Friday night. There ought to be a way to take all the unused Friday nights where you stayed home, put them in a savings account, and use them up when you get bored. Now that’s a tech start-up I’d invest in.
Things have gotten relatively normal at work – a simple, quiet day. Coworkers are still amazed by my hair, just like they are by the fact that I’m perfectly okay with working from home and staying in one room. Goddamn extroverts. Heh. Well, more WFH for me if they don’t want it.
I resumed my workouts two days ago: this is the third week, and the routine has already begun to suffer. Nonetheless, some exercise is better than none. I might have to brave the increasingly infection-infested city to get a few more weight plates for ye olde dumbbells.
In covid news… Holy shit, there’s a lot of covid news. Normally, I have to go on Reddit to find an interesting piece of news. (I never would’ve found out about, say, Turkey without Reddit.) Today is not one of those days.
It began late last night. Some intrepid reporter found out that Hope Hicks, Trump’s closest adviser, tested positive for covid. In a few hours, Trump tweeted that he and Melania also tested positive. I was up until 3am, refreshing the news feeds and speculating about the potential outcomes with everyone else. It must’ve been so weird for most east coast folks (at least those who go to bed at a reasonable hour) to learn about the news this morning…
Throughout the day today, the White House kept providing increasingly panicky announcements. At first, they said Trump had mild symptoms. Then they said the symptoms were moderate. They produced a doctor’s note that said he was “good-natured” (yeah, right) and received an experimental antibody cocktail. When you get to the point of giving the president untested drugs, that’s probably not good. Later in the day, a helicopter picked him up and took him to Walter Reed Medical Center, where he’ll allegedly work for the next few days. (Once again – yeah, right.) Most disturbingly, Trump didn’t tweet all day (an unprecedented occurrence in and of itself) except for an 18-second video where he appeared alone (without Melania) and said he was okay. It says something about the United States when people have reasonable doubts whether the video was real or pre-recorded just in case months ago. (And where was Melania?) Trump walked to the helicopter right outside on his own, so at least they didn’t wheel him out on a gurney. His administration leaks like a sieve: some aides said he was running a fever.
Pence and his wife allegedly tested negative. Ditto for Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. On the other hand, quite a few Republicans who attended the Saturday ceremony in the Rose Garden said they tested positive. The ceremony was to celebrate Trump’s nomination of ACB, aka Amy Coney Barrett, to the Supreme Court. (Never mind the fact that Justice Ginsburg hadn’t even been buried yet.) Videos of the event show dozens of people walking around without masks, hugging, kissing, wiping their noses and then shaking hands, etc. That’s starting to look like a super-spreader event: two Republicans senators have already tested positive, as well as a few other VIPs. Some wealthy Republican donors were present as well: they went back to their home states, and likely started their own little clusters there.
I hope Trump doesn’t die. After all his petty thievery and not-so-petty corruption, that’d be too easy: a relatively fast exit without consequences. At the same time, I don’t feel sorry for him or his anti-science, pro-suffering entourage. No sympathy for Nazi sympathizers. They knew about the pandemic, they deliberately disregarded every rule, and there they are. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes – the pandemic edition, eh?
I still find it incredibly hard to believe that I, a compete nobody, had a more secure anti-covid system than the goddamn president of the United States. All I have is a healthy sense of paranoia, a bit of disposable income, and working knowledge of epidemiology. (I was into it before it was cool.) I stayed the hell inside, didn’t attend any social events aside from a fully-masked socially distanced backyard birthday party in August (there were a total of five people), and didn’t leave the house without a mask, wraparound glasses, and a face shield. Oh, and my summer vacation consisted of a 2,500-mile roadtrip with extremely little social interaction.
Anyone could do what I did, or at least try to. (I know that’s hard if you have kids.) But the president of the United States, the guy with the best scientists at his disposal, didn’t even try. Just about the only thing he hadn’t done to deliberately catch covid was hanging out with covid patients the way Boris Johnson had done before he got sick. Short of that, and maybe licking random doorknobs, Trump did every single risky thing in the book: shaking hands with dozens of people at events and rallies, not socially distancing, not wearing a mask, etc… If anything, I’m surprised it had taken him seven months to catch covid.
This weekend will likely have even more explosive revelations, even more insane headlines. The four hours of sleep last night are making themselves known: I’ll likely pass out very soon. I can’t even imagine what headlines I’ll see when I wake up some 10-12 hours later. There’s a possibility that Pence will assume presidential duties (if only temporarily) by Monday. There’s a possibility that Nancy Pelosi, the third in the succession line, will take over later this month. There are so many possibilities… Anything is fair game now. Stay safe out there, folks – and if you haven’t caught covid by now, then congratulations on being more responsible than the US president. Heh.
Grigory Lukin.com 