Thirteenth Entry
Monday, March 30th, 2020
The BBC reported that things have changed “utterly” — another term I’ve never heard a news anchor use.
The Netherlands and other European countries reported they received defective masks from China. France ordered one billion Chinese masks. A trove of 250,000 face masks found at the United Nations was donated to the city of New York. The United Nations displayed a level of preparedness not seen in much of the US.
The UN is physically in New York but politically independent of the city, state, and country. Like the Vatican, it has its own police and fire force, postal system, and electrical generation plant. Mayor Bloomberg cleverly managed to get them to renovate their entire campus, bringing it up to local code. Those masks must have survived that major renovation which ended about five years ago.
Crude oil is at its lowest price in 18 years.
Eggs “spiked” to over $3.00 per dozen.
The president said, “The peak, the highest point, is two weeks away.” I hope someone is making a comic book about his role in leading the country through this 100-year crisis.
More than 1,000 people have died in NY State. There is protective equipment for this week, but not enough ventilators. Even with new hospital tents in Central Park, there will not be enough beds.
Urban doctors in one of the richest cities in the world are pondering issues of wartime medicine. Hospitals are reusing equipment five times—equipment that would normally be used once and discarded. I wonder if there could be a silver lining in this shift over time.
At 2:00 AM, eating popcorn out of the pot I finally realized what is so different. My least favorite aspect of this city is gone—almost. I heard a car alarm earlier today, and just now, I can hear a garbage truck. But, for the previous fifteen or twenty minutes, it was genuinely quiet, though not silent. I can still hear the same garbage truck many blocks away on its third stop. With no competing sound, I can track its route like a bird in the forest. A level of nuance has emerged in the soundscape. Utterly different.
March 31st, 2020 Central Park