Scattered Thoughts on the Coronavirus Crisis

As you may know, I live in San Francisco, and today was the first day of the “shelter in place” order. The changes in the past week – such as all public schools and libraries closing, the state government ordering all bars/clubs to close, etc. led me to think this was coming. I had already decided to not go to the local ace meetup days before it was formally cancelled/moved online (and no, I didn’t try to attend the online meetup).

I think it is good that the local governments are doing this. I am convinced that extreme social distancing can save lives, and I could see from the behavior of people around me (even while keeping a safe distance) that not enough people were going to do the social distancing thing without a mandatory government order.

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The biggest concern in our household is the fact that my parents (who I live with) are over 70 years old. Namely, they are in the age group which has a high fatality rate.

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It’s just about the end of plum blossom season. Magnolia flower season is still on but winding down. The rhododendrons and camellias are still very much in bloom. The blackwood acacias are also blooming, giving many people allergies and causing them to wonder if they might be infected. Cherry blossom seasons has started, but hasn’t reached the peak yet. The bees and hummingbirds are very busy pollinating all these flowers (except the blackwood acacias).

The crows, sparrows, wild parrots, stellar jays, scrub jays, mallard ducks, coots, Canada geese, great blue herons, squirrels, and local cats are all behaving normally. The mergansers are acting weird, but they always act weird. I haven’t seen any raccoons, skunks, robins, pigeons, mice, or rats lately, but I’m sure they are doing fine.

It’s as if this coronavirus crisis is primarily affecting humans, and that other life forms don’t care.

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In early March, I went to a bar with some people. I heard someone talk about how he just got back from France, and that the situation in Italy was getting hot while he was in France, and that he got out before they started restricting flights from France. Another person was excitedly talking about her trip to Las Vegas, from where she has flown earlier that day.

I noticed that I was standing really close to these people, because there simply wasn’t space to get further away from people in the bar, and that they had both recently been on flights, including one international flight. I thought to myself, even when I was in the bar I guess this is how the coronavirus spreads.

That was more than 14 days ago, and I don’t have any reason to believe that I have been infected.

I haven’t stepped in a bar since then.

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It starting raining again recently.

It basically did not rain in February in California. That was bad. It was a hint that we may have a drought in summer. But it has been raining sometimes this month. May the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada be high (but not too high) this year. Hopefully, that’s one less crisis to worry about.

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In some ways, this is like sheltering at home during a typhoon (like when I lived in Taiwan), or during the wildfire smoke crisis of 2018.

In some ways, it is completely different.

During the wildfire smoke crisis, I basically did not go out for walks in the park, or walk very much at all, but I didn’t do social distancing.

Now, I’m doing the legally required social distancing, but I’m going out for walks in the park (while making sure that I stay 6+ feet away from other people, which requires paying attention because a lot of people having been walking in the park today).

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It’s going to feel weird writing blog posts which aren’t about the coronavirus crisis. But I’m going to write blog posts which aren’t about the coronavirus crisis, because a) I don’t want to spend all of my spare waking hours thinking about the coronavirus crisis and b) I don’t think other people want to spend all of their spare waking hours thinking about the coronavirus crisis either.