CoronaQuarantine, Day 6
I keep thinking about our trip to Australia, and the more I think about it, the more my gratitude for the fact that it even happened deepens. It's like we managed this truly massive "last hurrah" without even knowing it. This COVID-19 situation changed to a whiplash-inducing degree within only a week of our return: our flight landed in Seattle Monday evening last week, and by Friday I was already being asked to work from home. And now, here I am.
Things are changing in Australia now too, though pretty far behind the U.S. They also have a lot more testing available in that country than here, which makes a huge difference. Still, seeing that the state of South Australia—the location of Adelaide, where Uncle David and Mary Ann live—has not yet implemented any lockdowns, and their schools are remaining open, honestly feels a little like false hope at the moment. I won't be surprised if they wind up taking more drastic measures in the near future themselves. We'll see to what degree their far more accessible testing will make a difference.
When it comes to Shobhit and me, though, Seattle became the first U.S. epicenter of the spread while we were in Australia: the first confirmed case in Washington was on January 21, well before we left; but, the first U.S.-confirmed death, also in Washington, was on February 26—basically one day after we left. Flights were already becoming lighter with people even on our way over; the San Francisco-to-Sydney flight was 1/3 empty, and Shobhit (perhaps rightly) theorized that Australia was already losing a lot of tourism dollars due to the plummeting visitors from China itself, China being the first country in the world that the virus spread. (And they are fairly stabilized now, a couple of months later—but after measures that were effectively draconian from the start, rather than in stages as the U.S. has managed.) We began to get a sense of it being a legitimate problem at home while we were there, but still nothing could have prepared us for what we are facing now.
And again, had our trip been planned for even a single week later, our travels could have been impacted in deeply negative ways—pretty much all of which we bypassed just under the wire. The worst we experienced was just U.S. customs officials asking if we had recently been in China or Italy. We traveled there, and we traveled home, entirely without incident. Now air travel is all but nonexistent. Shobhit told me just the other day that Qantas Group already cut their international capacity by 90 percent, and that's until the end of May at the soonest. I see in that story that Australia is also imposing a rule of 14-day self-isolation for anyone entering the country, something Ivan already told me New Zealand was doing a few days ago.
Ivan has told me life is going on as normal where he is in Christchurch, and no one seems all that concerned on a day to day basis. The way I see it, though . . . it's coming. Maybe later, but it's coming. They have confirmed cases there already too. Much lower than other places (certainly lower than here), but really no place in the world will be left untouched by this.
I've already all but lost hope that my Birth Week will proceed as planned, even if it's mostly just visiting state parks. But, we'll see, I guess. A woman on Rachel Maddow last night was talking about how there will be rolling outbreaks all over the country over time, and I suppose one advantage to Washington getting it first is that, theoretically and if we manage to be in any way effective at combatting it, that means we will also come out the other side first. So, who knows how things will look at the end of April? I have greater hope that we can still visit Mom and Bill in July, but I still really doubt there will be Seattle Pride in June, or that Shobhit and I can visit Portland for our anniversary. Maybe we can just postpone that to later in the year too if it becomes clear we need to, as a sort of morale-boosting action. I don't want to have to postpone everything clear until the thing being celebrated comes around yet again a full year later.
That doesn't leave much to tell about since I last updated, since a) I haven't gone anywhere; and b) I spent the evening pretty much just watching TV. Well, and Shobhit and I made pasta for dinner.
On the other hand, I guess I can mention something that, under the circumstances, I think I will indeed count as a point on the next Social Review: Gabriel and I watched about half of the Marc Maron comedy special End Times Fun on Netflix together. He called me via FaceTime audio and we were linked by ear while we both watched at the same time.
I had suggested while I was in Australia that we watch it together, but when the schools all closed and, even before they closed down all the bars and restaurants (except for takeout), it was clear that he and I would be unable to hang out for the foreseeable future. I just decided, "Fuck it," and watched it on my own. Gabriel seemed kind of disappointed by that, but it really hadn't occurred to me to do this as an option until he brought it up. I was happy to watch again though.
I had told him I was available best between 4:30 and 6:30, after I finished work and before Shobhit would be home from work. I called him around 4:30; got no answer. He called back asking if we could start "in ten or fifteen minutes," and he called back in about half an hour. Apparently he had forgotten about a slow-cook dinner he needed to get started on. And then, after finally getting our playbacks synced, Tess needed to call him so we had to pause. Shobhit got home during that pause, and when Gabriel called back he told me had had all sorts of things he needed to get done and we'd have to finish another time.
I swear to god, only Gabriel could be someone spending all his time stuck at home and still be too busy. If that man has ever been bored in his life, it must have been forty years ago.
Then we got into this really bizarre semi-rift on the phone while I was trying to wash dishes as Shobhit worked on dinner, which he deemed "escalating" to a far greater degree than it really was; I wasn't even actually mad, just frustrated that he seemed incapable or unwilling to offer clarification I was asking for. It's not even worth getting into detail over, it's ultimately pointless—except to say that it had to do with COVID-19 and protecting the elderly (which we are actually both on the same page on). He ended the conversation as if I were the one making the conversation untenable and said goodbye and hung up. I don't even see the sense in discussing it any further with him; it will only increase stress for both of us and that's the last thing anyone needs under the cirumstances.
All that notwithstanding, the limited time spent with him yesterday was the closest approximation to "hanging out" that was even possible right now, and thus I'm qualifying it as socializing. I'll do the same when Laney and I do a "virtual" Happy Hour after work on Friday. It's the only alternative I have right now. It's a depressing irony of all this that usually any national crisis is what brings people together, very literally, for connection and comfort—and by necessity this is a global health crisis literally keeping people apart, just when they need things like hugs the most. I feel particularly bad for anyone grieving the loss of a loved one, whether for totally unrelated reasons (and those deaths that are just part of everyday realities still continue) or directly as a result of this virus. No groups can get together to share in their grief right now. It's horrible.
[posted 12:24 pm]