Ain’t No Sunshine

I am resisting the need to turn the heat on today. Rationally, I’ve looked at the temperatures the last couple of days when we’ve had rain, clouds and cool temperatures and it would make sense to turn it on. Get rid of the damp chill that kind of exists here. But there is the other part of me that says it is late May and the heater is for winter and winter should be long gone by now. As problems go, its not that big of a deal.

We are hoping the rain holds off so we can get Rocco to the park for his walk. With the wet weather, he hasn’t been since Sunday and he’s letting us know that this is not acceptable.

In the political realm, we remain as divided as ever. I think I mentioned this before but I saw a poll where 75% of one party think the worst is behind us while 75% of the other party think it is yet to come. Likely because of the bubble you choose to live in and the sources of information you like to consume. Hard to believe that we could be so divided but that doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon.

I won’t stay on this point too long but there are consequences to this level of toxic partisanship. Take the malaria drug that may or may not be helpful in our current situation. It seems because it was backed by one particular polarizing person, that those who don’t like him must automatically be in opposition. Other countries are using this drug. Is it working? I don’t know. Lots of places have far less deaths per capita then we do. We’re arguing about it. Seems like a giant waste of time and effort but here we are.

There is still so much we don’t know but every day it seems like we reach new levels of silliness. There are anecdotal reports about vitamin D and that it might help to boost your vitamin D. Is that a fact? No. Could it hurt? Well you don’t want to take an entire bottle of vitamin D pills but certainly the natural way to get it is to be out in the sun.

And we are blessed with a large number of beaches in this country (none around here though), so, naturally, certain places have closed the beaches. Or allowed them to be open but only if you walking or running on them. I get that you don’t want overcrowding – social distancing and all, but it seems like you could have come up with a better solution given the potential benefits of sunshine.

I’ve said before that since I have a lot of free time on my hands, I’ve been looking at the numbers from various sources. One thing that jumps out is that there are places in the world where the number of cases is still rapidly climbing. A lot in the middle east like Saudi Arabia but pretty much all over the world – South Africa, India, Bangladesh, Belarus, Mexico and Chile just to give some the biggest examples.

But what is interesting is that in most of these places the number of deaths per capita doesn’t approach what was observed in Europe. Why is that? Are they keeping it away from vulnerable populations? Is there something different about those populations that makes them less vulnerable. Has the virus mutated a bit? Are they doing a better job treating? I don’t know. I don’t have the patience to sit through any news program here on the off chance that they might devote 30 seconds to something other than the situation here.

And you can see it in the numbers. The death rate as measured by deaths over cases isn’t a perfect figure but its the best I’ve got. Based on WHO numbers, the peak was 7.1% on May 1 and May 3. The rate for yesterday was 6.7%. I can find source for these other countries but there’s typically a language thing so I can’t really make any real conclusions. Again, I just notice things and wonder why.

Well that’s probably enough heavy stuff for today. I’ll just end with another minor inconvenience. My hair is really starting to get out of control. As a guy at my age, I guess I’m happy to still have this problem. It doesn’t so much grow long as it just goes out and then gets all wavy. Hair is weird sometimes. My brother told me there was a three hour wait because they aren’t back to full service level. Plus you have to wear a mask and I’m just finding that I’m not totally comfortable wearing a mask for any period of time. Just that whole thing of it feeling kind of constrictive that I can’t get around. And haircuts have always been those things that I just check the app and book when there is no line. I’m not sure I can put that much thought into it. Guess I’ll just keep sweeping it out of my eyes for now.

And now I have to go get my allergy shot. The bad news is it means wearing the mask again. The good news is that after a couple of these shots, my allergies are a little more under control.