Coronavirus Diary (16): One State, One Curfew

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March 29, 2020: Everything I originally wrote in this post has now been superseded by Executive Order 107.  I think I may have been confusing the terms of Order 104 with Order 107.

12:45 pm, March 25, 2020: After some online searching, and some inquiries to Newark residents, I so far have not been able to confirm the basis of the claim I make in this post, but having made it, I don’t want to delete it as though I hadn’t written it. So I’ve decided to leave it up, but cross the whole thing out. It may be true, but I simply cannot determine its truth with any reliability. The closest I came was this article, but it says something different. (See this as well.) I’ll keep looking into the matter insofar as I can. Obviously, the ethical point I was making stands: there should be one curfew throughout the state. Continue reading →

Coronavirus Diary (15): What to Do When You’re “Locked Down”

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Apologies for deluging you all with posts; I’ll try to keep these to a maximum of two a day. But the situation here in the New York/New Jersey metro area is getting increasingly critical. As I said in my very first post in this series, our situation is closer to Italy’s right now than most people realize. That outcome isn’t inevitable, but it can only be averted if we act. There’s no need to be sitting at home “bored” with the lockdown. There’s more than enough to be done even within its constraints. (If Gazans can do it, so can you.) I can’t publicize every plea for assistance I see, no matter how legitimate; I can only ask concerned readers to be on the lookout for them, and please consider responding to some. Continue reading →

Coronavirus Diary (14): “The Eyes of a Masked Stranger”

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A message from my sister-in-law Jessica Franklin, MD, after her first full day treating COVID-19 patients at Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, a region (meaning New York City and its immediate suburbs) that’s been described as “the epicenter of the global pandemic.” Her message begins in the block quote below the fold.

As a one-time hospital “environmental services worker” (aka “janitor”), I particularly appreciate Jess’s inclusion of that profession in what she says below. If physicians and nurses will have to go without personal protective equipment, what do you think will happen to janitors? I can tell you what happened to us when I was working as a hospital janitor at Overlook Hospital in my 20s. We were told to clean up hazardous waste without any personal protective equipment at all. Because if we didn’t do it, who would? At that wage, what choice would anyone have? Say “no”? Continue reading →

Coronavirus Diary (12): Lockdown and the Calm Before the Storm

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I drove through the “epicenter of the global pandemic today.” What was it like? Nothing in particular.

Colleagues in the Department of Art at my university answered my earlier plea for medical supplies by offering up their hidden stash of nitrile gloves. So I drove from my home in Readington, New Jersey to the university in Lodi (Bergen County), and called security to let me in. The security guard, who’s seen me hundreds of times before over more than a decade, professed for the nth time not to know who I was. After some pro forma wrangling, interrogation, and perusing of my ID from-a-distance, he let me in. Continue reading →

Article Recommendation: “Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance”

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Yesterday I read an excellent article by Tomas Pueyo titled, “Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance.” It is pretty long, but it is the best single thought piece I have seen on what to do about the coronavirus problem. Pueyo is the author of an alarmist article on the severity of the coronavirus a week ago that went viral and gained him a large audience. I hope this article gets as many reads as the previous one.

The main thrust of the piece is an outline of a plan for dealing with the problem, one that is similar to what I have argued in some comments here. (That, of course, is what makes him so wise.) His basic strategy, indicated by his title “The Hammer and the Dance,” is to implement immediately a lockdown (the Hammer) in the short term, to last only a few weeks, followed by some more relaxed strategy (the Dance) modeled after the efforts of countries like South Korea and Singapore. The short term lockdown, similar to what California has recently imposed, would be implemented not because it is a good idea in itself (he thinks it is not), but because we are at present so woefully unprepared to do anything more moderate, such as widespread testing, and quarantining and tracing the social contacts of identified cases. Exactly what the “Dance” would consist of is something we would have to figure out; he is necessarily vague about this, since we as yet know so little about what we’re fighting. Still, I find his strategy hopeful, and it is the most sensible program I have yet seen.

Coronavirus Diary (10): COVID-19 Narrative Project

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I’m starting up a project here at Policy of Truth that I call “The COVID-19 Narrative Project.” I suppose it involves a bit of wishful thinking: it’s a long-term project for when COVID-19 is brought fully under control. But I’d like to start now. Relevant information in the link just above. Please pass along to interested people in your networks (with the proviso that it’s a relatively low-priority issue at the moment).

Coronavirus Diary (9): Urgent Request for Medical Supplies

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Via my sister-in-law, Jessica Franklin, MD:

URGENT PSA FROM VALLEY HOSPITAL, RIDGEWOOD, NJ

Supplies

We are in the same situation as all hospitals and running extremely low on supplies. Our priority is to protect our staff and we are exploring all options to get much needed supplies.

Request for Supplies Issued to the Community

Via email, Valley has issued a request for surgical masks, N95 masks, non-latex gloves, and fluid-resistant isolation gowns to more than 300,000 members of our community.

If you know someone who may have supplies either at home or at a place of business, please ask them to drop the supplies off between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday – Friday at the hospital’s main entrance. A Valley staff member will be there beginning Monday to receive the supplies so those donating do not need to get out of their car.

Address: 223 N. Van Dien Ave., Ridgewood, New Jersey 07450