covid diary: day 44

I've barely seen any news today, on purpose, and what I have seen is really sad. The virus continues to take a toll around the world, and for many people, it's really close to home. Elizabeth Warren announced today that her oldest brother, Donald Reed Herring, died of complications of COVID-19. And in her inimitable style, Sen. Warren gets right to the heart of the same tragedy playing out across thousands of households every day. "What made him extra special was his smile — quick and crooked, it always seemed to generate its own light, one that lit up everyone around him," she wrote. "But it’s hard to know that there was no family to hold his hand or to say 'I love you' one more time — and no funeral for those of us who loved him to hold each other close."

I can't pretend to know what Elizabeth Warren and her family are going through right now, but I can imagine that it must be hitting her extra hard. When Sen. Warren was still in the presidential primary, way back in January (which seems like a decade ago instead of three months), she released a full, comprehensive, evidence-based plan for how to stop the spread of the coronavirus. In January. Her plan called for free comprehensive testing, a nationwide emergency paid leave program, a preemptive stimulus to get ahead of the economic effects, and comprehensive funding and support for hospitals and health researchers to develop a vaccine, along with many other pieces that address interconnected issues. All of this before we had a single fatality. If you like, you can read it here. Meanwhile, the president was busy golfing, holding Make America Clap for Me rallies, and denying there was even a problem. And because life is fundamentally unfair, Elizabeth Warren, the smartest, most prepared person in any room, the person who laid out step by step how we could get ahead of this and prevent the worst of this crisis — she's the one who is left grieving today.

Today, Illinois extended its stay-at-home order to May 31, and mandated that people wear masks in any situation where appropriate distance between people isn't possible. That's a smart move. I'd like to say that the end of May will be sufficient time, and we'll be able to go back to a relatively normal routine for the summer ... but I really don't think that's true. Yesterday the Indiana secretary of education said that they're already looking at a range of options for next school year, including having kids go to school in shifts (so there are less kids per shift) or staggering the 180 days of the school year so some kids go some months, and other kids go other months. And there's always the possibility that elearning will continue. I guess there's a chance we might just go back to a normal school schedule, but again, I really don't see how that can happen.

It's been a quiet day at home. Instead of watching the news, I decided to immerse myself into a little project, so I made a LEGO indigo bunting to hang from my ceiling with the albatross and the canary. Unlike the birds I've made before, I didn't have a plan for this one, and I made it with pieces we had in our LEGO bins. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. Yeah, I should have been working on my side editing project, but you know what? I just needed to turn my brain off for a while. We're pushing a month and a half of staying at home, so I'll take any harmless escapism that comes my way.

Nationwide cases: 866,646. Deaths: 49,759.

Postscript. Friends, I should have stayed away from the news. Mike just came in to tell me about the president's daily circus press conference. These are words that the president of the United States just said out loud in real life in the year 2020:

A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it’s ultraviolet or very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going test it. Supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way.
And I think you said you’re going test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number in the lungs. It would be interesting to check you’re going have to use medical doctors with that, but it sounds interesting to me. And so we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s pretty powerful.

HE WANTS TO INJECT PEOPLE WITH DISINFECTANT. AND MAYBE ULTRAVIOLET RAYS. HE IS LITERALLY ASKING DOCTORS IF WE CAN PUT ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL OR MAYBE BLEACH INSIDE OF PEOPLE TO CLEAN THEM OF COVID-19.

I'm sorry for all-capsing at you, but honestly. This numbnuts is actually going to kill us all. (But her emails.)