The Coronaviary

Ever since May 1st, we’ve been angst-ily deliberating the do-or-don’t we break out of our bubble question. On May 4th I put a stake in the sands of my daily journal declaring “wait 3-4 weeks to see what happens in Texas, and then start tip-toeing out“.

The May stats remained unremarkable here. Things trickled along at a steady pace. There appeared to be a glimmer of light at the end of this dark Rona-tunnel. We didn’t do it, but a visit to a restaurant no longer seemed as outrageous – at least for outdoor dining. We could imagine a gradual return to more contact with people. We actually let a social distancing visitor enter our home to use the restroom. Gutsy. That felt like a bold move in our own ‘opening up’.

Then, poised on the edge of a shift change in our movements … the death of George Floyd brought thousands into the streets and Memorial Day gatherings enticed large crowds to beaches, parks and barbecues. On May 28th we plugged into a special vaccine update by Dr. Peter Hotez where he spoke of a potential Texas surge coming as late as July and no vaccine until 2021 at the earliest.

So I moved the goal posts in my journal again: “Revisit release date early July“

2020 feels like it might be a wipe-out.

Starting June 15th, the daily Houston virus stats chart in the local paper began showing a slight increase. A noticeable up-tick followed by a couple lower readings and another higher one. Not yet sure if this is significant – a new trend, or just a blip? The signal that something might be changing became dramatically clear when I opened the newspaper the morning of June 23rd. The jump looked foreboding.

The next day, the paper removed the chart — that was even more scary. I’d been tracking the new cases every day for weeks now. The daily new cases for Houston was replaced with the % positivity chart. Is that an indicator that we shifting into a different level of alarm? We also now have people in our closer circle getting sick.

It’s getting real.

Today, a week later, the positivity % continues to rise and the conversation has shifted to ICU bed capacity and forecasting. Apparently we are going to also argue and cast doubt on these numbers, but I won’t get into that here.

Academic projections are manifesting in real life.

I am comforted that the scientist’s assessments match what is happening. Cause and effect can be linked. This is something I can understand. It makes sense when so much else around me makes no sense at all right now.

I happily pay my flood insurance every year and hope it’s money down the drain. Similarly, we stayed at home after the stay-at-home order was lifted, hoping that would have been an overly cautious complete waste of time. I’m glad we did, but …

I kinda wish we had been wrong about this.

What’s next?