covid diary: day 125

best boy

Today, a sampling of local responses to a Facebook post advertising free drive-through testing for COVID-19 in Plymouth starting tomorrow. In no particular order:

• "Who's to say they ain't giving [the virus] to us on the swabs?"
• "I'm sorry but when you test more people ... Numbers rise ... Duh ... So it will keep rising if they keep having more testing sites."
• "This helps them TRACE YOU, I would NEVER consent to this crap!"
• "Got a blood draw today, nurse flat told me this will end after the election."
• "They're using this as an excuse to move to a cashless society. You won't even be able to pay the babysitter without the government tracing it."
• And my favorite: "We are all just ants on the ant farm [lining up for our tests]."

These people are going to get us all killed.

Liam had tennis tonight, and when I picked him up afterward, he reported that one of the volleyball players has tested positive for COVID-19, so now the whole volleyball team is in quarantine for one week (why only one? I have no idea) and the infected girl for longer than that.

Seriously, how is this going to work with sports and school? If one kid tests positive, does every kid in all seven of their class periods need to quarantine? What about the families of those kids who were exposed; do they all need to quarantine too? Does every teacher that kid interacts with each day need to quarantine? What about those teachers' other students?

There is no way to ask one question without raising 16 others. That way lies madness.

In better news, Mike fixed the washer! The part he ordered came today, and he installed it, and it works, huzzah! It's been four days since we've done laundry, people. The situation was getting a little rank.

Also today, Henry accidentally left the side gate open when he went to water the garden, and then he subsequently let Pluto out the back door (having forgotten the gate was open) and ran back down to the basement to play video games. Probably 45 minutes later, I heard a soft woof in the office, and looked out my window to see ... Pluto laying on the front porch. On the plus side, Pluto is a GOOD BOY who didn't leave the yard and alerted me to his need to come back inside. On the downside, I asked Henry to get the dogs some water when Pluto came back in, which he did, and then Pluto threw up all over, and it had what I can only conclude were chunks of asphalt in it. So yeah, I also had to call the vet today and ask for the proper procedure for when your big dumb dog eats some fresh tasty asphalt from your driveway. To save you the trouble should you ever need this information, I'll fill you in: you just keep an eye on him for any further, uh, developments.

Nationwide cases: 3,428,553. Deaths: 136,430.