Posted by Had to decide this morning whether to go to the gym or not. They’ve cancelled a lot of their classes – especially the ones with older adults and kids. Ultimately, I ended up deciding to go.
Kind of came down to three things. First, the number of reported cases in my area is very low which suggests the risk is low. Secondly, exercise helps boost the immune system and everyone can use that in these days. Third, I figured I could further reduce my risk by limiting the amount of equipment I used and washing my hands or using the sanitizer as often as possible.
The gym had all kinds of spray bottles spread out over the equipment. Since I have some experience with disinfection protocols, I was a little curious about what was in there and its true effectiveness. I suspect a quick spray isn’t going to do anything to this virus, so, where I could, I actually used towels to cover the handles. The biggest struggle was remembering to not touch my face.
I strongly suspect that it won’t be long before that is no longer an option. Things are shutting down across the country. Some of it is necessary in regions where there are significantly more cases and population density is higher. Some of it seems to be more of giving the impression that you are taking things seriously.
I mean it makes perfect sense to me to close bars in Manhattan. I’ve only been to NYC once but it was wall to wall people. Close proximity just gives more opportunity for the virus to spread and New York has a significant number of cases. I saw where several states have closed restaurants (although allowing for carry out). On a state level, this doesn’t make as much sense to me.
In a crowded urban area, it totally makes sense. Just assume people eat out two nights a week and at different places. Well start chaining together all the people your exposed to at both places and then all the people they’ve been exposed to and so on. Away from the big cities, I’m not sure how much sense it makes. But then I’m not the one making these decisions.
I’m supposed to get the second of my three knee injections later today. Got a voice mail and a text from the doctor’s office. The voice mail said “we aren’t cancelling your appointment yet” (yikes) but both warned that I needed to reschedule if I had symptoms like fever or trouble breathing. There was also something about an additional screening when I got to the office and limits on how many people could accompany me.
My first thought was that this is an ortho doc and not someone who is going to be treating people for this virus. But then I realized that there are still going to be other emergencies and so you still have to safeguard the medical professionals so they are there to deal with those type of things. I don’t know if my treatment becomes less effective if I don’t take the three shots so I’ll just have to hope that they don’t get more restrictive next week.
One last observation based on dinner last night. We still went out. I didn’t think about it at the time but the tables were all empty. This is a place that normally has the desert menu at the table and salt and pepper shakers. None of that. The server wouldn’t bring a desert menu because they weren’t using them. Then it finally dawned on me that it was fewer things that people could touch and fewer things that needed to be cleaned between seatings. Welcome to the new reality.
I am wonder how long it will be before the dance studio has to close. They’ve already cancelled group classes and parties and are requiring everyone to wash hands before each lesson. But with other places closing “non-essential” things, I don’t think it will be long before it happens here. I guess it probably depends on whether or not we start to see the number of new cases level off.
I’m sure everyone is having similar experiences so there is probably nothing new here. I’ll just keep looking at the numbers and assessing the risk.
Facing Diagonal Wall 