{"id":44661,"date":"2020-03-12T23:58:53","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T03:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/?p=44661"},"modified":"2020-03-13T00:04:12","modified_gmt":"2020-03-13T04:04:12","slug":"blogging-in-the-time-of-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/blogging-in-the-time-of-coronavirus\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogging in the Time of Coronavirus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the beginning of February, I was saying to other activists that no one would take the failures of the American <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/social-contract\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">social contract<\/a> seriously until we disrupted commerce.\u00a0 It&#8217;s all about the money here.\u00a0 (And petty inconvenience. People do hate a traffic jam.)\u00a0 Then it was like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/articles\/columns\/hip-hop\/9330718\/drake-flip-the-switch-challenge-explained\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">someone flipped the switch<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eonline.com\/news\/1130173\/see-the-best-celebrity-flip-the-switch-challenges\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Drake-style<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\ud835\uddd9\ud835\uddf9\ud835\uddf6\ud835\uddfd\ud835\uddfd\ud835\uddf2\ud835\uddf1 \ud835\ude01\ud835\uddf5\ud835\uddf2 \ud835\ude00\ud835\ude04\ud835\uddf6\ud835\ude01\ud835\uddf0\ud835\uddf5. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/t8qHcGRUhY\">pic.twitter.com\/t8qHcGRUhY<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Saturday Night Live &#8211; SNL (@nbcsnl) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/nbcsnl\/status\/1236523965759262720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 8, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/center><\/p>\n<p>One day, I was looking for resistance groups who would be up for a peaceful protest to interfere with business as usual, and the next day, I was like, &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/fghsnews.com\/2035\/series\/meme-of-the-week-chonk-oh-lawd-he-comin\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Oh lawd, it&#8217;s comin&#8217;<\/a> and it&#8217;s not coming in peace.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p><center><div id=\"attachment_44667\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/knowyourmeme.com\/memes\/hotline-bling\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-44667\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/drake.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-full wp-image-44667\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/drake.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/drake-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-44667\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Not what I was looking for.<\/p><\/div><\/center><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/feb\/24\/italians-struggle-with-surreal-lockdown-as-coronavirus-cases-rise\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">That was on February 24, when Italy locked down 11 northern towns<\/a> in an attempt to contain the spread of a novel coronavirus, and I realized the entire world was probably going to be disrupted, unless governments took swift and decisive action. Italy did not take that action; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/mar\/10\/from-confidence-to-quarantine-how-coronavirus-swept-italy\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it took two more weeks to quarantine the whole country<\/a>. Now the health care system can&#8217;t keep up and doctors are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2020\/03\/who-gets-hospital-bed\/607807\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">triaging people to treat the ones most likely to live<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-51836898\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong did much better<\/a>, rapidly developing and deploying tests for the virus now known as COVID-19, and aggressively tracing all exposures to limit the outbreak. South Korea is up to testing 10,000 people a day through drive-through clinics.<\/p>\n<p>In the U.S., <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2020\/03\/how-many-americans-have-been-tested-coronavirus\/607597\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">we haven&#8217;t tested 10,000 people in total<\/a>. (Updated testing numbers can be be found on the <a href=\"https:\/\/covidtracking.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">COVID-19 Tracker website<\/a>.) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/health\/the-reason-u-s-covid-19-numbers-arent-higher-not-enough-tests\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">We don&#8217;t have the test kits<\/a> &#8212; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbssports.com\/nba\/news\/coronavirus-donovan-mitchell-confirms-positive-test-after-jazz-teammate-rudy-gobert-contracted-covid-19\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">unless you&#8217;re an athlete<\/a>. Part of the problem is that in 2018, Trump ousted <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/to-your-health\/wp\/2018\/05\/10\/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the government officials who would have led the response to a pandemic<\/a>. That same year, <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20200206210123\/https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/to-your-health\/wp\/2018\/02\/01\/cdc-to-cut-by-80-percent-efforts-to-prevent-global-disease-outbreak\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention came to the end of its funding<\/a> for its global disease prevention programs in places China, where COVID-19 apparently started. And another part of the problem is us, the electorate: We&#8217;re the ones who voted into office an unqualified, undignified, incompetent, bigoted, blowhard reality-TV star with no <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/francesbridges\/2019\/04\/30\/how-trump-embodies-the-definition-of-a-bad-leader\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">real leadership qualities<\/a>, instead of a woman who was criticized for being &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2016\/09\/clinton-trump-debate-overprepared\/501899\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">overprepared<\/a>.&#8221; (Don&#8217;t bother reacting with &#8220;not all of us voted for him&#8221;; I certainly didn&#8217;t vote for him and I&#8217;m still including myself in &#8220;us.&#8221; We failed as a society.)<\/p>\n<p>I remember a guy &#8212; a well-off white guy with employer-provided insurance &#8212; saying to me shortly before the 2016 election that he thought there was a 50% chance that Trump would be a better-than-expected president, and a 50% chance that he&#8217;d be so bad it would take the &#8220;whole system down.&#8221; I said, &#8220;You can say that because you don&#8217;t think anything will hurt you.&#8221; And, privately, I wondered, what system is he talking about? Does he want no laws at all? Every man for himself? Unbridled capitalism where he thinks he&#8217;s going to make so much money that he won&#8217;t need to use government-funded roads or bridges, or breathe clean air and drink clean water? Call me crazy, but it seems to me that people will be making a lot less money in the era of the coronavirus. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/coronavirus-has-cost-global-stock-markets-16-trillion-in-less-than-a-month-2020-03-12\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stock market is in freefall<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/28887560\/nba-suspends-season-further-notice-player-tests-positive-coronavirus\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sports seasons<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/03\/10\/entertainment\/concerts-festivals-canceled-coronavirus\/index.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">festivals<\/a> are cancelled; Broadway, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Disneyland are closed; travel is limited; schools are closed; stores are closed; and so on.  The truth is we didn&#8217;t have much of a &#8220;system&#8221; to take down, and Trump undermined what was left of it. Our institutions have been dismantled and the private sector is proving to be no substitute. As the subhed of a New Republic article by Alex Pareene says, &#8220;Conservatives won their war on Big Government. Their prize is a pandemic.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/newrepublic.com\/article\/156901\/dismantled-state-takes-pandemic\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">READ THE NEW REPUBLIC ARTICLE<\/a>.<\/center><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, because I&#8217;m following guidelines for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/family\/archive\/2020\/03\/coronavirus-what-does-social-distancing-mean\/607927\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">social distancing<\/a> (I think a better term to use would be &#8220;shelter in place&#8221; because all Americans understand that instruction for mass shootings), I suppose I will get back to blogging. I&#8217;ve been so preoccupied with the state of the world for the past couple of months that my posts are the sparsest they&#8217;ve been since I started the blog in 2007. And, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/what-wendy-wore-decade-to-decade\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">just like I get satisfaction from wearing the same dress for 10 years<\/a>, I take a little pride in the endurance of this blog. Expect to see a lot of #ThrowbackThursday-worthy posts on non-Thursdays because I have some catching up to do.<\/p>\n<p>Remember, if you feel sick &#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Do not go to work or school.<\/li>\n<li>I FUCKING MEAN IT, DO NOT GO OUT!<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/diseases-conditions\/coronavirus\/symptoms-causes\/syc-20479963\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">If you have COVID-19 symptoms<\/a>, do not sashay into a healthcare facility without making arrangements with staff to limit exposure to other people. Call ahead.<\/li>\n<li>A mask won&#8217;t protect you from getting the virus but it will definitely cut your chances of spreading it. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=xvZqHgFz51I\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mask on<\/a> if you feel poorly!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the beginning of February, I was saying to other activists that no one would take the failures of the American social contract seriously until we disrupted commerce.\u00a0 It&#8217;s all about the money here.\u00a0 (And petty inconvenience. People do hate a traffic jam.)\u00a0 Then it was like someone flipped the switch, Drake-style. \ud835\uddd9\ud835\uddf9\ud835\uddf6\ud835\uddfd\ud835\uddfd\ud835\uddf2\ud835\uddf1 \ud835\ude01\ud835\uddf5\ud835\uddf2 \ud835\ude00\ud835\ude04\ud835\uddf6\ud835\ude01\ud835\uddf0\ud835\uddf5&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/blogging-in-the-time-of-coronavirus\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[79,49,558],"tags":[2277,2278],"class_list":{"0":"post-44661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"category-in-the-news","9":"category-news","10":"tag-coronavirus","11":"tag-covid-19","12":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44661"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44692,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44661\/revisions\/44692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wendybrandes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}