. And it can take hours to get back to normalcy. 

My father wouldn't want me to be scared. At the beginning of Covid he didn't let anyone in his house. We would have to leave things on the porch. He didn't want to even talk across the yard. But after a few months of isolation he decided that is no way to live either. If you only have a short time it should be enjoyed. Thank God he did. He enjoyed his time he had left. He fished and gardened. He read books and continued to learn things. 

It was his birthday when we laid him to rest. All his children, grandchildren and many friends came out. Plans changed at the last minute due to the weather but an artificial reef made of his ashes was placed in the Gulf. Afterwards we did what dad would want to do if he was 10 miles out in the Gulf. We went fishing. We caught fish, we ate and played music and talked about previous fishing trips with dad. He would have loved it. His great granddaughter caught her first fish out on the boat and all his grandchildren caught fish. I hope it becomes a regular family event. Afterwards we all went to eat and had the fish cooked up and told more stories of days gone by. 

For my Covid Update. Booster shots are now a thing. The drug companies are all saying another shot for those more susceptible or in close contact with those that have been exposed should get another shot. Even Johnson & Johnson the whole one and done, well not so much. The big thing since school started is that the Florida Governor doesn't want to mandate mask wearing but some school districts do. This has caused a raucous over funding of the schools. The President would like companies with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccination. See how different peoples opinions are, and those people are mandating what the rest of us do. 

Here in Pinellas County we are getting back to where people feel safe. Cases are dropping we are down to 153 cases and only 1,053 new cases last week. Total of 133 thousand cases and just over 2,500 deaths.  

I just don't know what to do with all this information. It comes at you from every direction and from every source imaginable. As I keep telling people that are convinced of one or the other I am not sure and know what I have been doing for the last year and a half has worked so far. I don't want to prove I have been vaccinated weather I have been or not. So here I stand riding the rail of the Covid fence just trying to get through this difficult time. Just like everyone else.

Day 497 of the Pandemic

 On Day 488 I had to return to work. Pack your computer in your car but don't bring it in. There is a new one set up at your station. You just need to walk around and find where your new desk is. They didn't have everyone come back on the same day. There were 3 or 4 of us that came back that day. One was one of my friends that I talked to in the morning before work. The other had been back to work for a while at the office. Never really understood the reason for the people to be kept at work or the ones sent home. 

Day one back to work was like I never left from a job I had never been to before. Some things were just as they had always been and others were different. Mask wearing, health checks are part of the new process. The job still the same and after day 3 we find out that one of the girls that had come back has Covid. Well wonderful. Why are we back. What is the reason. Things seem to be getting worse in the world of Covid and yet here we are back sitting about 6 feet apart but in a room that has about 30 desks only about half are back after the second week. Well day 7 we learned of the second case in a room that only has about 15 people in it. A person that sits half way closer than the first. Why are we back. While home we would randomly get an email saying that someone that works in the building had tested positive and it said what day they were last at work. We have yet to be told the first person went home sick was tested positive for Covid now we have two and no word. No special cleaning nothing that made me feel like my health was the most important thing. 

After work last Thursday I got a call I didn't expect my father and his wife have been traveling in Alaska since June 22 and he and his wife have Covid. They have postponed their flight home and are quarantined in the hotel. Dad has a horrible cough but whenever he gets sick he gets a horrible cough. Worse since his bypass surgery about 5 or 6 years ago. This is a concern especially since he is so far from home and not the best patient. Friday we got a call that he was taken to the hospital and his oxygen level was very low and so they kept him. His wife couldn't stay with him, she went back to the hotel. A daily call from her is our update. Saturday we got the call that he was on a ventilator and in intensive care. I know people say it can happen to anyone at anytime. There is a chance for a loss. But my father is not the one to lose not while in Alaska not without a fight. Not my dad. As the information was shared between my brother and sisters. The tears were real and burned the memories of the past and thoughts of the future. But I told my sisters, If this is the case with dad he isn't worrying he is thinking about staying in Denali, fishing for flounder and seeing the pipeline. A trip he planned for two years. This couldn't be how this story ends.

Two of us that same evening decided we needed to figure out what hospital he was at and get the news from the source. One of my sisters made the call and we found out that we were misinformed about his dire situation and not that he was out of the woods but he had not been on a ventilator but he has been on oxygen the whole time and that he was sitting up and eating and drinking. He did also have pneumonia. He is hungry and as the nurse said he is struggling with the cannula in his nose. My sister said so he is fighting that. That sounds like dad. Which somehow dad fighting about anything made us feel better and made us smile. We are Basore's and for better or worse we have a double dose of stubborn in our DNA.  

One sister now in Alaska helping our dad's wife get situated knowing that dad may be another week in the hospital before he will be released but the nurses didn't realize that he wasn't a Alaskan that he was a Floridian and home wasn't around the block but a 10 hour flight away. The story will continue. 

As for the current state of affairs in Pinellas County back in June we were at a low down to less than 50 new cases per day, then this new variant. Now we are back up to over 1,300 new cases a day and that is where we were in January while people were still working from home. So the prospects for going to work is troubling. 

Along with going back to work I have stopped my daily walking in the morning before work but that may have to change as well. I might have to just start getting up earlier.

Stay safe.

Day 452 of the Pandemic

 It has been 5 months since the last time I wrote here about the Pandemic. I have been writing daily as I walk  each morning before work about the sunrise or the phase of the moon and placement of the stars and the animals and very few people I come across. I have not avoided the Covid 15 which is the average weight that most people have gained during this time of lockdown. Mine is more like Covid 23. Which is why the walking each morning is so important. I have been trying to add at least a 15 minute walk in the evening. I can feel the weight and more than that I hate going to the doctor and getting on the scale to hear the number out loud. 

But my weight was not what I sat down to write about today. It is that early morning time which my brain seems to fire on all cylinders and since yesterday I have been thinking about the last month and on May 19 Governor DeSantis of Florida suspended all remaining health restrictions for the state of Florida. At that time Florida had the third most cases of Covid-19 at 2.2 million and fourth highest death toll at 35,000.  The CDC shows as of today a total of  over 33 million cases in the US and that the cases per day and death tolls are dropping. 64% of Americans have at least one dose of the vaccine. 

My confusion lies in the restrictions and regulations. When everyone was following the CDC guidelines it was easy because you knew you needed a mask to go inside just about anywhere. Now the state says if you are vaccinated you don't need to where a mask that it to show they have confidence in the vaccine but any privately owned business can still have their own mask restrictions. They can still require employees to wear a mask and/or require their customers to vaccinated or not. The Governor of Florida has said there will be no vaccine passport in Florida. But again your place of employment can ask if you have been vaccinated and make requirements separate based on weather you are or not. So everyone basically has to carry a mask because you don't know until you walk up to the door of a business if they are going to require you to wear one or not. For girls not so bad I have about 4 in my purse at anytime but for guys that is different. My brother last night was out and I said do you no longer need a mask as we were leaving and he said no but at 1:30am he was told by the Uber driver that came to pick him up that he did. Which in turn meant that I received a phone call for a ride home. My sister answered first so she took him. I don't care that my brother called I don't care if I have to pick him up. It is the fact that the rules are so vague and hit or miss that you don't know what is right or wrong.

There are still restrictions in some states so you should check before travelling. Brian and I are heading to a wedding in a few weeks in Pennsylvania so we will keep an eye on there.

The vaccines can't be advertised on TV because they aren't fully approved by the FDA. So instead of the adds we see on TV daily for all sorts of other medicines there are advertisements in general asking us to all do our part but no Covid vaccine companies can advertise directly because they are only approved for Emergency Use Authorization since December. It normally takes about a year for a drug to become fully FDA approved. So here is the double edge sword for the FDA do they approve a vaccine fully that they only have 6 months of statistical data on or do they wait? If they wait that isn't showing a profound confidence and those that are skeptical to begin with may hesitate more in getting their vaccination. Or does the FDA fully approve a vaccine that they aren't 100% confident with but knowing the data they have shows it to be safe to date. 

Notice I have not mentioned weather I have been vaccinated. I don't feel it is anyone's business. If my work asks I will tell the truth but none of your business would be my choice. My work has not yet figured out how to get everyone back to the office due to some issues with one of the buildings at work. So they are trying to make room in one building for everyone. I have only been by the office twice in over a year. As I have said many times I only miss some of the people. I don't miss the noise but I miss the camaraderie. Sometimes it is nice to have others to complain about the day with but I have adjusted to working from home and I enjoy the benefits of not having to wear shoes and being able to wash the dishes or do a load of laundry on break. But when necessary I will do what I have to do.   Which is I guess the moral of the story. We have to continue to do what we need to do. But as I will tell anyone it is also your right to choose not to go somewhere based on their restrictions.  I will continue to update when relevant. I am working on compiling all of the things I have written since the beginning and it will be called the Dawn of the Pandemic. Hopefully completed by later this year.

Day 304 of the Pandemic

Now over nine months into the Covid-19 Pandemic and we are all wondering will this ever end. Back in March it was once the temperature warms up things will get better. The spread of the virus will slow. Instead it seems to increased. Is it due to more people getting out and ignoring the social distancing requests. In August Florida had over 526,000 cases and Pinellas County was at almost 18,000. Daily positive cases peaked at 869 in the county just after Christmas. Yet the county deaths by week peaked in July with 89. Today, January 15, 2021 in Pinellas County had 51,000 cases with 1,500 deaths. The state of Florida has had 1.5 million cases and 23,000 deaths. In comparison in 2019 the state of Florida had 2,703 deaths from the flu. 

Brian and I are still doing our same thing. Mostly staying home. We do go out and see some family and we may go out to eat once a week. Other than going to the Historical Society I am home. It is boring and at first I would find small projects or even work a puzzle. Now the puzzle just sits on the dining room table and it is read or watch TV.  I am still working from home with no mention of going back. I have adjusted more. I walk every morning before work about a half a mile. This time of year it is still dark at 6:20 so I have a street that is well lit near the house that I walk and I feel safe. I have started carrying my phone because I have had a few times where I was startled by someone's approach. For the most part most days are quiet and I see no one. Brian works retail and heads out everyday mask in hand. He wears his mask all day and comes home hopefully only carrying the smells of the dogs that visit his store and not a virus. Neither of us have been sick. We of course know people that have but none we have been in recent contact with.

Testing is a funny thing. Some people want to know they have it and others don't. I see both sides. Why know? Knowing certainly will not make you get better and taking care of yourself is really all you can do either way and limit your contact with others. It is the people that are sick weather or not tested and still continue to go out and live as though they are well. They just perpetuate the spread. 

As for restrictions I could only find in the US California and Ohio have nightly curfews but in Europe that is different some countries like Norway and Sweden have no curfew or lockdown but in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales all have restrictions and can only leave the house for essentials like grocery's and medical visits. Poland has closed shopping malls and hotels but you can still get your hair cut but restaurants can only do take out. And some countries like Austria are on their 3rd lockdown. Just for comparison Austria has a population of 8.8 million people with a total case rate of 389,000 to date and 6,300 deaths. Where Florida's population is 21 million and 23,000 deaths. I am sure statistical data people are busy bees with all the data and percentages of these people have got it and these have died. They don't really share recovery statistics. I am not really sure why.

Now we have just started vaccinating people for the virus. There are again two sides to the coin. Should I be vaccinated with this vaccine that hasn't had proper testing. Down the road is it going to cause other troubles. Do I not get the vaccine like the Flu vaccine I never have gotten? Just leaves me with more questions.

So amongst all this Pandemic talk the country had an election. Joe Biden the President elect and Donald Trump until the riot action at the Capitol building in Washington DC was still insisting there was cheating and he won. He has now conceded. I have so many thoughts on all of this but will leave them for another time. People are so polarized it makes me at times put down my phone and stop looking at social media and I hardly ever watch TV news before all of this it is less now.

Like I said earlier I walk every morning. When I get home I write for a few minutes about what I see on my walk. Some mornings in the summer I would describe the sunrise or now I describe the temperature and the stars that are visible and the position and phases of the moon. I am just doing what I can to keep active in this time when the rules want everyone to sit still and wait this thing out. Just not sure that will help us in the end either.

Day 129 Pandemic 2020

Now more than three months into working from home due to Covid-19 I look at things different than I did at the beginning. I miss the people I work with. I chat with them using instant messenger but haven't seen but two people from work in four months. I don't miss everything. I don't miss wearing work clothes to work. I enjoy wearing shorts and being barefoot. Since May I walk everyday before work then come home and post on Facebook about my walk, the sunrise and what I see and hear along the way. I don't ask when we will be going back to work at the office. Not sure I want to. The company sends an email to everyone if someone from the office tests positive but I haven't been there in so long I don't have to worry. I do worry about the people that are still working at the office. When you see someone has called out it is concerning. 

When I wrote in May I sat in a room with people from the Historical Society I belong to and no one in that room knew anyone directly that had the virus. Today that is different. Not only does one of the people from the Historical Society spouse have it and has been hospitalized and returned home. I now know three people in the same family that have it and one friend has had a relative that died. One of the people I know has recovered except can't smell or taste and the another only recently tested positive and has a cough. As you can see there are different severity of this disease. There are different symptoms and much different recovery times. Yes this is now much closer than at the beginning where I couldn't name a name or even a person that knew a person. So as time changes my situation has changed my actions. 

Back at the end of June it became mandatory if you are in a public place you need to wear a mask or some sort of face covering. Still this doesn't seem to be full proof because one person gets the virus and brings it home. Then you get a house of people with the virus but if they don't know they have it now they are sharing it. I now have multiple masks and wear one when I am inside a public place. I am still lax around family which probably isn't the smartest thing. If you go to a restaurant you have to wear the mask until you are seated at a table then you can remove it. When you are ready to get up from the table you must put your mask back on to leave the table. A few months ago I wouldn't have done this but I wouldn't eat inside either. It is now too hot to always choose to eat outside if we want to go out and yes we still want to venture out I am going to wear a mask when in close proximity to others.

Now that we are almost to August the question of when kids should go back to school and how should they attend school is a hot button. My feel is if the people making this decision aren't meeting in person then how can they expect to send teachers and students back to the classroom together. Kids will be kids and yes after a period of time some are going to learn to understand you can't take a drink out of Sally's juice box and you can't share a piece of chewing gum with your boyfriend but that is going to take time. Probably more than the two extra weeks that they are talking about delaying the start of school. Counties have given parents choices on how they want their kids to attend school. Do they want them back in a classroom or to learn at home. Some kids are not going to do as well at home and others are going to be fearful for going back to school. I don't know which way I would lean. I feel that the interaction with other kids is very important but how do you decide.  

The State of Florida now has over 400,000 cases compared to at the beginning of May it was only 40,000 and Pinellas County over 14,600 and in May was 828. Here is the thing with the statistics other than the fact that we have found out over the last month that some testing facilities are only reporting their positive cases and some people that have gone to be tested and left before the test was completed but had filled out the paperwork were reported as positive cases. All of this information not only skews the statistics but it also makes a person wonder. If these are the things that we know what do we still not know? And as I think about the numbers over 1,200 people have been hospitalized for Covid-19 but how many were only there for a day or two and got better? Since in Pinellas County if only 367 people have died from it does it mean the other 14,300 have gotten better? How long is the recovery time for those that do get better? So, I just end up with more questions the more I look into the facts. 

I don't know where all this is leading. I suppose in a few more weeks I will be writing again about more craziness. I wonder if during the Spanish Flu the people of that time did they know what it was and how to not get it or was it just all of a sudden people started getting really sick and dying? Just more questions. Be safe out there. The world is continuously changing and not much for the better.

Day 55 Pandemic 2020

Now that we are well into the second month of dealing with the Pandemic of 2020. I am not sure if I am more or less afraid of contracting the virus. Part of me would like to believe I am one of the many asymptomatic people that have already had it and by being home all the time I have not exposed others and will easily be able to move back on into whatever the new normal life becomes. The other part of me goes out to the grocery store once a week and worries that when I come home that I could have gotten it. Maybe not from personal contact but from a box a cereal I picked up. The more I read and watch on the internet the less you know what to believe. The virus only lasts a few hours on that box of cereal or does it last a few days. One so called expert said that you should leave the mail or your groceries outside as long as you can before bringing them into your house. That isn't really a Florida thing there would be all kinds of critters in your groceries. I am sure that people that live in the wilderness couldn't do that as well. That bear might eat the ice cream or your stimulus check.

The Florida Department of Health has a dashboard of information to make it easy to see and since the last post in regards to the Pandemic my assessment was correct we seemed to have hit our peak of new cases on April 3. As of today 35 days later May 8 we now have a total 828 confirmed cases in Pinellas County, nearly 40,000 for the state of Florida. I have tried but unable to find comparable views of the Flu. My personal opinion which means nothing. I think if you are susceptible to one you are to the other. If you are likely to be hospitalized for one you would the other as well and in turn if you do the simple things like washing your hands and keeping your distance from people that are sick you would be less likely to get either. But what do I know. I don't have a medical degree and I have no background in diagnosing diseases and outbreaks. See what I just did. I gave my opinion and then said I have no idea what I am talking about. If the people that put stuff out on the internet would use the same disclaimers the world would be a better place. I feel the political talking heads have given us their opinion but they aren't medical doctors most I wouldn't consult for anything let alone life or death. Again that is my opinion and I am not a political science major and watch as little of that as I can.

As of this week the beaches are open again. Still with social distancing. I really hope whoever said it first got it copy written. The state of Florida officially decided there will be no more school for the rest of the year. Kids are a mixed bag on this as I can imagine our house would have been when we were kids. What am I going to do with I have so much time to do whatever I want. Time can be a blessing or waste. I am really trying to make more of a blessing out of my time at home. Trying to write and be productive.Not waste the day watching tv. I heard today that phase 2 is to start next week which will include opening barber shops and salons. My brother is hopeful for a social life again and would love to go out and stand next to someone at the bar.

Just as a final thought I shared with some of the people I volunteer with this week while sitting around a room all about 6 feet from the next. I don't personally know anyone that has had this terrible disease and neither did any of them. I wonder what does that mean. The people we know are lucky or have been doing what we are supposed to or are there more people that have had it that didn't know they had it. As for wearing a mask my husband has to for his job. Me personally I have not. I have 2 that people have given me. but haven't found myself in a position where I thought I needed to. Some say you aren't wearing it for yourself that you are wearing it to protect others. I am not sure about that logic either. If a business required that I do I would make a decision at that time. Because I have a choice to shop in that business and wear the mask as they request or not. Well for now I will keep working from home until I am told to come back to the office and will keep washing my hands when I come home from everywhere and keep my hands away from my face. Still the grocery store is my big outing each week. A trip to the museum by myself to work on one project or another alone. Looking forward to social interaction myself.

Day 18 Pandemic 2020

It is always hard for me to start and sometimes that is because I know where I end up or the point I want to make. Today day 18 of my personal dealing with the pandemic of 2020 or whatever they end up calling it. I have no idea where we are going. I am doing my part. I have been out in public about once a week to go to the grocery store.

I have to start back at the end of January was when I first remember hearing a story on the radio about this Corona virus and that young people for some reason believed that this virus originating in China was caused by or could be prevented by drinking Corona beer. This seemed stupid to me as I learned the virus is spread like the flu. It is a respiratory disease that is passed from person to person. The logical person that I am was like we can avoid this by staying healthy and washing your hands just like avoiding getting the flu. I am and was at that time quite confident that I can avoid this.

March 11 was the first day there were two confirmed cases of Corona virus in Pinellas County.

I say day 18 since March 17th was day one of my personal reality check. My work which didn't allow employees to work from home, wanted me to test working from home. Besides the "come see me" message I received from my manager to see the director of our department standing in his office, all I kept thinking is I didn't do anything wrong. It is natural for me to believe I must be in trouble. I try to fly under the radar at work. That day I was asked to do something no one had done before. I felt empowered and scared at the same time. If I mess this up I mess it up for a lot of people. So I was given an hour to get my computer home and hooked up and online and back to work which really was unrealistic but I did it. My manager was waiting to see me connected and asked, how it went and I said, I did it. I worked the rest of the afternoon and sent an email the next morning with the challenges that I had. I had never worked from home before and with no training manual I was getting through my personal challenges.

By the end of the week I had a routine down. The next Monday March 23, day 7, I sent a message to my manager and he said the company wants you to come back to work in the office. Now the situation in the world hasn't gotten better. I truly felt like I must have failed. Maybe I didn't work hard enough even though the day I was on the phone I took 90 calls which is really a pretty good day. So I packed up my computer and monitors and went back to work. The other employees questioned why I was back and did it not work? I just kept saying it did work. By this time we were to social distancing at work. They spread out people across two buildings using every empty office and conference room. A strange new normal had begun. I still had my morning social with my friends that arrive early, we never sat closer than 6 feet apart before so now was no different.

We learned this week that we are considered essential employees. The term is to define employees that still need to work versus those businesses that are not essential should close and their employees should stay at home. The jokes began. My essential pay is no different than my non-essential pay. Essential employees drive better than non-essential employees.

March 30, 129 confirmed cases of Corona virus in Pinellas County

Another week passes and now on day 15 March 31, and while at work I hear a voice I don't know trying to get everyone's attention. This voice is from a person I don't know but find out that it is the Vice President over our department telling us that they are going to send half of the department home to work. Once again I pack up my computer that afternoon and take it home and set it up and the next day start working from home again. I do miss the people I have my morning social with. We now text each other in the morning before work. We are all usually at work 30 minutes early so we have a good talk before it is time to work. Gossip is a little harder to come by but don't worry it is still out there.

April 1, the biggest jump in confirmed cases in Pinellas County to date. 61 confirmed cases almost doubled the day before. Brings the total confirmed to 213. As of today when I am typing this April 4th total 300 cases in Pinellas County with 7 deaths.

The world seems to be sliding down hill. Some aren't taking this social distance stuff serious and maybe I don't take it serious enough. I refuse to wear a mask over my mouth and leave my nose exposed as the people I see at the grocery and I don't wear gloves to touch everything and then take the mask they aren't wearing properly off before removing the gloves. I wash my hands, I try not to touch my face and I try not to have close contact with anyone. But Thursday just before going to the grocery store I learn that 2 employees have been confirmed to have the virus that work at the two stores closest to my house. The part of me that likes to worry has been nervously anticipating the thought that at some point this thing is going to get close. But after reading another article I learn that the employee at the store we normally shop at hasn't been at work for 10 days and that the store has been sanitized multiple times since then.

Like I said at the beginning we don't know where this is going to end. My father being in his 70s has been taking this serious from the beginning and has not let anyone come over. We have all called to check that he doesn't need anything. My sister dropped off eggs to him. Leaving them on his porch to get once she got back towards the car. My one sister that works in a drug store is still working normally, my sister that is a dental assistant hasn't worked for a couple weeks, my sister that works at an elementary school hasn't worked in the traditional sense since their Spring Break a couple weeks ago. She gets online and is available to help students as needed. My brother that works for the City was told last week that he had the next two weeks off except two days a week he comes in to pick up trash from parks. My nieces and nephew that are in school are adapting to online school.

Brian and I are home together nearly 24 hours a day. It is a good thing we love each other and more importantly like each other and even know when to walk away from each other. I can't watch tv like he can so I spend a few hours writing or working outside.

These strange times have brought strange commercials about contact less pizza delivery and restaurants doing family style meals for pick up.

Since these are historic times weather or not everyone living through them realizes. Some day 72 years from now (because that is when this year's census data will be available to the public) Genealogists will be looking at data from the 2020 census which hopefully you logged in and participated in. Will note that it happened during the outbreak or the pandemic or whatever they decide to call it by then. They will know who you were quarantined at home with and they will compare data on some families and learn that some people were alive for the census but died soon after and wonder if the virus is what killed them. They will then look for a death certificate to confirm.

Stay safe.