One of these roommates tested positive for Coronavirus last week, after being sick for a week. The other roommate who works at the airport said he just got tested. Our landlord lives with us. I thought the landlord was responsible because he has a substantial job that requires security clearence. When it comes to managing a hotzone where we live, not so much. The coronavirus victim has free reign of the house and fully takes advantage of it by spending most of his time in the living room watching TV. I informed the landlord of published practices and procedures regarding managing coronavirus in one’s household. Yesterday, I had a pick up of air freight at DFW that I delivered straight through to San Antonio, TX airport. No forklift drivers, cargo handlers, signalmen, security guards, or administrative personnel where wearing any PPE (Personal Protection Equipment) except high visibility vests. The signalmen may have been wearing hearing protection. Why was this?
1. My landlord does not want to offend or inconvenience the Coronavirus victim. The landlord seems weak-minded to me and does not seem to understand his civil liability exposure. The landlord’s initiative in learning more Coronavirus is about non-existent.
2. The Coronavirus victim is self-centered and feels justified in using the common areas as he sees fit. “I paid my money...”.
3. As far as airport workers not even wearing a mask, it seems they feel their exposure risk is low. Even if they are infected, their attitude seems along the lines of “it’s not like I’ll die or something”. Also, there seems to be a breakdown of containment efforts by the authorities here.
Based on the way Coronavirus is portrayed in US media, if you are old and sick you have a much higher chance of dying than being younger. The problem is, there are intermediate effects of the virus that can cause permanent damage. Massive cellular death in various internal organs, even if you survive, are not likely to be repaired completely, especially if you are older. As a bonus, there may be higher cancer rates years after exposutre as has been seen in other viruses. Combined with evidence there is no long term immunity to this disease and no seasonal breaks from it should be worrying more people than it is. A term that should be more often associated with Coronavirus is “Disability Years”. Further, since immunity, if any, is less than 3 months after exposure, hopes for future vaccines are seemingly futile. As it is, current flu vaccines have a protection factor of maybe 1/3 to 1/2. Then a new strain comes along next flu season anyway.
A lot of eyes are watching how the United States and other countries are handling the Coronavirus crisis. Some of these eyes belong to terrorist groups. Do I really need to complete the thought here?
Personally, I wear a face mask, goggles, and gloves. Two pairs of gloves are best. Care in placing, removing, and disposal PPE is important as well. Those smart enough to drive are smart enough to wear PPE properly.
I suppose directives that include requirement to wear PPE and instructions on proper use would admit we have a problem. So if we don’t admit we have a problem, it will go away? If we don’t test, people will not be diagnosed with Coronavirus? If no more people are diagnosted with Coronavirus it means we’ve beaten it?
God bless America!