The past continues to echo as we participants in historic events block our ears to its lessons.  Greetings fellow cv-19 incabinates. I have been remiss in keeping this blog current, if such a thing is possible. My family and I remain in good health for the moment. We are well on the way to having our second million cases of the virus. To date over 71,000 Americans who shared our lives less than three months ago have been rubbed out by this cruel pandemic. Our leaders keep making disturbing comments about sacrificing more Americans on the altars of greed and self comfort, pretending they are interested in our liberties. This false argument is not new. This has all been done before. 

The Spanish Flu (a misnomer that stuck) first appeared here in Kansas. The influenza  pandemic of 1918-1920  presents a veritable library of lessons for us to consider while dealing with our current pandemic.  Initially the influenza was taken seriously. Schools were closed and public grounds were converted to makeshift hospitals. Quackery abounded as a wide range of bogus treatments and cures were tried. The final days of the Great War overshadowed the pandemic and tremendous patriotic gatherings served to spread the disease like wildfire. The doughboys in France were laid low by the tens of thousands and President Wilson contemplated slowing or eliminating the shipping of more troops to the western front until the pandemic resolved. Church services were curtailed, ships were placed in quarantine, theaters were closed, houses of the infected were quarantined, with prominent warning signs placed on such places. Whole communities were quarantined (like Gallup New Mexico today). Hotels were put to the public use as quarantine facilities.

As the influenza slowed with the coming of warmer weather, there was a great crush to get back to business as normal. Theater owners pressed to reopen. The tourist industry pressed for the end to travel restrictions. When the influenza resurged in the cooler months it was far more devastating, added to by the millions of soldiers who returned home by ship and rail, both prime habitats for spreading the disease. As the resurgence the deaths soared, the tried-and-true epidemic- slowing measures of the previous year were renewed and added to.

The Spanish Flu was a puzzle to modern medicine. Our forefathers assumed it was spread as a respiratory ailment but it actually was spread through the mouth. Coughs of the infected released tiny droplets. Even more deadly were liquids (such as sweat, blood, saliva, and tears) shed by the infected. An infected food preparer was a genuine danger to others. The doctors constantly struggled to determine which deaths were influenza and which were pneumonia, The link between the two was not universally recognized.

Our ancestors had the same tricky decisions to make about when to quarantine and when to lift restrictions. They made decisions in 1918 when the death toll was in the tens of thousands that resulted in the deaths of millions in the 1919 and 1920 resurgences. It is little wonder that the current crop of medical practitioners are sounding a clarion call about the dangers of a retreat of social distancing. Below I have included a pair of articles from the Whitehorse Daily Star written during the influenza pandemic. Even in the calmer reaches of Yukon Territory, there was heated debate of when to end the quarantine. As you peruse the articles, you'll note that the local Native American populations were hit exceptionally hard, a situation repeating itself among our Navajo friends and families. Entire Indian communities came down with the disease. The medical community was torn over the issue. While one doctor claims that there are no serious cases of the disease in one part of the paper, another article on the same page announced the death of a young Native American lad, killed by the disease. A year after the 1918 article the paper regularly notes the passing of more Canadian citizens due tot he pandemic.  There is a truism related to vampire movies which has applicability here... "If you don't drive the stake deep enough the vampire always comes back for a sequel." It is a bit of magical thinking that somehow the opening of the beaches, restaurants, parks, and retail stores here in Florida will not result in our vampire rising from the grave to plague us even more.

Greetings fellow house sitters. The virus rolls on with our death toll passing by the Viet Nam conflict. New York is stable and tending down, at last. My family and I are fine. We attempt to keep our social distancing but like many of us, sometimes life reaches in to mess up the best intentions. Since we began our separation from society we have found increasing issues continue to pop up to remind us that we are not really in charge of anything. My mother and I share our social separation between two households. My mother is 95 and is doing great for being that age but there are a lot of little things in life, like opening food containers and repairing broken items that can't be easily done by her anymore.  Beyond that we find that her air conditioner went on the fritz as did her pool vacuum. All of these things require a deviation from the kind of social distancing we hope to achieve. I know my mother misses her hairdresser and getting her weekly wash and maintenance from her trusted hairdresser. I am the substitute hair washer (she can't raise one arm high enough to do the task alone). She also needs assistance getting in and out of her pool. We have a couple of meals a week and I try and bring the Yorkie by to visit her. One day a week we take the long way between my home and hers so she can visit the other granddogs. All of these help her deal with the isolation. She and her friends have taken to extended phone visits. 

I was born to be a bit of a hermit, so I'm not feeling a pinch here. Basically I get out in the wee hours to walk dogs when no one is awake but me and the vampires. Then I have the three mile ride to and from our two homes. I have worked out how to have food delivered and have set up a routine for handling of mail and other deliveries. Today the mailman threw me a curve by dropping off packages addressed to my address but for a neighbor about a block away. I had to go out in the sunlight and drop the packages off on the neighbor's porch, ring the bell and run just like I left a burning paper bag on the porch on Halloween. 

Some of my neighbors had a 13th birthday party (oh no another teenager) for a child. The new norm is that celebratory signs were put on the front lawn and a caravan of well-wishers drove by, honked their horns, and shouted out good wishes as they drove by. This is an example of how this pandemic is changing us after two months. So many of our customary interactions will require adjustments until they have a cure available to all. My neighbors figured out a way to save the joy of the day and not endanger the people they care for. All this isolation is a huge labor of love. We have to give up many of life's simple pleasures so that we can maintain the health and lives of our fellows. There is a chance that if the state reopens soon that I will not be able to see my beloved wife and daughter for many months to a year.  If that what it takes to keep my mother and other people safe, that is the hand we've been dealt.

When you are feeling down... reach out to a friend. If you're bored... you really don't understand what books and the internet have to occupy your mind. Reach out to the knowledge of the world... it's there for you. Be gentle with one another. Think of those who are sick and support those who find themselves grieving through loss. 

Greetings fellow witnesses to history. Today was Easter and the celebration of this holiday has been turned on its head by the pandemic. New York continues to have over 700 deaths each day. We all take heart that the numbers are plateaued rather than growing. That is a hollow consolation. Meanwhile there is great pressure on the president to end our social distancing and make the nation one big petrie dish again. We are seeing results from keeping social distancing. Lacking the universally available tests we were promised over a month ago, those in the high risk categories will have the choice of pretending the monster isn't out there anymore or continue avoiding situations that might result in infection with a disease that shows a high percentage of grisly deaths.

We had our Easter celebration at my house. Sundays I usually bring my mother here so she can visit with the dogs and have a meal away from her home. This allows her to experience a release from her home confinement in a safe fashion. I baked bread and served up bowls of homemade beef stew. These times are important. Besides the dogs get a lot of decadent daddy treats from her that I don't serve.

I have received a shipment of supplies to make masks. I am going to attempt to produce a mask a day. It takes me a long time to produce masks as I must do all of the sewing by hand and I'm not skilled at it. Perhaps with time I shall improve but for now I will attempt muddle through. The masks so far are not pretty but they are functional. I suspect there will be quite a cottage industry in producing masks which are more artful and idiosyncratically expressive.

Find something to keep yourselves focused. Sitting around in pajamas and eating Cheetos will get old quickly.I get fully dressed each day and have avoided the temptations to turn this experience into a lounge-a-thon. Create something, read a good book, learn something new. The internet is bursting with education and entertainment. Make it a tool for improvement. Be good to one another and let's stop giving this fiend access to others. Happy Easter.

Greetings fellow shut-ins. I hope this day finds one and all in good health and practicing social separation and sanitary precautions necessary to prevent infection with Covid-19.  We have been watching with great concern as the numbers of infected continues to grow rapidly. There should be a huge spike in cases in the next couple of weeks as the effects of the return of thousands of spring-breakers to their homes set off an explosion of new hot spots around the continent and beyond. We are producing more masks as they are required any time there are other people around (even pumping gas at a gas island with no other people around.). It is concerning that tomorrow is Easter and many churches are holding mass in defiance of cdc recommendations and good sense. The Darwin Awards are given annually to people whose stupidity caused their deaths in unusual manners. A common phrase often heard before such a senseless event is, "Hey, watch this!". If large numbers of people congregate together this Easter, "Hey, watch this" will be replaced by "Let us Pray." Do the right thing. Stay at home.

Today's topic deals with Cholera, a disease created by the Vibro cholerae bacterium. Called the Asiatic cholera in the 19th century this little bug rapidly killed people by the thousands. History notes its devastating effects on the soldiers and sailors fighting the Crimean War as well as the decimation of emigrants bound for California during the gold rush. Patients contracting the disease died of dehydration anywhere from a few hours to a few days. The disease was first documented in the fifth century B.C. The first pandemic started in Indian in 1817.  Cholera stymied doctors for its cause. Below is a clipping from a London paper The Morning Post dated July 21, 1874. At that date doctors postulated that there was caused by a "poison" related to changes in the soil. Earlier speculations focused  upon a miasma and attributed an airborne cause. It is notable that in 1874 doctors in the heart of the British capital did not recognize that Fillippo Pacini identified the bacterium that caused cholera in 1854. The discovery of this water borne bacteria went unnoticed until 1883 when Robert Koch identified the same bacterium again in the intestines the infected. In 1854 John Snow smothered a cholera epidemic in Soho by removing the handle from a contaminated public water well.  He acted without knowledge of the nature of his foe. He had postulated as early as 1849 that the ingestion of fecal material in contaminated water was a likely cause for cholera. His success was later assigned to the dustbins of history as his theories were rejected. The search for a cure eluded doctors who followed false trails through pandemic after pandemic. The doctors dealing with the 1874 outbreak did not know the nature of the monster, but  they did recognize that there was a sanitary element in the equation.

Treatment for cholera in the 19th century was crude. Laudinum was used to quiet the patient and attempts were made to rehydrate the victims before the loss of water and electrolytes caused sudden death. Today we have vaccines, testing capabilities, and better methods to rehydrate patients.  Cholera still rears its head in places where water purification is not available or has failed.

The lessons for today are important. By 1874 there had been several cholera pandemics. The use of quarantines to prevent the introduction of the disease into a nation were recognized as fruitless. In such instances individuals with symptoms were isolated but their fecal material was not. It was placed in community and family cesspits (which often leaked into wells and streams). Diapers from infected babies were laundered with he rest of the clothes, often in streams used by the community for water sources. Water boiling and purification were the best weapons. Perhaps tea drinking and a menu featuring boiled foods was an unwitting adaptation to this hidden killer.

Greetings to my incabinate friends. The pandemic continues to grow, though there is tantalizing evidence that our social separations may be working together to slow the rate of infection. Good job. Don't get cocky, the war is only begun.

The history of epidemics is replete with examples where doctors stumbled around in the dark as to which of the many fevers that plagued mankind was in play. New Orleans was a febrile magnet, having plague, typhus, yellow fever, measles, and malaria (often concurrently).

Below is an 1878 clipping from the August 25, 1878 Times-Picayune (a New Orleans newspaper) which presents a doctor's speculations as to the nature of the fever that was taking away children. The focus is upon yellow fever and/or malaria being the culprits. The article suggests that it may be possible that some of the victims may have both diseases.  reply to the suggestion that Quinine might be effective in treating Yellow Fever. Yellow fever is a viral disease spread by the bite of infected mosquitos (a fact which was unknown until 1881).  Malaria is a parasitic disease spread by infected mosquitos. The article in question shows what the doctors were up against in the 1870s. it was difficult to discern the differences between the two conditions especially in children. Quinine was effective against Malaria but there is no treatment effective against Yellow Fever. However, the doctor recommended using Quinine against Yellow Fever cases (a situation which may be similar to the current attempts to use Chloroquine on Covid-19. Since the doctors were stymied as to whether the children had Yellow Fever or Malaria (or both) the use of Quinine would show improvement for the mis-identified Malarial fevers. Yellow Fever cannot be cured but an effective vaccine was developed in the mid-twentieth century.

If you don't like the medical stuff. Go down to the bottom and read the article about a man having to explain why he kept his wife's skull. 

Be safe everyone. Keep you social separation but be nice to one another.

Greetings fellow participants in history.  The pandemic continues to grow. I have to say that Governor Too-Slow DeSantis finally issued a stay-at-home order for Florida. The 49 page document has so many exceptions I took a drive today to see what's going on. The college and schools were closed (done long ago) all the restaurants save one were open and commerce seemed to be proceeding. Judging from the restrictions I could be the proprietor of a kissing booth as long as it served food or dispensed medicines. Overall there were few people out and about and I did not see a single mask on any of them. Meanwhile the cases grow in number. 

We are doing fine (97.5). My mother needed a few moments outside her house. Our solution for this is to bring her to my house where she can have a home-cooked meal prepared by this poor cook and get to spend quality time with the grand-dogs. 

For today's history lesson Page 5 of the October 16,1918 El Paso Herald. Keep in mind the at the time of the printing of this newspaper the First World War had less than a month until the general armistice was implemented. Already the Spanish Flu was ravaging the world. Many cities and states were in the process of relaxing quarantines implemented earlier in the year. They did not know that in the next three years tens of millions would die from this virulent virus. Take time to read the page. You will find many of the same themes associated with our current pandemic echoing from the corridors of the past. The health system converts schools into hospitals. Events are cancelled. Soldiers are restricted to their bases. Attempts are made to isolate people with the disease. There is difficulty in understanding the link between the virus and pneumonia, leading to a shuffling of death statistics. New York has 5,000 deaths and 50,000 infections in a single month. Women are encouraged to wear chiffon veils in public as protection and "gauze shields" (we call them face-masks are worn by women in the defense industry. The page contains information of outbreaks as far afield as a New Mexico Apache Reservation and Chihuahua Mexico. Celebrity victims of the influenza include Buffalo Bill's daughter. A bogus cure (Dr. Ryder's Eucalyptus Oil Tablets)  is tried on soldiers at Fort Bliss.  Local deaths are at historic levels. The scourge of Typhus shrinks pale in comparison to the thousands perishing of influenza.  (For those with an interest in American idioms, there is a Shinola advertisement. Now if some says, "You don't know shit from Shinola," you do.)

Greetings fellow incabinates. We are past the foolish day of April and are looking ahead at our social distancing marathon. I didn't post anything yesterday because who believes anything on the internet posted on April first? April second has believability. Our daughter got spliced to a fine young man yesterday and we wish the happy couple all the best. I consider Elaine and San to be pioneers of a trend we might see much of in the coming days. The couple had plans to marry at a nebulous future date, but a pandemic that was being handled like a vaudeville sketch forced them to face a grim reality, health care insurance is important. With a quick wedding suddenly Elaine can afford to be tested and even treated should the unthinkable happen and she takes a journey with covid-19.

The family is doing well (97.0 today for both my mother and myself.) The news about the pandemic has few  bright spots. Over a million people have tested positive and our hospitals are choking on the traffic. Our governor Rip Van DeSantis has stirred from his long slumber and has declared that non-essential workers stay at home. Of course, a momentously late measure like this requires an even bolder display of the art of procrastination by delaying the implementation until tomorrow. A profile in courage this is not. 

In dealing with the inaction of the academy of incompetents in office I find myself looking around the house to assess the resources immediately available. We do a lot of woodworking projects here so I searched through all those tubs in the garage for items that might be of utility. The search was rewarded with a collection of rubber gloves and two dusty N-95 masks. I cleaned up the masks and gave one to my mother. In the bathroom closet I found a treasure trove of those little soap containers that hotels leave in their rooms. Since we're washing our hands roughly hourly, placing this little gems at each sink in the house will cut down on the use of antiseptic hand soaps and hand sanitizers. I will take a stack of those to my mother's home today.  Take a few moments away from watching the Tiger King and see what you might have that can help you with reducing your chances of catching the virus. 

As always, keep yourself safe and cut the rest of the world a little slack. Treat each other well and look forward to that day in the future when we can all safely be in a crowd watching a favorite movie, show, play, or concert.

I asked people to send their stories of social distancing. Below is a submission by Quackgrass Sally, who has gone to ground with her family in Montana. No jokes about it being easy to be isolated in Montana. People who have not lived in rural areas forget that there often is as strong a sense of neighborhood in the Great American Outback as in the streets of Boston. Neighbors rely on each other, even if they don't like each other. I think our neighborhoods began the decline when party lines were replaced with private lines and when porches fell out of fashion.  Thanks Sally! keep safe and keep in touch.

Greetings my incabinate amigos. Numbers of infected have grown to over 161,000 and the government continues to sleepwalk through a nightmare in progress. Today our What?-Me-Worry? governor issued a stay-at-home declaration for southeast Florida. Half-measure like this serve more to spread the contagion rathe than put a lid on it. When I watch the President give yet another self-serving briefing in which he rambles that coronavirus might be a flu or a bacteria, or a virus and then decides "no one really knows what it is", I recognize that the captain of the Titanic is more interested in getting to New York in record time than getting there at all. Happily many of the governors are acting responsibly.

We are at the end of the first 15 day social distancing exercise. Too bad our beaches and river were jammed with spring break's besotted battalions.  Our problem is now returning home bringing the pandemic in their luggage. In times when the systems that are supposed to protect us from the irresponsibility and dangerous behavior of other but fail to do so, we must do our best to protect ourselves. We are now getting hints that they want us to wear masks in public. There are no masks to purchase as the production of these items does not seem sufficient to keep the first responders and medical care staff protected. I recommend to each of you, build your own masks. Minimally they will help hold in a sneeze of cough from the wearer. Also, making your own protection will make you feel like positive steps are happening. 

We are doing okay on the health front (97.7). Our little Yorkie is having issues and will be getting an ultrasound this week. I will go out to drop him at the veterinarian and retrieve him when they have done his tests. We are foregoing obtaining groceries for the next two weeks. Please stay in as much as you can. I know my mother needs a short ride in the car once a week. We maintain our linked homes. I only go to her home and when we take her out, she goes to mine.  When you have to go out, wear your mask, maintain social distances, and disinfect the hell out of you and everything when you return home. Be safe my friends and take care of one another.

As the new commander of continental forces around Boston in 1775, George Washington was faced with a dilemma. Smallpox had broken out in Boston and neighboring towns. People, fleeing British occupation in Boston, were bringing disease into the rebel army camps. Most of the rebel army had little experience with smallpox, Vaccination (essentially inserting puss from a small pox survivor into a cut on the arm) was not always effective. In many instances the vaccinated individual, died of the disease and spread it to others. Prior to vaccination the patient was isolated from those with infections and often was given a special diet. After inoculation it was necessary to quarantine the patient, who often became ill with a hopefully weaker version of the disease. Many American towns forbade the procedure and there often were religious prohibitions. Cotton Mather introduced the controversial practice into Boston but practice was still considered somewhat experimental.

The continental army in 1775 was besieging the British in Boston. This provided Washington with the option of quarantining his previously unaffected troops in the camps and entrenchments. Washington was a smallpox survivor. He contracted the disease in 1851 and had a good idea of how dangerous it was. Rather than roll the dice on infecting his army with a failed inoculation program, General Washington chose quarantine. It worked. There were few cases of smallpox in his fragile command. In 1777, when faced with another outbreak, while the army was maneuvering against a more mobile foe, Washington chose inoculation. Throughout the war pockets of smallpox preyed upon the contending armies and the refugees they created. Increasing numbers of smallpox survivors and those inoculated helped the Continental armies stay in the field and eventually win their revolution.

Greetings incabinate Americans. I have been remiss for a couple of days dealing with veterinarians as we attempt to save a sick dog. It is interesting that the veterinarians now come out to the car and collect the dog returning them after the examination or treatment. We now have over 2,000 confirmed cases in Florida and one in my home town. The Governor continues to whittle on the porch, doing next to nothing. Beaches are still open, Stores are open. Few mobile hospitals and testing centers are springing up. We are cast to the wind and soon this will be the next New York. I wish we could borrow Governor Cuomo, but we're stuck with a partisan clown. Seniors, such as myself, are told that we should stay indoors... something we've been doing over two weeks. Until those beaches are closed and the parties come to an end, this is going to remain a peninsular petrie dish.

We remain in good health (97.3) for the moment. You all keep safe and be good to one another.

Greetings to all who are now incabinate (look that up). Today we find ourselves in good health (96.8) and getting into our social separation daily routine. It is important not to sit around in your pjs and as the Title of a classic Firesign Theater recording  indicates Waiting for the Electrician... While I was waiting to get obtain groceries earlier this week that album played on my automobile's sound system filling the car with gallows humor as we followed a contestant on a game show called "Beat the Reaper" through the spread of the plague unleashed on a city started by his injection with the virus by the game show. The scenes change from one horror to another and radio announcers covering the plague paint images of crowds of people observing funerals where "the excitement is infectious, as are the Black Cross workers who every now and then pause to touch the head of a child." It is dark humor indeed but it is a reminder of why taking health crises lightly has no good outcome.

There's plenty of negative reporting of the pandemic out there. Try and limit your consumption of news to what you need to keep informed and don't make it an obsession. Sure, the Federal Government seems to be running a workshop in how to make rookie mistakes. That is going to make it tougher on all of us. That means we have to be better at what we do. Keep your distance from people... follow hygiene protocols... and keep communications open with those you love. Keep your wits about you. I live in Florida, where the state government has been every bit as ham-handed as the federal government. We are testing the barest fraction of the population. The beaches are open and boaters are doing insane things like lashing their pleasure boats together and having floating parties. I am told this is called "rafting." When the virus spreads it will collapse our health care system. That makes it all the more important for us to bring our 'A' game to this social separation. We can get through this but it is time to unleash our abilities to look at the big picture.

One news network had a chilling report about the danger the food supply might have as the  pandemic continues. I wish they would hold off on dystopian speculation and concentrate on what is happening. This kind of reporting only increases  binge-purchasing. One does not need to keep a year's worth of food. That is not a slam at my Mormon friends, who are encouraged to keep this level of food in their homes. If the food supplies are pinched it needs to be spread more evenly. With more people incabinate, my guess is food consumption per capita is increasing. That refrigerator is an omnipresent feature at home. We didn't have such easy access to food at our jobs, unless you were in the food industry. With increased stresses it is little wonder homes are burning through their pantries faster than ever. Moderation people! Keep yourself as healthy as you can. You are not alone. Let's all Beat the Reaper.

It is disturbing to hear of Americans who are willing to sacrifice their loved ones to have a healthy economy. Silly rabbits, failing to address the pandemic adequately will result in more deaths and a collapsed economy. Covid-19 is killing young and old alike. None of us know how serious it will be if we become infected. All lives are important and we need to deal with the monster in the room before worrying about the price of stocks. If you think otherwise, it's time to have your moral compass refurbished.

Well, it's off to fight the jungle again. The dogs are all fed and see happy. That is good enough for today. Be gentle with one another and play this game in a fashion that the most of us can win.