5) Social Isolation for the Highest Risk for COVID-19

April 24, 2020
Friday

Sheltering in place: Many of us are now inside ~ we are home-bound and sequestered by an unceasing cacophony of bad news and public warnings about COVID-19.  It's like waking up in a the middle of a low budget sci-fi movie that has all the EXIT doors locked.  Outside is an invisible virus that invades people who are unaware of its devastating consequences. It quickly overcomes the unwary and puts them at the mercy of a vastly unprepared government bureaucracy. Inside, people are huddled together are 6 foot intervals, squint watching for minuscule droplets of each others' saliva and snot, wiping down all non-porous surfaces with Clorox, and washing their hands obsessively. 


For us who are in the "high risk" group, we have become hyper-aware of the possibility that coronavirus can live on polypropylene (plastic) and metal surfaces up to 3 days! We are careful to only go out when it's safe; we wipe down surfaces in our homes, and we wash our hands more than ever before, and today I got a couple masks from a friend of mine.  Just in case the folks who are now suggesting mask wearing outdoors or at stores is a good idea.

It is almost unfathomable to think that just 6 weeks ago I was wondering if the Texas Longhorns were going to make it into March Madness. And then, in just a few weeks we all found ourselves in a March Madness that had nothing to do with basketball.

History of HHT: Many years ago I got used to having HHT. My mom had HHT and was in one of the original groups of people studied by Dr. White at Yale. I observed her dealing with frequent nosebleeds until I went away to college in 1965.  I had nosebleeds off and on for years, until they started being "problematic", meaning I couldn't get them to stop at times, I began going to my GP in Austin, and eventually was referred to an ENT Dr. Leary who was able to fit me in almost anytime, to cauterize my nose AVMs. (More Detail Here Later) Its been my experience that people with some sort of malady have an opportunity to empathize with their medical situation and thereby intuit (or grok) something of the external world in a way that can be foggy to people who have not had to consider their impermanence in the world.

The New Normal: Today I live in a sci-fi reality where we (who are older that 70, immunosuppressed, transplanted, and with liver disease) can't go outside without worrying about infection.  This return to health anxiety added to the fear of succumbing to COVID-19 increases our hyper-conscious state and has me, at least, balancing daily apprehension and gratitude. These personal musings relate to the state of the nation in relation to this virus as well.

I am also of the notion that the coronavirus and the United States' neglectful part in stopping (and now perhaps even slowing) it, may actually have some socio-geologic influence on ending a major epoch (the Holocene) and perhaps escorting us into the Anthropocene epoch.  In the matter of a very short period of time we as a nation of people that is part of the world population are forced by a virus into social isolation. If, as I believe, the eradication of of COVID-19 takes as much longer as "flattening the curve" may take, we could see major changes in cleaning up the environment.  Simply stated, keeping people out of swarming the planet, polluting the water and pushing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, can slow the weather changes that are so worrisome. 

The question is how the public will adjust to all the changes that remain after the coronavirus pandemic is over?  Our return to the world we distanced ourselves from a few weeks ago may be as challenging as coping with the world we are trapped in today.