Coronavirus – The Second Wave is coming!

Yesterday afternoon, I ventured out into the land of risk and death according to the media in my Blue state.  We needed toilet paper.  The wife said go hunt.  She wants the scotched taped, large red-lettered sign I put on the toilet door – no more than two sheets/per visit, taken down.  Of course, the sign was done in humor, there are only the two of us locked in the house, for our own protection the Governor says.  Our dog doesn’t pay any attention to the sign.  The side of the couch has become his favorite leg lifting area.

The hunt in the dangerous, grocery stores, masks, gloves, and socially distanced by doorway gendarmes was once again fruitless.  Not a roll of T.P. to be found.

With so many people trapped at home, the normal balance between home T.P. use and workplace, institutional quality, rough, but Thank God, splinter-less, T.P., has not come in equilibrium yet.  The demand for home T.P. is outstripping supply.  The empty office buildings have more than enough but the Governor requires those doors to be locked, for our own protection.

The only place that is open, with plenty of T.P. supplies and plenty of vacant stalls is the airport.

The kids called the other day.  They asked to speak to Grandpa.  Grammy explained to them, delicately, since we are almost out of T.P. and Grandpa was saving his two sheets per day for her use, he had gone to the Airport.  Gone to the airport they said, yup, she said.  If you have to go, plan in advance and go to the airport.  Nobody is using the airport.  The airport is not padlocked and there is plenty of T.P.  Grandpa tried to swipe one of those industrial-size rolls of T.P. but the T.P. box was doubled chained.  He would not have made it out past Homeland Security anyway with a huge T.P. role the size of a hay bale.  One the bright side, he has started a new business.  He drives people to the airport a lot.

Tonight the media terror began again.  Our city, as locked down as we were, had a 75% increase in Coronavirus cases yesterday.  We had seven new cases reported.

I quickly did the math of impending end of times, seven new cases yesterday.  Factoring for a multiplier effect, seven new cases a day, with an exponential explosion of infections, within just a year the city would experience possibly 10-20,000 new infections.  We have 700,000 people, the death rate could be staggering, 200 more dead.  Lock-down, Lock- down, shrieked the terrified talking head on the T.V.

We can’t see the Rabbi for spiritual help with our distress.  He is busy putting his virtual synagogue online, to heck with Jewish laws about Yom Tov and Shabbat.  The Torah is securely locked away, in the locked-down shul from the virus.  My annual dues bill came today, three months early with a High Holiday appeal for the Yom Kippur begathon.

If I can’t go to shul, and the Rabbi is only sometimes available online, what exactly am I paying for? An empty building, no minyans, no schnapps, air kichel, and herring after shabbat schmoozing? If somebody dies, we can’t even have a graveside minyan.

The wife wanted to see her doctor about a problem she thinks she has, a strange patch on her right breast.  The doctor is virtual.  She asked me to hold the cell phone steady so he could get a good look at the dark spot.  Was it hard or soft, he asked?  I don’t know, I answered to his question.  I have not dated since we were married 43 years ago and can’t remember how to compare breasts.

The grandkids are going to school virtually, zooming.  Their learning results have been worse than poor.  Physical Education class is throwing wadded paper balls at an improvised basketball hoop they made.  Homeschooling is really not that bad the Educators say. They promise to figure it out for next year.

Thank God, I won’t have to pay for their crazy college tuitions.  It will all be done online, for a fraction of the cost. Too bad about the beer bashes and skirt-chasing they will miss.

My son still has his job, only barely.  He is very anxious. A better word is frightened. He works very unproductively from home.  His wife lost her job a month ago.  She was the office manager of a non-essential business.  If she had been a manager of a pot store, a liquor store, or an abortion clinic, she would still be working. Essential businesses all the government said.

They are living on reserves and wondering if they should pay the mortgage, the cell phone bill, or the car payment this month. Food is o.k., they have room on their credit card at 21.5% interest. Amazon delivers.

The talking terrorized media heads on T.V. are saying we are going into a second wave of the virus any minute.  Death will be everywhere, except for the nursing homes.  The Governor had already cleared them out.  He sent all the Covid positive patients there for mutual safety early in the first wave.  Did not work out well for half of the seniors formerly living there.

The unemployment figures just came out.  40,000,000 million Americans are out of work. Around the world the unemployment figures are super grim, except in Malawi.  The virus has not been a big deal there.  I understand, there are a lot of help wanted signs for Cowherders. We really should not be concerned.  The Government will take care of us. They are here to help.

The airwaves are filled with grim predictions – the second wave is coming.  The Governor is going to extend the lockdown for another 60 days, he said.  But, he promised, I will be able to vote in the upcoming election for how well he has done saving our lives, safely by mail.  This afternoon, the wife, I, and our dog each got two ballots apiece to mail our votes securely back and be counted.

We are getting desperate.  We are watching reruns of the reruns on Netflix T.V. series we did not even like the first time. They remain popular with Fido.  Caribbean House Hunters has become our favorite show.

Our Governor smiles and said assuredly, everything the Orange Man in Washington has done has been wrong.  The new lock-down is to save us since Orange Man won’t.  Our leaders would never lie to us while we are in a crisis.

Listen to the medical experts we are sternly admonished.  Just because they have been consistently wrong and keep changing their expert views, that is no reason not to listen, to obey them. Wash your hands, wear a mask to bed, sleep in separate beds even better, in separate rooms if you can. I guess that means I get the couch with Canine urine fragrance. Let the dog live outside is an option. Don’t go further than your mailbox without extreme precautions. And please, please do not get in your car and drive to see if there is life outside 100 yards from your house. Too much outdoor sunlight is bad for you.

The second wave is coming.  The experts are positive.  It will be worse than the first wave they said. We lost 93 people from the virus the first time.  The wife just corrected me, 92. The 93rd was shot.  He found his wife in flagrante delecto.  The coroner said she had the virus, so they counted her as deceased from the virus. The husband was not charged, mental illness caused by the virus.

We have discounted the spikes in suicides, depressive illness, untreated cancers, and old geezers dying untreated in lockdown homes from broken heart failures. The numbers are accelerating multiples faster than the virus.

What possibly can go wrong from a second lock-down? The experts can’t be wrong a second time. They learned so much the first time around.  Our political leaders would not use this crisis for their own advantage, would they? Trust…again…

What possibly could go wrong from a second lock-down?  If it does…  The neighbor across the street is sure the Jews did it.