Coronavirus

Chris Knight's avatar

It was only a matter of time, I suppose.  And based on what those who were in close proximity to me have said, it seems like it’s the omicron (anagram for “moronic”) variant.  Which is the most wildly contagious as well as apparently being the least malign of the strains found so far.  Two friends and I were at a movie theater on Christmas Day, watching Spider-Man: No Way Home and one of them believes she picked it up during a trip to the restroom.  She tested positive two days later and our other friend got a positive result the next day.  My symptoms began a few hours later.  It hasn’t been as severe as theirs, but still… this has been a pretty cruddy way to end 2021 on.  Or a fitting one.  Or something.

It’s almost miraculous that it took this long to contract it, given my work as ...

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 Here it is if you’ve forgotten: my most serious prediction ever…

 

Make a note of this.  January the Sixth, Two Thousand and Twenty-One.  Just before 1 p.m. EST.

If I’m wrong about this I’ll eat my fedora.  No really, I will.

Here it is:

I
do declare that four years from today, the United States will be in the
WORST condition it has been in, in at least the past fifty years.

Hold me to this.  Do it.

I am dead-#@%$ serious.
 
 
 That was ten months ago.  Much less than the forty-eight I allocated to Biden.
Out of control inflation.  Soaring gas prices.  Less food.  Energy costs set to skyrocket.  A military more dedicated to being “woke” than defense readiness.  Americans still stranded in Afghanistan.  Supply chains strangled because of over-burdening regulation on truckers.  Vaccine mandates.  No effective counter to a China becoming more belligerent by
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I’m still  choosing to be coy about where fate landed me after I left North Carolina almost four years ago.  Even so, I still keep an eye on my old home state, and I’ll forever be proud to have been a son of the Tarheel State (even if my basketball proclivities lay toward Duke, but I digress…).

Right now I’m sitting in some abject disbelief at North Carolina’s governor Roy Cooper insisting on keeping the state closed for all intents and purposes.  Neighboring states like Georgia are slamming the doors wide open for businesses large and small.  South Carolina places of worship have begun to crank up for regular services.  So far none of these places have recorded a rise in COVID-19 cases.  If anything the infection rate is dropping.

There is good reason for that.  We are definitely on the back side of the coronavirus situation.  “Shelter in ...

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Something that’s been twirling around my gray matter since last night:

The coronavirus situation is bringing about the first real paradigm shift since the fall of communism thirty years ago.

We are not going to come out of this the same that we were before, just as life in the civilized world – or anywhere in the world for that matter – did not proceed as it had been before the Soviet Union lost control of its satellites before itself imploding.  That chain of events precipitated an entirely new sphere of being and now for these current generations, COVID-19 is doing much the same.  Albeit, on a vastly larger scale.  It’s one thing to watch the Berlin Wall coming down from thousands of miles away.  It’s something else entirely more drastic when it’s the President of the United States telling you… yes you… to wear a mask when going ...

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Just me in my office today:

Everybody had to wear a mask inside the place.  That was after being admitted inside following temperature being taken and making sure we hadn’t traveled outside the state in the past 14 days.  Less than a quarter of the normal staff was in the actual building.  Starting tomorrow I’ll be almost strictly working from my house for Lord only knows how long.
And one of my cousins thinks that my eyes in this pic makes me look like a meth addict.  I think I was trying more to channel Bane from The Dark Knight Rises.
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That word has never sounded so sweet.

The call came about thirty minutes ago.  The test indicated that I was negative for the COVID-19 virus.  Although the nurse emphasized that a “negative” now doesn’t mean that a “positive” later is out of the question.

But for now, I’m choosing to  be elated.  Like I haven’t been in a heap long time.

Self-isolation is not a fun thing.  Not at all.  Driving out to get tested two days ago was the only time since Sunday night that I’ve dared venture from the confines of my home (okay yeah well there was also taking Tammy on walks so she could “do her business” but you know what I mean).  Especially with yesterday being my birthday.  But some friends figured out some stuff and we were able to do something with a gimmick called Zoom.  Ever heard of Zoom?  All the cool kids ...

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Remember way back in second grade, when you found that big book on Miss Hoppenleiger’s classroom shelf.  You know, the one that was loaded with interesting facts and cool stuff and sometimes it was pretty gross.  Yeah, that book.  And you read how ancient Egyptians would make mummies by shoving a metal implement up corpse’s nose to remove the brain through the nostrils.  Yeah well that’s what happened to me about an hour ago.  Only it wasn’t a metal hook.  It was something like those plastic coffee stirrers that you pull out of the utensils bin at a McDonald’s.  And it was six inches long.  But it did go straight up my left nostril and if it didn’t impinge on my brain then it came *$%#ing close.

But anyway…

Following my earlier report this morning about being instructed to self-isolate because of COVID-19-ish symptoms,  one of my co-workers texted ...

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Well, this is an interesting turn of events.

Could mean nothing at all.  Then again, well…

The symptoms began yesterday.  Persistent coughing and a fever that may have been higher than I initially realized.  The coughing has diminished for the time being but it comes and goes.  No phlegm.  In the past few days I’d finally expelled the last of the mucous from a nasty sinus infection in January (my colleagues begged me to see a doctor but I had to “be a man” and all).

Now I’ve been evaluated by a screening and given instructions to self-isolate for what may be the next 72 hours.  So that’s what’s going to happen.  Fortunately the larder is stocked with plenty of food, lots of liquid in the refrigerator and there is an ample supply of toilet paper.  There is enough here to ride out a siege by an army of Cossacks ...

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“One Shining Moment” is the song that CBS uses in the final moments of their annual coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, to recap the highlights of the road to the championship.  All well and good… except that there won’t be an NCAA men’s basketball tournament this year because of the coronavirus epidemic.

So I, foolish I, took it upon myself to address this curious situation…

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I emphasize “imperfect” because there is not an absolutely perfect solution and there never will be.  COVID-19 is now such a pervasive element that it’s as every reputable engineer will note: there is going to be a trade-off.  We won’t be able to help one matter without it negatively impacting others.

But from where I sit…

– fast-track production of and widespread treatment with hydroxychloroquine IMMEDIATELY.  Especially in conjunction with zinc supplement, azithromycin and other medications being found to aggressively confront the symptoms of COVID-19.  Especially in light of research that has come out of France in recent days about the hydrozychloroquine/AZT regimen.  This could be our generation’s “polio vaccine moment”, if we attack coronavirus with something that almost with each passing hour is looking like a silver bullet against the illness.

– no-frills bare-bones economic stimulus of $2000 per U.S. citizen.  Two weeks ago I would have ...

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