COVID-19, Social Distancing & Introverts

Social Distancing

Social distancing will save us from COVID-19. Who knew?

Stay home. Cancel parties. Why not cancel the whole NBA season and all flights from Europe too?

Grab your laptop. Hide out alone or with a few family members. Shoot, why not dig through all those books you wanted to read?

Revenge of the Introverts

Death, stock market mayhem, and global infections of COVID-19 are not funny. But it does seem odd that it took so long for us to realize that jamming ourselves into crowds with little ventilation is a bad idea.

Extroverts are suffering PTSD, desperate to get out their 25,000 words per day and feel the closeness of another human.

Introverts finally get guilt-free time alone to finish some work.

Globalists are stressed. The last serious pandemic the world saw — the Spanish Flu — came from global travel after the Great War.

But we are smarter now. Infections cannot spread as easily on airplanes. And we have stronger soaps. And better ventilators when people stop breathing. Bring it on. The world is ready for COVID-19 and pandemic globalism.

Names and Nonsense

We live in an ultra-sensitive world and must abide by the ultra political-correct rules about speech, dress, and even facial expressions. We must never mention the geographical location in which an outbreak started.

After all, people are stupid. They might interpret a geographic name as a call to violence. Citizens of the West might think that the citizens living in W—n city actually caused the virus.

That would be racist. Racism is bad. So we must never think about where the outbreak started. Perhaps it came from outer space.

The fact that we still identify any flu by geography proves the regressive and unenlightened nature of our ancestors. We should be ashamed of them. They may have fought, died, and defeated an evil regime, but they were just racists themselves.

The citizens of W—n are the true victims. They deserve our biggest sympathies, perhaps by remembering that they were the first and hardest hit.

Sarcastic Frustration & COVID-19

Teenagers fight back with sarcasm. They cannot do much else. Powerless, they can be passive-aggressive, snarky, and otherwise belligerent. But they cannot take real action.

It feels like doctors are getting frustrated. We have been calm and rational. And we have called for cautious concern.

We do not even have any fee codes in place to allow docs to provide care over the phone as a way to keep people out of the clinics.

But everyone knows that our system is not prepared for this. COVID-19 broke just a few days after the city of Brampton declared a state of emergency due to hospital overcrowding.

A

State

Of

Emergency

Why are people obsessed with being calm?

Even without COVID-19, politicians should be panicked. Everyone calls for greater federal involvement in health care, except when we actually have a state of emergency.

We look down on other countries. And laugh at the Orange Man. But I agree with Andre Picard: It’s time to shut it down.

An introvert keeping social distance on the Outer Banks, NC.

24 thoughts on “COVID-19, Social Distancing & Introverts”

  1. Agree wholeheartedly…shut it down.
    Can’t wait for all the naysayers to come down on you, say that you are inciting people to panic.

    1. Ha! I hope you are not right…but I would not be surprised. A few attacked me when I said we should be alarmed back in early Feb.

  2. Wonderful post. Thank you. I’m so frustrated and angry with our so-called leaders. Gerald Butts was just going on on Twitter about the need to halt the spread of misinformation on social media.

    My response to him: Oh, please. There has been better leadership from smart people on Twitter than the liberal government in Ottawa.

    1. Thanks Yvonne!

      I didn’t see Butts’ tweets…but sounds like I didn’t miss much. Thought he had gone away…

      Thanks for taking time to read and post a comment!

      Cheers

  3. Even some so called doctors spreading the news that we just “need to wash the hands and don’t restrict from going out doing the shopping and the business” .If not the it will affect the economy . I have the feeling that this ,claiming to be a doctor could be a fake businessman, pretending to be a doctor.I know because some gutless politicians in power were doing just that(washing their hands) until it is a little bit too late. I admire President Trump for acting upon this health problem .

    1. Thanks Joseph.

      Good point about conflicted motivations — I suppose we all have them at some level.

      I trust that most people can see through the spin. Not all the time, and not right away. But eventually, regular people seem to come up with the right answer despite what the experts tell them to think.

      Right now, it seems wise to do whatever we can to prevent infection ourselves, avoid unnecessary contact with other people, and have enough supplies in our house to tide us over for a few days of hiding out. That just seems like common sense. And most Canadians, at least in rural areas, are used to having a few days’ worth of supplies; we never know when the roads will become impassable or the power will go out.

      Thanks again for reading and posting a comment

      Cheers

  4. Nice experts we have. Non-expert Canadians can tell you that

    IF
    -the incubation period can be long
    -some people test positive (like the ones on Diamond Princess) with absolutely no symptoms–absolutely NONE–
    -there are a number of countries where the disease (some of it entirely asymptomatic) is prevalent
    THEN
    -quarantining for 14 days anyone who arrives from one of these places is a good idea.

    Netanyahu and many others figured this out. Ordinary Canadians are talking about it.
    I don’t think you need to be an expert to know this.
    I think you need to be an “expert” to explain why it wasn’t done in Canada–how our appointed experts, and our Dear Leader, can still be considered experts, and leaders.

    At this moment,
    we know that the ONLY intervention that saves lives is,
    in the 0.5-1% of infected people who need an ICU bed for a few days,
    to have one available.

    And we know that there are two ways to do this:
    1. Stretch out the epidemic
    2. Have more ICU capacity available.

    #2 costs money–spare capacity in hospitals costs money, but saves lives even when we have no epidemic.
    The most efficient capacity in hospitals is 85%, but we routinely run them over 100%.

    #1 gives up earnings–people have to stay off work, out of schools, out of factories etc. for MUCH longer.

    #2 is useful even after the epidemic passes

    #1 just impairs GDP and increases the deficit, which this government is so fond of, but provides no long term benefit.

    They should be doing both #1 and #2.
    But of course, they are only doing #1.

    Do we have a leader? Do we have experts?

    1. Ha! Brilliant comments, Anonymous.

      Yes, given the choice between government asking us to give up our own money by staying home, or spend tax dollars on beds instead of election baubles, they ask us to stay home.

      Having said that, staying home is wise, as you say. But for how long. Like seriously?

      Glad to see you support the overall message! Maybe it was the sarcasm that drew you out. 😉

      Thanks again for reading and posting a thoughtful comment.

      Cheers

  5. I hope (faintly) That the masters of the healthcare universe will learn that a system with no slack in it in terms of beds and equipment, is doomed to disaster. Where do we put the potentially 10’s of thousands of victims when hospitals are already at 104% capacity? One might have thought that the lessons of SARS would have been learned, that the bureaucracy could have been severely pruned of dead wood and the saving plowed back in real bricks and mortar capacity. Alas, we are short tempered and short term memory challenged (pc) , learning the mistakes of the past and present seems beyond us. The Cheetoh guy in D.C. is unchallenged by the wiseheads as he spews a bunch of nonsense after he carefully reads the speech laid out for him by the CDC. This is what I despair, not so much the latest virus to end all viruses.

    1. I share your despair too often, Ernest. Well said indeed.

      Our leaders call crisis when it serves their political needs. Otherwise they follow the 4 stage strategy from Yes, Minister (I think):

      In Stage 1) we say, “Nothing’s going to happen.”

      In Stage 2) we say, “Something might happen but we should do nothing about it.”

      In Stage 3) we say, “Maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we CAN do.”

      In Stage 4) we say, “Maybe there’s something we could have done, but it’s too late now.”

      Here’s a link to the 36 second clip, which starts at 10 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSD1d-6P6qI

      Thanks again for reading and posting!

      Cheers

  6. Should the over 60 ( age) MDs be even allowed to go to work?

    Should the government not pay them not to go work and/ or to retire them and put them to pasture?

    At the age of 76 I’m under pressure from my family not to go to work…the office staff already bar any coughs and colds from entry.

    All Canadians returning from abroad ( in particular after school break) are going to have to self quarantine for two weeks…returning MDs , no matter how young , will have to do the same.

    Interesting times.

    1. Great questions.

      As you might imagine, I say, no, the government should not pay them to stay home, because that just means we are paying them to stay home with government taking a brokerage fee as the fund flow through the coffers.

      76? Yes, I’d agree with you taking some time off to protect yourself and your patients. The question is not whether you think you want to take the risk, it is whether you want to risk leaving all your patients without a doc next month and thereafter when you get really sick. If you like your job and your patients, stay home, in my opinion.

      More time off…?

      Thanks for your comment!

      Cheers

  7. I gather that UK FPs will have to see their patients by video link…if that comes to Canada, I’m gone….( our clinic has a telemedicine system run by younger FPs), where computers are concerned I’m an absolute dunce…without realizing it I might press the button that puts the session on the sports channels or on North Korean TV.

  8. COVID 19 is the “global warming caused by humans and cattle flatus” true believers dream come true.

    The older skeptics and non believer “deniers” will be eradicated leaving the planet in the hands of the Greta Thunberg generation ( one cannot but see a parallel in the Children’s Crusade of 1212 where 30,000 children decided to march to Jerusalem to convert the occupying Muslims to Christianity…the Mediterranean Sea did not part as advertised and the survivors , offered free passage by (slaver) merchants, were sold into slavery in Tunis to vanish from history.

    Thanks to the Russian Saudi oil war , COVID 19 and the Canadian government , the Canadian oil patch is in deep distress, the Canadian economy is seizing up, air flight is going the way of the Doddo, travel in general will become restricted…the future looks bright green….the seas will stop rising and Gore and Obama’s investments in water side properties will pay off.

    1. Interesting reflections, as usual!

      No doubt, the Malthusians will rejoice in the reduced demand on global food resources. So silly. I hope it opens a discussion about a more rational approach to globalism — use it for the good it can offer but don’t embrace it without question.

      Thanks again!

      1. Talking about globalism…how about it’s impact on medications…I gather that 80-95 % of their ingredients originate offshore, mainly China.

        We see shortages in our offices…this ARB and that ARB is “unavailable”, “ out of stock”…oddly what is not available in one pharmacy may well be in another.

        Speaking of ARBs , Greek and Swiss scientists report that ACEs and ARBs stick to cells latching onto ACE2 making them more vulnerable to Corona virus penetration….if true one more problem for us…in Diabetics and hypertensives what medications can we switch our ( older) patients to? If available.

        At the same time the Canadian and provincial governments seem to have declared war on “ big bad pharma” favouring the generics to drive down drug prices ….“ big bad pharma” may well retreat from Canada taking their research $’s , expertise and know how with them, leaving Canadians at the mercy of indifferent slipshod reckless foreign entities….once gaining a monopoly only to raise the prices of their defective offerings.

        1. Agree. Hadn’t heard about the ACE2 coronavirus connection. That would bode poorly for the majority of people over 70!

          Canada doesn’t have much of a pharma industry anymore…

        2. President Trump is busy trying to lure/ entice a private German Company based in Tuebingen , CureVac, that is working on Coronavirus vaccine , to move its facilities to the USA ( it has a facility in Boston) to work EXCLUSIVELY for the USA…it aims to have a vaccine ready for testing on humans by June/ July 2020….a vaccine only for the citizenry of the USA.

          The Germans are making a counter offer.

          President Trump , a nationalist, is moving mountains in the interest of his own country….what a contrast to our globalist leadership.

          1. Great point about globalism. I think that this has changed the thinking of many people who had second-thoughts about globalism in the first place. If the pandemic continues/worsens, it will make globalism a distasteful word for a generation.

  9. The US Senate is about to introduce a Bill to bring back “ big bad”pharma and medication ingredient production to the USA….tax incentives etc.,…Canada’s Federal politicians, in the mean time, have gone home as they whistling past the grave yard, hoping that everything will work out OK as that the much maligned US President rolls up his sleeves.

  10. Can’t believe it…arrivals at Pearson airport are still waltzing through having been asked only one question “ have you been to China?”….one arrival had her temperature measured in Ireland…again in Chicago…squat, nadda, in Toronto.

    Patients sent to the primary Corona clinic at Brampton Civic Hospital describe a scene of chaos with guidelines changing by the moment….a husband wife couple returning from Florida , each had been given different instructions …when seeking clarification it seems that the guidelines had been changed in the seconds between each been questioned.

    1. Wow.

      Pandemic pandemonium!

      Thanks for sharing. 🙁

      Thank goodness I have full locum coverage for my working sabbatical!

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