Pandemic Posts: [Notes from Inside]

By Jeanne Cohen

On January 21, 2020 the first case of Covid-19 in America was announced by Washington State. This narrative describes life during the subsequent 16 months.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098392970

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©2021 Jeanne Cohen All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

ISBN: 978-1-09839-296-3 ebook: 978-1-09839-297-0

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Chapter One: January and February 2020

Chapter Two: March 2020

Chapter Three: April and May 2020

Chapter Four: June, July, and August 2020

Chapter Five: September 2020

Chapter Six: October and November 2020

Chapter Seven: December 2020

Chapter Eight: January 2021

Chapter Nine: February 2021

Chapter Ten: March 2021

Chapter Eleven: April 2021

Chapter Twelve: May 2021

Chapter Thirteen: June & July 2021

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following friends for their support: Cynthia Brown, Amanda Mecke, Isabel and August Salvado, and Maryann Zeman. Your feedback and suggestions were important and helpful.

To Chelsea Gimenez, a new but smart and talented young friend, who walked me through the technological minefields, I say thank you.

My husband, Stan Cohen, who listened to endless out-loud chapter readings and never complained, often suggested valuable changes, and who never lost his sense of humor, I owe you big-time.

And last but far from least, my constant canine companion, Annie. Her presence in my life is powerful in the nicest ways possible. Good girl, A.

Prologue

March 2020

I have a confession to make right up front. I am a person who likes transparency. I seek to know not only the whys of things, but the hows of things.

Why do we find ourselves wherever it is we are? How did we get to wherever it is we find ourselves? What was the process? Who was involved in the decision making and what were their underlying motives? How can what we learned from the experience inform our future choices?

Granted, some experiences are more important and valuable than others, and I try to pay attention to and learn from those.

It is likely that nothing in my life will compare with living through a pandemic and I wanted to pay attention to it and put it into a context that made sense. I felt early on that would be important going forward.

I have written children’s books, short stories, and a cookbook. I studied Political Science and Public Policy in graduate school, and I am a news junkie.

I have traveled to every continent on earth and met people from divergent backgrounds.

I have lived in diverse American cities: Baltimore, Manhattan, Albuquerque, Anchorage, Hartford and Washington, D.C.. I now live in a small town, Delray Beach, on the east coast of South Florida.

These are the lenses through which I am viewing this once-in-a-lifetime challenge as it unfolds in America and beyond.

Donald Trump is our president; that is important. He is a Republican and he and his party control Congress during this first, and likely most critical, year of the pandemic.

President Trump is a controversial man and a divisive president. And America may well pay the price for his inadequacies.

Consider these facts:

In May of 2018, the Trump administration disbanded the White House pandemic response team. *

In July of 2019, a Centers for Disease Control’s epidemiologist, who had been embedded in China’s disease control agency, left the post and the Trump administration eliminated the role. *

In October of 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services submitted results of an influenza pandemic simulation, something they do to insure our readiness should a pandemic occur. Their findings were: there are insufficient funding sources designated for the federal government to use in response to a severe influenza pandemic.

Covid-19 was still a ghost, but the specter of a pandemic was very real. Our government, and we by extension, are NOT prepared for what is about to unfold, I fear.

So, I began to document events in January 2020. Initially, events moved slowly but that changed quickly. I wanted to capture that changing landscape and how it affected me and others.

Routines keep me focused. My dog, Annie, helps. Jigsaw puzzles temper my news addiction, and my husband is enhancing his already refined culinary skills, which enriches our days.

I’ve added Zoom skills to my relatively miniscule technical skills and that keeps me connected to the outside world of colleagues and friends.

And I’m holding on for the ride.

Jeanne Cohen,

March 2020

*Data gathered from the website of Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat and a Member of the U. S. House of Representatives [Doggett.house.gov]. Prior to his time in Congress, Congressman Doggett served on the Texas Supreme Court and in the Texas State Senate.

Chapter One

January and February 2020

We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine. ~ Donald J. Trump, 1/22/20

On January 21, 2020, the first case of Covid-19 in America was announced by Washington state.

The president was quick to blame China, stating that the virus started in Wuhan and that China did not inform other countries so that they might prepare.

In fact, Chinese authorities reported the virus to the World Health Organization [WHO] on December 31, 2019. On January 30, 2020, the WHO declared a health emergency of international concern over the Coronavirus outbreak.

45 nations restricted travel from China into their countries by February 1, 2020. Trump’s assertion that he acted quickly is simply not the case.

President Trump issued an executive order taking effect on February 2, 2020, blocking entry into the United States to anyone who had been in China in the previous 14 days. However, it did NOT apply to U. S. residents and family members or spouses of U. S. residents or citizens.

Moreover, Mr. Trump initially claimed the virus started in a wet market in Wuhan, a position supported overwhelmingly by scientists. Then he touted the theory that a Chinese bio lab negligently released the virus, a theory not supported by the scientific community.

The truth is the origin of this virus is unknown and likely to remain so given China’s history of obfuscation.

President Trump has repeatedly lied about the Coronavirus pandemic and our preparedness for it. This has left our country confused, frightened, and if we are paying attention, angry.

Here are two of the biggest lies he told us at the beginning of what would become both a human and an economic crisis:

The Coronavirus will weaken when we get into April, in the warmer weather—that has a very negative effect on that, and that type of virus.

The outbreak will be temporary, said the president. It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.

I live in South Florida, Palm Beach County to be precise, so I figure my family are okay. It’s hot and humid here; I encourage friends up north to head south.

Then Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned that he was concerned that as the next week or two or three go by, we’re going to see a lot more community-related cases. He didn’t mention warm weather or humidity.

I didn’t know what to think. After all, I live in a hot and humid place and the president says we’re safe here, right?

And then the first death in America from Coronavirus was reported by Washington state.

I ordered my first New Yorker puzzle with a calming scene.

Chapter Two

March 2020

I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it…Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president. ~Donald J. Trump, 3/6/2020

In early March, President Trump’s White House rolled back the Food and Drug Administration’s [FDA] regulations that limited the kind of lab tests states could run and how they could conduct them, yet they alleged that the Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing.

In fact, President Obama’s administration drafted, but never implemented, changes to rules that regulated lab tests run by states.

President Trump’s policy change relaxed an FDA requirement that would have forced private labs to wait for FDA clearance to conduct their own non-CDC-approved Coronavirus tests.

Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. We—they’re there was what came next. They have the tests, he said, and the tests are beautiful. Not stopping there, he went on to say, If somebody wants to be tested right now, they’ll be able to be tested.

The truth was the United States did NOT have enough testing and the president knew that.

I live in steamy South Florida, so testing does not seem that imperative since we are safe here, right?

Day 1 in quarantine

The Trump administration claimed that the Obama administration’s response to the H1N1 pandemic in 2009 was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now, but that was not the case.

The Obama White House declared a public-health emergency two weeks after the first U. S. cases of H1N1 were reported in California. [Trump declared a national emergency more than seven weeks after the first Covid-19 case was reported in the U. S.]

Testing IS a problem now, but it was NOT a problem in 2009. The challenge then was vaccine development. Production was delayed and the vaccine was not distributed until the outbreak was already lessening.

The first two deaths in New York City from Coronavirus are reported.

Because my husband’s immune system is severely compromised, we made a personal decision to self-quarantine to the extent possible beginning today. Lots of folks from New York City escape to South Florida to vacation so maybe we are not so safe.

Day 4 in quarantine:

President Trump claims that he’s always known this is a real—this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic…I’ve always viewed it as very serious, but that is not true either.

The President has constantly downplayed the significance of Covid-19 as outbreaks began stateside. From calling criticism of his handling of the virus a hoax, to comparing the Coronavirus to a common flu, to worrying about letting sick Americans off cruise ships because they would increase the number of confirmed cases, Trump has used his public statements to send mixed messages and sow doubt about the virus.

Day 6 in quarantine:

At a press briefing with his Coronavirus task force, President Trump said the FDA had approved the antimalarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, to treat Covid-19. Normally the FDA would take a long time to approve something like that, and it’s—it was approved very, very quickly and it is now approved by prescription, he said. He also touted the use of chemicals and lights inserted into our bodies as possible future treatments.

But, in fact, the FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, who was at the briefing, quickly clarified that the drug still had to be tested in a clinical setting. An FDA representative later told Bloomberg News that the drug had not been approved for Covid-19 use.

Now I’m asking myself, is this guy for real? I don’t know about you, but I don’t cotton to the notion of swallowing a flashlight or worse yet, inserting one into a body cavity.

By mid-March, all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and four U. S. territories had reported cases of Covid-19.

Days 11 & 12 in quarantine and we hear the president claim that the United States has outpaced S. Korea’s Covid-19 testing: "We’re going up proportionally very rapidly," Trump said during a Fox News town hall.

In fact, when the president made this claim, U. S. testing was severely lagging S. Korea’s testing. As of March 25th, S. Korea had conducted five times as many tests as a proportion of its population relative to the U. S.

Day 13 in quarantine and we are hearing this kind of pandemic was something nobody thought could happen…nobody would have ever thought a thing like this could have happened, from Donald Trump. But that is another lie.

Experts, both inside and outside the Federal government, sounded the alarm many times in the last decade about the potential for a devastating global pandemic.

In fact, as recently as January 2020, President Trump’s Trade Advisor, Peter Navarro, told the president, The lack of immune protection or an existing cure or vaccine would leave Americans defenseless in the case of a full-blown Coronavirus outbreak on U. S. soil…this lack of protection elevates the risk of the Coronavirus evolving into a full-blown pandemic imperiling the lives of millions of Americans.

I ordered masks and gloves on-line and more jigsaw puzzles from the New Yorker’s on-line store.

The total number of U. S. Coronavirus cases for March 2020: 186,200

Chapter Three

April and May 2020

I see the disinfectant that 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? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that. ~ Donald J. Trump, 4/23/2020

April 3rd: Day 21 in quarantine

The Governor’s 30-day ‘stay at home’ order took effect at 12:01 AM today. We can go out for ‘essential’ supplies, including food and pharmaceuticals.

I’m issuing an executive order directing all Floridians to limit movements and personal interactions outside the home to only those necessary and essential activities, the Governor said.

He did not order the closure of any beaches.

This order was issued 30-days after the first case of the virus was reported in Florida and when nearly 7,000 cases had been reported in the country and 80 people were dead.

Ron DeSantis, our Governor, is a Trump surrogate and shares the president’s worldview. We all better take care of ourselves because our leaders certainly have not acted in our best interests so far.

The U. S. death toll passes 10,000 today.

May 1st: Day 27 in quarantine

I am trying to stay positive. I have eaten no sugar and I’ve walked 3 miles daily, with a mask and social distancing. No meat, dairy, or flour. I feel great! No alcohol and vegan diet. A 2-hour home workout daily. I have lost 14 pounds and I’ve gained muscle mass!

I have no idea whose tweet this is, but I am proud of them, so I decided to copy and paste it to remind me there is still humor in life.

May 3rd and our president says, Look, we’re going to lose anywhere from 75,000, 80,000 to 100,000 people. I’m sure this affects him, but he presents the numbers without compassion.

May 5th:

The death toll has passed 70,000 in the United States; consumer debt hits an all-time high.

May 8th: Day 54 in quarantine

My sister, who lives in California, and who has more reason to be optimistic than we do [because her Governor has a brain], has written this via text: I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a big weekend planned…I’m gonna’ watch some Old Masters golf tournaments on ESPN, possibly check out what’s happening on social media. Might swing by the living room later if there’s time.

It’s clear that, like us, she’s going stir crazy but she’s maintaining her sense of humor.

Today is May 11th and the death toll in America has passed 80,000.

Donald Trump says, We have met the moment and we have prevailed.

I say, what planet does he live on?

Today is our 60th day in quarantine as another weekend approaches. Again, big plans are in the offing.

We are having friends over for an al fresco dinner on Saturday night, weather permitting. Not quite sure how we will eat with masks on, but we are all creative.

I just said to my husband, "so many of my friends report arguing with their spouses, and he proudly responded, Really? We’ve not had one argument. Of course, that’s because we are hardly speaking, but that’s a private matter.

Today is our 61st day in quarantine and we are reading our president’s words:

We’ve done a GREAT job on Covid response, making all Governors look good, some fantastic [and that’s ok], but the Lamestream Media doesn’t want to go with that narrative, and the ‘Do Nothing Dems’ talking point is to say only bad about ‘Trump.’ I made everybody look good but me!

I think he’s ill.

This is our 62nd day in ‘semi-quarantine’ and, being a relative newcomer to Florida, I am only now realizing how truly inept our Governor is. He is even worse than the governors of Louisiana and Mississippi, and that’s saying a lot.

He was [and is] slow to act to contain Covid-19 in any rational way and quick to reopen the State with few thoughtful protocols.

Moreover, he refused to shut down the beaches before or after they were overrun by Spring-breakers, though he eventually relented. ‘Stay at home’ orders were equally slow to come.

But even intellectually challenged souls know what’s important, so today he’s opened hair salons. Maybe there is something likable about this guy after all. I can finally get a proper touch-up. 2:00 PM today [a Sunday] is MY time and I’d crawl there if I had to.

This is my 63rd day in semi-quarantine. My friend [and stylist] and I were the only two people in her salon yesterday, by plan.

It was great. She’s a Cuban gal with a wonderfully wicked tongue. And, like me, she’s NOT a fan of Donald Trump. We told stories about him, and she did a faux stand-up act mimicking him, which was hilarious. As she was painting my hair, I was planning tee-shirt sayings that I could have made up. Here are some contenders:

Trump Sandwich: White bread, full of baloney, with Russian dressing and a small pickle

No? How about this one? Elect a Clown, Expect a Circus

Or this one: Things I Trust More than Donald Trump: Flint, Michigan tap water, gas station sushi, Taco Bell bathrooms, A Casey Anthony Daycare Center

Okay, okay, I’m still trolling the internet for ideas.

On a truly sobering note, our death toll passed 90,000 today.

Today is day 64 in semi-quarantine, May 19th, and I’m excited. I’m expecting a delivery of a new jigsaw puzzle from the New Yorker. It’s more thrilling than Mr. Anthony knocking on my door. If you don’t know who Mr. Anthony is, ask your parents. Pink flamingo puzzle. Please bear in mind that my entertainment threshold has been severely crippled in the last 63 days.

But then I read another blathering notion from our president…and I want to cry.

When we have a lot of cases, I don’t look at that as a bad thing, I look at it as a good thing. I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing…because it means our testing is much better. I view it as a badge of honor, really, it’s a badge of honor. ~Donald J. Trump. Ugh.

May 22nd: Day 67 in semi-quarantine.

As of last evening, there were 1,575,064 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in the United States and 94,591 deaths.

I have not steeled myself to these numbers yet, and hope I never do; they are horrific. There’s talk of a second wave in the fall/winter but we are still coping with the first. Children are now getting sick with strange symptoms after having been exposed to Covid-19.

It is still hot and humid here in South Florida, but I hold no illusion of safety.

Today is May 25th, Memorial Day, a sad day indeed. George Floyd, 46, a black man from Minneapolis was arrested this evening and died after being held on the ground by police officers, with one officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for 9+ minutes.

Mr. Floyd died while in police custody. Videos taken by on-lookers quickly surfaced and they are grim. They will no doubt be important evidence going forward.

Mass protests erupted in Minnesota and across the country.

People are tired of the treatment of black people by police and thousands across the country took to the streets in mostly peaceful protests.

The Black Lives Matter [BLM] movement began in 2013 to raise awareness of the inequities and brutality people of color face from some in the law enforcement community. Its mission must continue until this problem is solved.

From 2013-2019, 1,945 black people were killed at the hands of police, according to Statista 2021. Black men and women are still being killed by police at disproportionate rates.

Today is May 27th, day 72 in semi-quarantine. Riots and protests continue across the country inspired by racial injustice as another grim Covid-19 milestone has been reached in America with 1.72 million confirmed cases and more than 100,000 deaths.

Our president still refuses to model good behavior by not wearing a mask when in a crowd, despite pleas from public health experts to do so. His refusal undermines Dr. Anthony Fauci as he pleads with us to wear masks, wash our hands, and maintain proper social distancing.

I have ordered the tee-shirts. They will read: Elect a Clown, Expect a Circus. Pretty much sums it up, don’t you think?

May 29th: Day 74 in semi-quarantine

We will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization. ~ Donald J. Trump

I ordered a beach scene puzzle.

Chapter Four

June, July, and August 2020

Coronavirus deaths are way down. Mortality rate is one of the lowest in the World. Our Economy is roaring back and will NOT be shut down. Embers or flare ups will be put out, as necessary. ~Donald J. Trump, 6/25/2020

I have lost track of the number of days we have been hunkered down and staying home but I have been steadfast in my newspaper reading, writing, dog walking, and news watching.

I stay as current as possible on the state of the pandemic both in America and abroad and I keep reminding myself that numbers represent people with families, jobs, friends, neighbors.

My husband and I remain vigilant about adhering to public health protocols requested by Drs. Fauci and Birx and we are physically well as a result. Psychologically, well, that’s another question.

Sadly, I can report that in June America had 845,736 confirmed cases of Coronavirus. In July that number rose to 1,926,970 confirmed cases. We are now in August and there are nearly 5.6 million cases of Covid-19 in the United States and nearly 170,000 deaths, according to the CDC.

Some states have tried reopening and realized a spike in cases as a result. Small businesses continue to suffer, resulting in many closing for good. People are out of work, unable to pay rent or mortgage payments, choosing between buying food or buying medicines. Anxiety is high, tempers are short. But there are many acts of kindness being reported as well. I try to pay special attention to those.

A New York Times report reveals that President Trump yelled at Jared Kushner during a meeting today, You’re killing me! This whole thing is! We’ve got all the damn cases…I want to do what Mexico does. They don’t give you a test till you get to the emergency room and you’re vomiting. Clearly, the president is anxious, too.

Everyone is worried about our kids and teachers and staff returning to schools except for our president, it seems. A growing number of colleges and universities have